Those Without Haki vs. Armament Haki Users

Chinjao's middle-aged, paunchy body smashed through layer after layer of air, his fan-like hand clenched into a fist.

Just as Hasshoken's special shockwave was about to wrap around the surface of his fist, the blood inside his body suddenly churned violently, and crimson blood spikes pierced through his skin from within his veins.

"Hm? What kind of bizarre ability is this? Never mind. Haki should be able to cancel it out."

As a pirate active in the previous era, how could Chinjao not know that overwhelming Haki could neutralize Devil Fruit abilities?

Flowing Armament Haki erupted from his body, surging along the inner walls of his blood vessels and crushing the invisible force pulling at his blood layer by layer.

Time spared no one. His aging body could not keep up with the flow of his Haki. That forced suppression left him briefly stiff.

How could Lucas possibly miss an opportunity delivered right to him?

Almost at the exact moment the turmoil in Chinjao's blood was suppressed, a blood-red arm slammed into his belly.

The Happo Navy's five-meter-tall pillar's stomach rippled violently. Chinjao shot through the air like a stone launched from a giant's slingshot, crashing with a thunderous boom into an ice-crystal mountain and collapsing half of it. Shattered ice rained down in a clatter, burying most of him.

Lucas casually tossed a Rumble Ball into his mouth and crushed it with a crunch. A pair of Bloody Bat Wings spread from his back as he transformed into Beast Form, sweeping over Saiwu and Brook's heads as they stood frozen in place.

After their brief shock, Saiwu and Brook exchanged a tacit glance and lunged at Baccarat and Robin respectively.

"[Hasshoken: Bu...]"

Saiwu gripped his Naginata, blade pointed downward, preparing to vault upward on the spot with the standard pole-vaulting posture.

However, the move he had performed tens of thousands of times went wrong this time.

The Naginata's tip slipped on the ice. Before it could steady itself, it tilted to one side. Saiwu had no time to adjust his center of gravity before he crashed hard onto the ice.

"Dear, with a powerful enemy before us, don't make trouble at a time like this."

Brook's face darkened at the sight. She thought her husband was fooling around.

Saiwu did not answer. Gritting his teeth, he climbed to his feet, tightened his grip on the Naginata, and tried again unwillingly.

This time, he was especially careful. He drove the tip deep into the ice, gripped the shaft with both hands, and leaped upward. The Naginata slipped from his sweaty palms, spun twice in the air, and Saiwu landed flat on his backside.

Once was a coincidence. Twice meant something was wrong.

Saiwu slowly rose and picked up the Naginata. His gaze passed through the cold mist steaming from the ice and settled on the two women opposite him.

"One of you two should be an ability user, right?"

"Who tampered with things just now?"

Anyone who made a living on the sea understood one basic rule: anything strange and contrary to common sense was usually the work of an ability user.

"We're enemies. Why should I clear up your confusion?"

Baccarat sneered, raised her right leg high, and traced a semicircle through the cold air with her high heel. She whipped up the surrounding airflow and kicked a crescent-shaped Vacuum Slash toward Saiwu.

Brook stepped in front of her husband, standing before Saiwu like a thick wall of flesh. She swung her Giant Battle Axe at the incoming Vacuum Slash. Just as the axe blade was about to strike it, a piercingly cold gust suddenly blew in from the side.

Her arm froze stiff from the cold, and the axe blade veered half an inch aside.

The slash grazed past her hair, cutting off several strands of orange hair before flying toward Saiwu behind her.

Saiwu instinctively spun his Naginata to block it, but his foot suddenly slipped on the ice. His body tilted slightly to one side, and the slash struck his neck.

A moment before blood burst forth, he instinctively activated Armament Haki to harden his skin, blocking the slash outside it.

Even so, the impact drove him back several meters. His cloth boots carved two deep trails through the ice, and the back of his head nearly struck a protruding ice spike.

"If it's an ability, then I'll counter it with Haki."

Saiwu straightened up and thought to himself. Though he did not know what was secretly interfering with every one of his attacks and defenses, he understood the same basic principle: Haki could neutralize Devil Fruit abilities.

Surging Armament Haki burst from his body and washed over him like a tidal wave, completely dispersing the invisible bad luck clinging to him.

Saiwu, panting heavily, did not waste the brief opening bought by that burst. He grabbed his Naginata, took two running steps, and executed a flawless pole vault. Borrowing its force, he soared into the air, traced a smooth arc, tore through the air, and landed before Baccarat with a roar. He raised his right leg high, Armament Haki and white ripples wrapped around his heel.

"[Hasshoken: Bu Kakato]!"

His heel slammed into the thick ice. The ice field within dozens of meters shook violently.

Baccarat used Soru to evade the attack. The air beneath her feet cracked sharply as she used Geppo to appear in midair, looking down at Saiwu below with a contemptuous smile on her face, which was slightly reddened by the cold wind.

"With your Haki reserves, how many more times can you afford to waste it?"

Through Lucas, she had also learned that Haki could neutralize abilities.

When Saiwu used Armament Haki to disperse her luck interference, she was not very surprised.

But Haki was not something that could be used endlessly. It had a limit.

From the way this man panted after unleashing his Haki, it was obvious that his reserves were not large.

"That's none of your concern. It's enough to deal with you."

Saiwu quickly regulated his breathing. Once it had barely steadied, he swung his Naginata, sending a sharp blade wave slicing through the air directly toward Baccarat in midair.

The pressure on Brook immediately eased. When fighting a Luck-Luck Fruit user, as long as one did not actively interact with them, their luck would not be affected.

The reason she had suffered one bout of bad luck after another earlier was because she had interacted with Baccarat's slashes while blocking attacks for her husband.

Now that Baccarat was occupied by Saiwu, Brook's luck returned to normal.

She spread her thick legs and rushed to Robin in just a few strides. That woman stood motionless, as though she had been frightened senseless.

"Die!"

Brook raised her Giant Battle Axe high. The Armament Haki-coated blade came crashing down with a howling wind.

The instant the axe fell, "Robin's" body suddenly scattered into petals that fluttered down across the ice.

"A clone-type ability? Where did she go?"

The battle axe struck empty air, and the wild airflow it created blew up Brook's orange bangs.

Robin hid in the shadow of an ice mountain, her back pressed against the ice as its cold seeped through her clothes and into her skin. Crossing her hands over her chest, she activated her ability from afar.

"[Cien Fleur: Four Trees: Hold]"

Forty fair-skinned adult female arms sprouted from all over Brook's body.

The arms rapidly closed in groups of ten, forming four thick arms as large as those of female Giant Tribe members in their youth. They locked down the vital joints of Brook's four limbs.

The number of limbs the Flower-Flower Fruit could create depended on how many petals its user could produce. The more petals created, the more stamina it consumed at once.

In the past, a move of this level would have been used to decide a battle. Robin would never have dared to use it as an opening move.

After having her Lineage Factor optimized several times, she could now easily bear the cost of creating forty arms at once.

Wave-like Armament Haki erupted from Brook's body. Feeling the pain shared through those arms, Robin decisively dismissed her ability.

The forty arms turned into petals and scattered away. Amid the falling flowers, Brook knelt on one knee, panting like an ox. The handle of her battle axe was planted in the ice, supporting her burly body.

Normally, people only coated the limbs or weapons they used to attack with Armament Haki over a small area. Other than true experts, no one would release Haki from every pore across their entire body like she had just done.

Experts possessed massive Haki reserves and did not need to worry about expenditure. They could afford to squander it. Brook could not.

That burst alone had depleted a full tenth of her total Haki reserves.

But if she had not done so, she truly did not know how to escape that desperate situation. Her joints had been locked, and she could not even use Hasshoken. If she had not erupted with Haki, she could only have stood there and waited for her joints to be twisted apart.

Before Brook could catch her breath, rows upon rows of fair-skinned adult female arms bloomed from the ice beneath her feet.

The arms surrounded her from every direction, reaching for her feet from different angles.

Brook grunted, endured the deep soreness that had yet to fade from her body, and jumped straight up.

Her body curled into the smallest ball possible in midair as she tried to squeeze through the gaps in the forest of arms.

Just as she was about to clear the encirclement, more than ten arms suddenly sprouted from her body again, weaving into a rope net that bound her tightly.

Unable to exert any force, Brook was like a moth trapped in spider silk.

Left with no choice, she erupted with Armament Haki again. Haki burst from her body and blasted the arms into petals that scattered through the air.

The instant her body was free again, she swung her battle axe and hacked fiercely at the air before her. The axe blade carved the airflow inward, allowing her to change direction nimbly in midair. She rolled and slipped behind an ice mountain.

Her massive body struck the ice, kicking up a ring of fine icy mist. She leaned her back against the ice mountain, chest heaving violently, orange hair soaked with sweat and plastered to her forehead.

TO BE CONTINUED