The True Trump Card

Whoosh!

Joseph vanished from where he stood in an instant, moving so fast that he completely surpassed the limit of what Dawn's visual nerves could track.

"Which way?!"

Alarm bells rang wildly in Dawn's mind. With no time to think, he clenched both fists, and two constantly spinning dark vortices abruptly formed around his knuckles.

Relying on his superhumanly powerful physique, he threw ten consecutive punches in every direction around him, including above his head, in a single instant.

Since he couldn't predict which direction his opponent would attack from, he would attack every direction at once.

"[Air Pressure Gatling]!"

Ten air cannons compressed to the extreme were violently launched from another dimension, their piercing howls covering every direction centered around him.

Boom boom boom boom—!

The air cannons struck the surrounding buildings, ground, and trees, triggering an endless series of explosions. Buildings already damaged by the earlier attacks were ravaged again as bricks, stones, and splinters flew everywhere and smoke billowed through the air.

Bang!

Directly above Dawn, Joseph had just been about to use Geppo to remain airborne and swing down his Armament Haki-coated arm like an iron whip when an air cannon aimed precisely at his head struck him head-on!

A violent explosion blossomed over his arm. Although Armament Haki blocked most of the damage, the searing heat produced by the ultra-compressed air explosion, along with its impact, still caused a burst of blood mist to erupt from his arm. He let out a muffled grunt and was blasted backward, crashing miserably into a pile of building rubble that buried his figure beneath the debris.

Only then did the other trainees and staff on the training island react. Some tried to call for help using Den Den Mushi, only to discover that the signal had been completely cut off.

Sharp-eyed onlookers discovered in horror that, at some point, the entire sky above the island had been covered by a thin yet resilient layer of dark energy. Like a massive prison cage, it severed all electromagnetic communication between the inside and outside.

Some tried attacking the dark cage, only to find that neither blades nor bullets had any effect. Every attack vanished into that profound darkness like mud sinking into the sea. Despair began spreading through the crowd.

The moment his identity had been recognized, Dawn had quietly used his ability to isolate the island from the outside world. He understood very well that now was not the time to expose himself to the World Government.

Stussy, who stood closest to the battlefield, was instead exceptionally calm. Unlike the others, she did not panic and search for cover or attempt to flee. She merely stood quietly where she was, an indescribable light flickering in her beautiful eyes.

As she watched the blond youth, a storm of complicated emotions churned within her. She had clearly prepared herself to risk everything, even her innocence and dignity, to walk that thorn-filled path of darkness. Yet this stranger's sudden appearance... had thrown everything into chaos.

This sudden variable caused ripples of complicated emotion to stir across the lake of her long-frozen heart.

Bang! The ground burst apart again. Enduring the piercing pain in both arms, Dawn repeatedly stomped the ground and used the tremendous recoil to vanish from his spot like a cannonball, charging straight toward the ruins where Joseph had been buried.

Almost at the same time, the pile of rubble exploded outward. Joseph pushed away the shattered stones covering him and rose to his feet. The sleeves of his white suit had been completely shredded into rags, revealing obvious blackened burn marks on his exposed arm and leaving him looking rather bedraggled.

The iron will forged through CP0's brutal training allowed him to completely ignore those injuries. His gaze beneath the mask remained cold and focused.

With his Observation Haki fully unleashed, he caught Dawn's high-speed trajectory. Without hesitation, he kicked toward what appeared to be an empty direction, sending out a curved vacuum slash wrapped in Armament Haki.

"[Rankyaku]"

Slash!

Dawn, who had been moving at high speed, was forced to reveal himself. A vicious wound had appeared across his chest, flesh curling outward as blood instantly stained his tattered clothes red.

The tremendous impact made him stagger back more than a dozen steps before he barely managed to steady himself. The double-pain side effect brought by his ability struck fiercely at that moment, battering his nerves like a tidal wave.

The unyielding will forged through hellish training only made him frown slightly before he forcibly suppressed pain that would have knocked an ordinary person unconscious.

Not enough... the pressure isn't great enough!

Dawn roared inwardly, his gaze growing fiercer. He adjusted his breathing slightly, ignored the blood running down his chest, and charged again like a moth flying into the flames!

Joseph frowned beneath his mask, utterly unable to understand why this remnant of the David Family would commit such a purely suicidal act. Yet his battle instincts drove him to attack again without hesitation.

The next few minutes turned into a one-sided, brutal spectacle. Dawn launched desperate charges again and again, and every time he rushed forward, another ghastly wound was added to his body.

Rankyaku's slicing attacks, Shigan's piercing strikes, and the occasional heavy blow from fists and kicks coated in Armament Haki...

Before long, he had almost become a man of blood. His long golden hair was clumped together by dried blood, while his originally handsome face was covered in gore.

Several timid female trainees had long since covered their eyes in terror, unable to keep watching such a bloody scene.

"Meaningless struggle! It's time to end this!"

Joseph seemed to have grown tired of the game. With a furious shout, he decided to use a killing move.

He coated his entire right arm heavily in Armament Haki, then used the extra joints of the Longarm Tribe to whip it at extreme speed. His entire arm became an iron whip that combined flexibility and rigidity, carrying a mournful shriek as it tore through the air and lashed precisely toward Dawn's head as he charged again. A cruel smile curved Joseph's lips, as if he could already see the hateful brat's head exploding like a watermelon.

However, just as the iron whip was about to strike its target, Joseph suddenly felt his arm grow light—it had missed!

The sure-kill strike only smashed into the ground where Dawn's afterimage had been, shattering the solid earth and sending rocks flying.

"What?! Why did this guy's reaction speed suddenly become stronger?"

Joseph's heart jolted.

At the instant his move had run its course, a large hand covered in blood yet astonishingly steady clamped down on the arm he had just swung like an iron vise.

"Got you!"

Dawn's voice was hoarse, yet it carried the excitement of a hunter whose prey had fallen into a trap.

In the next moment, Joseph felt a terrifying force far greater than before surge from his arm, and his entire body was involuntarily swung into the air.

Seizing that fleeting chance, Dawn's arm muscles swelled to their limit. Ignoring the groans of his bones, he swung Joseph like a rag doll and smashed him viciously into the ground.

"[Dark Hell Paradise Drop]"

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The continuous, ever-louder crashes shook the entire island. Like a tireless giant, Dawn repeatedly slammed Joseph's body into the earth.

With every slam, the ground trembled violently and split open with new cracks. The surviving buildings, already on the verge of collapse, crumbled one after another beneath the repeated shockwaves. Stone chips and dust filled the sky as though a sandstorm had descended.

Massive circular craters spread outward from Dawn in rings, as though the area had been struck by a meteor shower.

Even with his entire body coated in Armament Haki, Joseph felt as though his organs were about to shift under such pure, savage, uninterrupted impacts of brute force. Every bone in his body groaned under the unbearable strain, as though he would completely fall apart in the next moment.

He tried to struggle and use the joint advantages of the Longarm Tribe to reverse the situation, only to find that the hand gripping his arm felt as though it had been forged from star-sea iron. It would not budge in the slightest.

Dawn continued smashing him around madly for a full five minutes. Only when he felt that the bones in both arms had reached their limit—and that continuing any further might shatter them completely and give his opponent an opening—did he suddenly fling Joseph, who was no longer recognizable as human, toward the tallest pile of building ruins nearby as though throwing away trash.

Rumble! Smoke and dust surged skyward once again.

Dawn panted violently, sweat and blood dripping from his jaw. He stared fixedly at the ruins, both arms trembling slightly, but the light in his eyes only grew brighter.

The rubble was pushed aside, and Joseph struggled to his feet. He looked utterly miserable now. His white suit had long been reduced to tatters, his mask was covered in cracks, blood seeped from many places across his body, and his breathing was ragged.

He stared fixedly at the blond youth covered in blood, his face filled with disbelief.

"You... what is going on with your body?!"

His physical capabilities had inexplicably increased dramatically during battle. That completely defied common sense! Joseph could clearly sense that only a few minutes ago, this brat's speed and strength had been nowhere near enough to evade that sure-kill blow. Yet now he had done it!

He had never seen such a bizarre trait in any other member of the David Family.

Dawn grinned, revealing a smile mixed with pain and exhilaration as blood seeped through his teeth.

"Heh... did you think I'd be stupid enough to reveal my trump card to an enemy?"

TO BE CONTINUED

(PS: Under normal circumstances, the protagonist's special physique cannot fully absorb the energy provided by food to enhance his body. Only through battle and training can his absorption efficiency be raised to one hundred percent. Although this was mentioned earlier, I'm specifically clarifying it because I'm afraid some readers might be King Crimson.

Also, some readers who do not know this may question why the protagonist, despite having such a powerful body, has not awakened Armament Haki on his own. In fact, the claim that one can naturally awaken Armament Haki as long as one's body is strong enough is completely wrong. It is a typical rumor.

There has never been any official statement like that. The actual situation is precisely the opposite. In the latest plot of Trafalgar Law's official novel, "The Hour of Demon Weeping," it is explicitly stated that Haki is the power of will. In the original manga, Sanji used Observation Haki while his personality was inside Nami's body, and Imu possessed Gunko and used Conqueror's Haki. These can also serve as valid proof that Haki is a power of will rather than something determined by the body.

Moreover, there are examples in the original work that prove the claim that a powerful body can naturally awaken Armament Haki is wrong. For example, during the Kuja arc, Luffy's body was clearly stronger than Zoan users Sandersonia and Marigold's, so strong that even when the two used external Armament Haki emission, they could not withstand Luffy's attacks.

Yet Luffy truly had not mastered the ability to use Armament Haki on his own at that time. Another example is the Funk Brothers in the Dressrosa arc. Their bodies were strong enough to endure attacks from axes coated in Armament Haki, yet they likewise could not use Armament Haki on their own.

Bonney can also prove this. Twelve-year-old Bonney could use Armament Haki, so here is the question: was her body very strong?

A little girl who was only twelve years old and had spent most of her life bedridden due to illness—anyone with normal intelligence would not call her physically powerful, right?

In short, the conclusion that Armament Haki can be trained by strengthening the body is completely wrong. What should be strengthened is one's will.)