The True Zanpakuto

Luo Ya half-knelt on the ground, leaning on Setting Sun Blade as he gasped for air. Black flames churned across his body, yet they could not stop the blood from streaming out of his wounds.

Kuma stood not far away, his massive, blue, paw-shaped air bubble compressing around the pads of his palms.

The battle had reached a stalemate, with Luo Ya heavily wounded and Kuma's clothes only slightly soiled.

"I will not stop you if you leave now," Kuma spoke for the first time since the fight began.

"Stop spouting nonsense. It's far too early to tell who will win and who will lose." Luo Ya stood up, gripping Setting Sun Blade with its tip pointed diagonally at the ground.

A massive amount of flame churned over the blade, condensing into the steel.

The originally dark red blade deepened in color.

Kuma's strength when unleashing such powerful, concentrated attacks was immense, but his devastating moves shared a common flaw: they required time to compress and charge.

To have any chance of victory, he had to press the attack with blinding speed.

Luo Ya realized this; catching his breath, he took advantage of the fact that the bubble in Kuma's palm had not yet finished compressing and lunged, slashing horizontally at Kuma's waist.

Clang! Kuma abandoned the air compression, using his pitch-black paw pads to deflect Setting Sun Blade.

It seemed that aside from his paw pads, his other body parts could not withstand this terrifying high temperature.

That made sense; if the Paw-Paw Fruit covered his entire body and Kuma developed it to its peak, Luo Ya wouldn't doubt it if he could use the air to create an atomic bomb.

Luo Ya abandoned all his flashy techniques, launching a storm of attacks against Kuma using the basic swordsmanship he had painstakingly practiced.

Horizontal slash! Vertical chop! Upward strike!

Relying on his undying body in Black Flame Mode, he completely abandoned defense and evasion, attacking recklessly.

He compressed massive amounts of flame into Setting Sun Blade. Under the pressure of such a vast quantity of fire, the blade's temperature skyrocketed, rising from 1,500 degrees to nearly 2,000 degrees.

The lethality brought by the high heat, combined with a "mad dog" style of offense that ignored defense, left Kuma struggling to keep up.

After all, swordsmen were inherently high-damage dealers; this one was not only absurdly powerful but also incredibly tanky.

When Kuma's attacks landed on Luo Ya, the black flames would surge to heal the damage instantly, while the high-temperature slashes of Setting Sun Blade dealt massive damage to any part of Kuma's body that wasn't protected by his paw pads.

As the temperature of Setting Sun Blade climbed higher, Kuma found it increasingly difficult to cope.

Finally, Luo Ya seized an opening, side-kicking Kuma's leg to make him stagger, and used that moment to slash at Kuma's waist and abdomen.

Even under the protection of Armament Haki, a massive wound was carved open, charred flesh peeling back to reveal glimpses of bright red organs.

Kuma seized his own opening, slamming a Pressure Cannon into Luo Ya's head, causing it to explode into a spray of gore.

The headless corpse flew back from the momentum, while the shattered skull transformed into scattered black flames that danced and gathered back toward the neck.

Even with the black flames' exceptional regenerative abilities, this was not true elementalization; repairing a vital part like the head still required time.

Kuma, clutching his damaged abdomen, hissed in pain; even he found the searing agony of the high-temperature burns difficult to endure.

In the brief gap while both were recovering, an accident occurred.

The rare ore used to forge Setting Sun Blade was designed to become sharper as the temperature rose, but everyone knew there was a limit to what such materials could bear, or it wouldn't have been forged into a famous blade.

Moreover, flame-based sword intent was usually just violent and scorching, but its temperature rarely reached such extremes. Even Akainu's Magma-Magma Fruit only reached between 700 and 1,200 degrees.

The Mera Mera no Mi was even less impressive; people in the New World could conjure flames by the dozen—it was said that "not even a dog would eat it."

Setting Sun Blade had accompanied Luo Ya for two years, primarily serving as a vessel for the illusory Ryujin Jakka.

During the battle with Kuma, it had absorbed a massive amount of flame, maintaining the "Setting Sun Blade" state for far too long.

Unsurprisingly, Setting Sun Blade began to melt. However, instead of dripping to the ground, it fused into the churning black flames, revealing the true form of Ryujin Jakka.

A flood of memory fragments rushed into Luo Ya's mind, though he had no time to process them.

Ryujin Jakka, having absorbed Setting Sun Blade, had fully materialized. It was a standard-looking katana with a deep purple hilt, an oval-shaped tsuba, and a brown scabbard.

The memories surfacing in his mind made Luo Ya realize that famous blades were the weapons of renowned swordsmen, long nurtured by Haki and sword intent.

The sword intent stored within the blade was of an incredibly high quality—far stronger than anything he could have gained from killing ordinary pirates.

The melting of Setting Sun Blade had, by a stroke of luck, restored a significant portion of Ryujin Jakka.

"Hahahaha! Kuma, don't you dare die on the next move!" Luo Ya laughed loudly. He gripped the scabbard with his left hand and the hilt tightly with his right, charging toward Kuma.

As he neared Kuma, the black flames that had been churning around Luo Ya's body extinguished completely. He had to temporarily abandon the healing of his various wounds.

After two days and two nights of grueling combat, both sides had reached the point of total exhaustion. They were both prepared to decide the outcome with this final strike.

Every ounce of stamina, Haki, and soul energy converged into Ryujin Jakka. The temperature inside the scabbard climbed at a terrifying rate.

1,500 degrees, 2,000 degrees, 2,500 degrees.

Finally, as the energy condensed to its limit, Luo Ya unleashed a single, lightning-fast draw-slash!

At the same time, Kuma half-knelt on the ground, his left hand gripping his right wrist. A pale blue, paw-shaped air bubble launched from his right palm.

It expanded several times over in an instant, rushing toward Luo Ya.