Big Axe Hero · Gaban

A certain sea in the West Blue.

On the Oro Jackson.

A figure was sent flying like a cannonball, struck by someone and hurtling straight toward the distant sea.

"Hey, Gaban, Viking's a Devil Fruit user. Isn't it a bit much to knock him into the sea?" Roger laughed loudly as he sat beneath the mast with a bottle in hand.

But Gaban clearly had no intention of responding. He pushed off with his feet, stepped onto the deck railing, and shot after Vikengam.

Just as Vikengam was about to plunge into the sea, a wave of frosty air erupted from his body. The instant before he touched the water, it froze everything within a hundred meters, nearly freezing the Oro Jackson in place as well.

With a bang, Vikengam crashed hard onto the ice, shattering the newly formed surface and plunging into an ice pit.

At the same time, Gaban arrived close behind. He had no intention of giving Vikengam an opening. He swung his battle axe fiercely through the air, sending a sharp slash tearing toward the pit.

Almost at the same instant, a chain axe flew out of the pit. Its refined steel chain surged like a dragon emerging from the sea, accurately smashing its axe blade into the incoming slash.

But it did little good. At the slightest collision, the chain axe was knocked away by the overwhelming force.

Yet that very pulling force yanked Vikengam out of the ice pit in one motion.

He tugged hard on the chain wrapped around his wrist, sending himself into a graceful half-turn in midair. He narrowly vaulted over Gaban's slash, while his chest expanded as though he had just drawn in a deep breath.

"Frost Breath!" Vikengam roared, exhaling a torrent of icy breath at Gaban.

The piercing chill swept forward at high speed. Moisture in the air instantly condensed into flakes of ice crystals that fell along its freezing trail.

"Useless!" Gaban had no intention of dodging. He stepped through the air, stomping it into a bursting wave of force. His figure crashed into the freezing mist, split it apart with one axe blow, and reached Vikengam in the blink of an eye.

Then he twisted the wrist of his other hand, making the hand axe trace a flourish through the air before chopping down at Vikengam.

"Chop Wood!"

At that critical moment, Vikengam's eyes turned crimson. A single tomoe spun rapidly in his pupils as he activated his Sharingan.

With the Sharingan's extraordinary dynamic vision, coupled with the Cat-Cat Fruit's reflexes, he barely kept up. He raised a hand, seized the whipping chain in midair, and straightened it with force into a rigid steel bar before him.

Gaban's axe blade came down immediately after, first pressing the straightened chain into an arc before the force behind it drove Vikengam down from the air.

But before that, the frigid mist had already struck back on its own, traveling along the chain and into Gaban's hand axe. In the blink of an eye, frost covered the axe blade and continued spreading toward his palm.

Normally, Gaban would have used his Haki to suppress and shatter the spreading chill directly. But remembering their agreement, he had promised not to use Haki in this sparring match. After a moment's hesitation, he tossed the hand axe into the air and abandoned it.

On the other side, Vikengam landed on both feet and instantly crushed the ice beneath him, sending countless ice crystals flying. At the same time, he yanked hard with his left hand and flicked his wrist twice, making the chain axe sway like a long whip as he swung it at the diving Gaban.

One axe is already useless. Next... As Vikengam calculated, the Sharingan in his eyes spun fiercely.

"Next, the victor will be decided. Watch carefully, brat!" As if he had seen through Vikengam's thoughts, Gaban grinned wildly in midair. The battle axe remaining in his right hand shook violently, and without the slightest trickery, he simply brought it down in a pure downward chop!

From the Oro Jackson in the distance, Rayleigh watched with a smile and provided a magnetic narration: "Split Mountain!"

The swift slash howled down. Though there was only one strike, it seemed to contain endless variations. It locked onto Vikengam's figure so tightly that he felt there was nowhere to escape!

It was not Haki. Gaban had not used Haki's power. He had suppressed Vikengam through sheer presence alone!

Even as Vikengam's Sharingan spun madly, he could not find the slightest flaw in that simple attack, much less evade it.

It sounded slow, but it all happened in an instant.

Since he could not dodge, then he would not dodge!

Vikengam twisted his feet forcefully, shifting into a stance better suited to taking the blow. Then frosty air erupted completely from his body as he growled, "Ice Bone Clang!"

This was completely different from the endurance training he had undergone with Bartholomew Kuma at Mary Geoise.

This time, an ice wall at least half a meter thick appeared around him first, directly encasing and freezing Vikengam inside. Immediately afterward, it could be seen through the ice wall that his skin had condensed into solid ice crystal armor, putting him entirely on the defensive.

Then Gaban's downward chop fell, slamming viciously into the ice wall.

The powerful force instantly shattered the ice wall before crashing into Vikengam's ice crystal armor. Just as that force was about to penetrate Vikengam's body, the frozen figure abruptly burst apart. Shattered ice and ice crystal dust became a cloud of "smoke" under the impact, concealing the entire area.

"Hm?" Gaban raised a brow, somewhat surprised.

Before he could make sense of the situation, there was a clatter as chains shot up from beneath the shattered ice. They twisted around him like great serpents, wrapping around his entire body in an attempt to "strangle" him.

"Without Haki, it won't be so easy for you to detect my movements in this frozen land, Senior Gaban!" Vikengam's triumphant voice followed.

"Don't get cocky, brat!" Gaban remained unhurried. Before the chains could tighten around him, he hooked his battle axe downward, caught the chain with the inner edge of the blade, and pulled upward.

The movement was perfectly timed, precisely peeling the chain away from his body.

Though he could not see Vikengam, he relied on his vast combat experience and instincts to kick into the icy mist.

Vikengam, who had just been about to burst out and give Gaban a surprise, changed expression and crossed his arms before him.

With a bang, Vikengam was kicked back into the ice mist, crashing hard onto the already shattered ice. Before he could get up, Gaban had already pressed his battle axe against Vikengam's shoulder.

"It's over, scholar." Gaban smiled.

As his words fell, the other hand axe he had thrown into the sky earlier came down at just the right moment. He casually caught it, the entire sequence both effortless and imposing.

"You really didn't use Haki? Like Observation Haki?" Vikengam glanced at the axe blade resting on his shoulder and asked helplessly.

"If I had used Haki, this shoe of mine wouldn't feel so frozen." Gaban laughed.

The foot he had used to kick Vikengam had already been covered in frost all the way to his knee.

As he spoke, a pulse of Haki lightly shook out from his body, shattering the frozen frost and scattering it away.

"Fine, I concede." Vikengam did not try to deny it and admitted defeat cleanly.

Only then did Gaban put away his hand axe and hang it at his waist. He casually pulled Vikengam up and said, "For a scholar, you're already quite a fighter. Your physical conditioning and strength are both excellent. Especially when you activate that so-called 'Ghost Eye,' your reaction speed and dynamic vision clearly improve. Of course, your weakness is obvious too. You lack combat experience. You fight too rigidly, so people can see at a glance what you're planning to do next..."

"It's the Sharingan, not some Ghost Eye. That sounds completely uncool," Vikengam complained first, then added, "Still, thanks for the advice, Senior Gaban."

There were plenty of people on these seas who used axes as weapons, but few of them were truly powerful.

Among the more famous was the fierce man known as "Silver Axe." And clearly, Gaban, the future Pirate King's left arm and bearer of the name Mountain Devourer, was also unquestionably a Big Axe Hero.

Vikengam likewise favored this kind of weapon. The equipment he carried with him was this chain axe that never left his side, named Merciless. It had been painstakingly forged by a master craftsman of Mary Geoise.

But Vikengam's axe techniques were not very good. He was still too young, and because of his former status, he had rarely fought others in truly life-or-death battles. His moves looked flashy but lacked substance.