"Rumble—!"
The seawater forcibly driven back by Lei En and Mihawk's godlike clash came surging madly back like a burst dam once it lost the support of that terrifying power.
Two enormous walls of water, each large enough to swallow a small island, crashed together in midair. The spray they threw up even blotted out the sun!
"Hold on tight!"
Zeff's hoarse yet powerful roar exploded across the deck.
His right leg, which Lei En had just healed with a miraculous method, was planted firmly against the wooden deck of the Baratie like an old tree that had taken root. Both hands gripped the thick mast tightly.
The fish-shaped restaurant ship, normally incomparably sturdy, now swayed like a fallen leaf in a gale amid the aftermath of this apocalyptic tsunami.
It rocked and lurched violently, creaking in a teeth-grinding rasp as though it would be torn apart by the might of heaven and earth at any moment!
"Aaaah! Save us!"
"The ship's going to capsize!"
The restaurant's guests had long since been scared out of their wits, letting out terrified shrieks like pigs being slaughtered.
Some desperately clung to table legs bolted to the floor, while others simply lay on the ground, trembling and weeping.
Even the combat cooks, who normally prided themselves on their courage, were pale-faced as they frantically searched for something to brace themselves against.
The terrifying tsunami caused by the clash between two supreme swordsmen raged for nearly ten minutes before gradually subsiding as the sea calmed once more.
When everything finally fell silent.
The deck was covered in standing water and lay in complete disarray.
Yet amid that chaotic scene.
One person had remained frozen in place from the moment Lei En unleashed that heaven-shaking slash until now, like a weathered stone statue that had stood for a thousand years.
Roronoa Zoro.
His distinctive short moss-green hair had long been drenched by the icy seawater, locks plastered against his sharply defined cheeks.
Droplets rolled down his chin, yet he did not notice them at all.
Those eyes that had always brimmed with beastlike wildness, unyielding defiance, and absolute confidence in his own strength...
Were now filled with unprecedented bewilderment, emptiness, shock, and even a trace of profound... despair!
Yes, despair.
He had watched the brief yet godlike battle from beginning to end without even daring to blink.
That world-destroying spectacle, that supreme power capable of ripping open the sky and splitting the sea...
It was like an incomparably cruel sledgehammer, smashing every bit of understanding, pride, and faith in the sword that he had painstakingly built over twenty years into pieces in an instant!
Not even scraps remained!
He had once thought that his years of arduous training in Three-Sword Style had already borne fruit.
He had once thought that after challenging dojos throughout the East Blue, defeating countless so-called swordsmen, and earning the illustrious title of Pirate Hunter, he had already reached the pinnacle of these seas.
He had even confidently believed that as long as he officially set sail and entered the Grand Line.
As long as he found the man seated upon the throne of the world's greatest swordsman—Hawkeye Mihawk.
He would be able to defeat him openly and honorably with the three swords in his hands, seize that supreme title, and fulfill the solemn promise he had made to his late dearest friend, Kuina!
Yet today.
Reality had delivered a deafening slap so violent and unreasonable that it was enough to shatter his soul!
Was Hawkeye Mihawk, the world's greatest swordsman, strong?
Strong!
So strong he was like a god high above all others!
That terrifying slash of his, capable of casually cleaving a massive three-masted pirate ship in two as though it were tofu—Zoro asked himself, even if he gave everything he had, he absolutely would not be able to take even one move!
And yet that man, whom he regarded as his ultimate goal, like an insurmountable mountain.
Before that black-haired youth named Lei En, who even looked a few years younger than him...
Had not even possessed the strength to fight back!
He had been overwhelmed! Mocked mercilessly!
In the end, he had even been forced to use every ounce of his strength, only for all his attacks to be shattered by a single slash from that youth before he was blasted away in humiliation!
And that black-haired youth... Lei En.
He was the true monster of these seas!
No, calling him a monster was practically an insult to him.
A casually swung dead branch could shatter indestructible Golden Armor along with a pirate's ambitions.
And when he got serious, a single slash wreathed in lightning and Haki could forcibly split the vast, boundless sea open into a bottomless abyss!
Was this... was this really power a human being could possess?!
This was simply supreme might that existed only in myths!
Zoro slowly lowered his head, his gaze falling upon the three treasured blades at his waist.
Wado Ichimonji, Yubashiri, Sandai Kitetsu.
These three swords had once been his most loyal companions, the source of confidence that allowed him to cut down every obstacle in his path.
But now.
As he looked at those three cold weapons, Zoro felt only a profound sense of helplessness, like maggots gnawing at bone, spreading madly from the deepest depths of his heart.
"A frog in a well..."
Zoro's lips trembled slightly as he spat out those four words in bitter self-mockery.
His voice was soft, yet it seemed to have drained all the strength from his body.
That was right.
He was that foolish frog sitting at the bottom of a narrow well, staring at the patch of sky above his head and smugly believing that he had seen the whole world!
Today, he had finally been kicked out of that well.
He had seen the truly vast, boundless sky beyond it, a sky filled with endless terror and storms!
He had seen the two true gods standing at the peak of the heavens, looking down upon all living things!
Lei En's peerless figure as he split the sea with one slash, that domineering presence that looked upon the world as though all things were ants, had utterly shattered Zoro's once immensely proud swordsman's heart.
But at the same time.
That shattering was also like a bloodstained key.
It brutally opened a door for him—a door to a higher realm of swordsmanship, one filled with thorns and blood!
This was a true swordsman!
This was the supreme peak that he, Roronoa Zoro, had to pursue and climb for the rest of his life, even if it meant being crushed to pieces!
After a brief struggle and silence, Zoro's eyes, which had become confused and hollow from overwhelming shock, gradually regained their clarity.
What replaced them.
Was an unprecedented determination and obsession, burning like an erupting volcano, nearly mad in its intensity!
"Clang!"
He suddenly stretched out both hands, drawing Yubashiri and Sandai Kitetsu from his waist while clamping Wado Ichimonji firmly between his teeth.
His legs bent slightly and his center of gravity dropped as he assumed the opening stance of his most familiar and strongest Three-Sword Style!
His entire body radiated an incomparably sharp and resolute aura, as tragic and ferocious as a beast driven into a corner!
However.
When he raised his head and directed that battle-hungry, crazed gaze toward the black-haired youth descending slowly from the sky atop lightning.
The fighting spirit that had just ignited within him, the desire to risk his life in one desperate battle, was doused from head to toe as though someone had poured a bucket of ice water over him.
Cold sweat seeped uncontrollably from his forehead and slid down his cheeks.
He realized.
He actually... no longer had the courage to swing his sword at the other man.
The hands gripping his sword hilts trembled violently beyond his control.
Not because of fear.
But because of the visible, despair-inducing gap in strength that lay between them.
The gap was simply too vast.
It could no longer be described as a chasm or an impassable gulf.
It was the helplessness and sorrow felt by an ant gazing up at a divine dragon in the nine heavens, arising from the depths of one's soul.
He knew perfectly well.
If he charged forward now, let alone challenged him, he probably would not even be able to touch a corner of the other man's clothes before being crushed into a lump of flesh by the terrifying sword pressure unconsciously radiating from that youth.
"Damn it! Damn it!!!"
Zoro let out an unwilling roar in his heart, like a trapped beast.
He bit down hard on Wado Ichimonji's hilt until blood seeped from his gums, yet he still could not quell the utter sense of defeat within him.
At this moment.
The aftermath of the battle on the sea had completely subsided.
Hawkeye Mihawk, the world's greatest swordsman, stood atop that tiny coffin-shaped boat, which was nearly falling apart and could sink at any moment.
His once-neat burgundy shirt was now badly torn, soaked with seawater and his own blood.
He raised a hand and casually wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of it.
Then he lifted his head and looked at Lei En, who had just landed on the Baratie's deck, with those still-sharp amber eyes. There was less aloof pride in them now, but far more fervor.
He showed no anger or humiliation over his defeat.
Instead.
This man who stood at the pinnacle of swordsmanship openly, calmly, and frankly admitted his defeat before everyone.
"Lei En, you've grown stronger again."
Mihawk's voice was somewhat hoarse, but his tone was incomparably earnest.
"My current strength... is still no match for yours. I accept this defeat wholeheartedly."
After saying that.
He did not spare another glance at the stunned crowd around him, whose jaws had practically hit the floor.
Nor did he look at the green-haired youth who also practiced the sword and was staring at him intently.
He only looked deeply, deeply at Lei En, as though he wanted to carve the appearance of this "lifelong rival," who had left two indelible marks upon his path of the sword, forever into the depths of his soul.
Then.
He turned around, gripped the equally heavily damaged Black Blade Yoru, and guided that battered little boat onward.
With his back still proud despite his defeat, burning with renewed fighting spirit, he slowly sailed into the vast sea mist.
As they watched Hawkeye depart.
All the restaurant's guests and cooks, including Zeff and Sanji, let out long breaths as though a tremendous burden had been lifted from their shoulders, as if they had just sent away a plague god capable of bringing disaster at any moment.
As for Zoro.
He stared fixedly in the direction Hawkeye had vanished, then slowly turned his head toward Lei En, who stood on the deck surrounded respectfully by Kuina and Kuro as though nothing had happened.
His eyes were filled with intensely complex emotions, churning like raging waves.
There was deep reverence for supreme strength.
There was unwillingness and humiliation over his own weakness.
There was confusion about the unknown road ahead.
But more than anything.
There was an almost obsessive, feverish longing for that supreme realm!
He abruptly closed his eyes and took a deep breath of air tinged with the salty scent of the sea.
It was as though he had made a momentous decision that went against all the pride and principles he had held for twenty years.
"Clang!"
A crisp metallic sound rang out.
Zoro sheathed Yubashiri and Sandai Kitetsu, which he had gripped in both hands, along with Wado Ichimonji, which he had held in his mouth, all at once.
Then.
Before the astonished eyes of everyone at the sea restaurant, including Zeff, Sanji, and even Lei En!
This future world's greatest swordsman, who had always been arrogant, unyielding, and would rather die than submit.
Suddenly went weak at the knees.
With a thud.
Without the slightest hesitation, swift and decisive.
He dropped heavily to his knees before Lei En!
The deck let out a dull sound beneath his kneeling body.
He lowered his head, which had always been proud and had never bowed to anyone.
His forehead pressed tightly against the wet wooden deck, still carrying the briny smell of the sea.
His hands clenched into fists, his nails digging deeply into his flesh.
With a voice trembling slightly from his overwhelming desire yet incomparably firm and forceful, he shouted his deepest wish at the black-haired youth who seemed like a god!
"Please... please accept me as your disciple!!!"
"I want to learn true swordsmanship! I want to become stronger! I want to know... what kind of sight awaits at the peak that can split the sea!!!"
Before you continue