One Piece: I Maxed Out Conqueror's Haki First Because I'm Immortal

"Xia Le! You can do it!"

"Even if your opponent is Dark King Rayleigh, you can take him!"

Saron clenched his fists and cheered Xia Le on.

Just then, the Den Den Mushi beside him suddenly rang.

Saron turned toward it and, after a moment's hesitation, picked it up.

"This is Sengoku!"

Sengoku's grim voice came through the Den Den Mushi.

"Admiral Sengoku, this is Commander Saron of Marine Headquarters!"

Saron answered at once.

"Hello, Saron. Where are Garp and Xia Le?"

Sengoku asked.

"They're on the island fighting the Roger Pirates. I injured both legs and can't join the battle, so I stayed behind on the warship."

Saron replied immediately.

"Hoo!"

He could clearly hear Sengoku take a deep breath on the other end, as though trying to calm his anger.

"Fine!"

"Don't hang up. From now on, tell me every detail of the fighting on the island."

"And report your location immediately!"

Saron nodded. "Yes, Admiral Sengoku!"

He understood what Sengoku meant. Everyone had seen how little regard Xia Le and Vice Admiral Garp had shown him these past few days.

"Vice Admiral Garp is fighting Roger! So far, they're evenly matched."

"Xia Le is fighting Dark King Rayleigh. They seem evenly matched too."

"Bogard and Kuzan are fighting Gaban."

"The others..."

"..."

Saron watched the battle on the island and gave Sengoku a detailed account.

But Sengoku's expression changed at the very first report. It sounded unreal.

"What did you just say?"

"Xia Le is fighting Dark King Rayleigh? Xia Le can hold his own against Rayleigh?"

Disbelief filled his voice.

"Yes!"

"Oh, I left something out. Rayleigh coughed up blood. Xia Le still doesn't have a scratch on him. Even his clothes are intact."

Saron looked toward the battle and laughed in his deep voice.

Sengoku: "?"

A moment later, he drew a deep breath.

"Describe every detail of Xia Le's fight with Rayleigh. Their movements, the directions they move—everything!"

"Remember, every detail!"

Saron frowned. That was asking a lot of his giant brain.

Still, he nodded and answered earnestly, "Yes, Admiral Sengoku!"

Then he began his peculiar battle commentary.

"Rayleigh swung his sword. Xia Le didn't dodge. He got split down the middle, but he didn't die or get hurt."

"Xia Le threw a punch. Rayleigh blocked with his sword, but it sent him flying. He smashed through fifteen—no, twenty trees, then shattered a boulder."

"Rayleigh tried to get up, but Xia Le disappeared. That's Shave. Wow, his Shave is fast!"

"Xia Le threw another punch!"

"..."

Sengoku kept frowning as he listened. The giant Commander's descriptions were painfully clumsy, but he worked to piece together the battle in his mind. Before long, a hazy picture of the clash took shape.

Meanwhile...

Xia Le abruptly appeared before Rayleigh. Black-and-red lightning crackled around his fist as he drove it down again.

The kid's gotten faster!

I've never seen anyone use the Six Powers this fast!

His physical strength and reflexes are better than when the fight began, too!

Rayleigh rolled to his feet and tilted his head aside.

The punch's shock wave grazed his ear, pulverized the boulder behind him, then tore a vast gap through the forest amid surging black-and-red lightning.

He swept his long sword forward, bringing it to Xia Le's neck in an instant, and severed his head again.

But, strangely, this slash veered aside too. Just as before, Xia Le suffered no harm.

Can't he be killed?

He isn't even a Devil Fruit User! Armament Haki doesn't work on him either!

Rayleigh grew wary. He could hardly believe it.

He had never faced such a troublesome opponent. Being impossible to kill was bad enough, but Xia Le was growing stronger as they fought. Rayleigh couldn't even tell whether he had been hiding his strength on purpose.

Xia Le, meanwhile, only grew more excited.

Fighting a world-class powerhouse like Rayleigh meant dying again and again, but the rewards were immense.

His Shave had already reached level fifty-six.

Compared with his speed at the start, the difference was staggering. Calling it Shave hardly did it justice anymore.

He could cross thousands of meters in an instant.

As its level rose, both the speed and range of his movements improved rapidly. It was absurd.

He had tested it during the fight with Rayleigh. At his limit, he could cover more than five thousand meters in one burst.

And after one burst, there was no cooldown. He could use it again immediately.

Once it reaches the maximum level, will it become true teleportation?

How fast was he now?

Against an opponent like Rayleigh, Xia Le could appear before him in an instant and throw a punch before Rayleigh could predict it or dodge.

That gave him a simple formula.

Shave + his Conqueror's Coating punch = an instant knockout against most powerful fighters.

Even a top-tier fighter with slower reflexes could be caught off guard and injured.

After all, the boost that max-level Conqueror's Coating gave his attacks was terrifying.

From that moment on, level fifty-six Shave and his immortal body gave Xia Le a real chance of fighting Rayleigh to a draw.

He no longer died nearly as often. He had even managed to wound Rayleigh.

"What a strange kid!"

"You haven't mastered Observation Haki yet, have you?"

"You haven't even begun to learn Armament Haki."

After another clash, Rayleigh wiped the blood from his mouth and spoke with a quiet laugh.

Xia Le's all-out offense, with no thought for defense, was truly reckless—and hard to deal with. By now, though, Rayleigh had begun to understand his situation.

"Then please teach me!"

Xia Le pressed his lips together and smiled.

"Keeping your mouth shut, huh?"

Rayleigh shook his head with a sigh. Even after fighting this long, he still knew far too little about Xia Le.

The next second, the wind roared. Both men vanished, then collided with a violent crash.

Xia Le's eyes shone. His blood was boiling.

This was a fight that demanded everything he had. It was also a chance to correct the flaws in his earlier training and truly improve.

Each death made him stronger. He had no idea how far his strength and reflexes had risen.

He only knew that by nightfall, when they met strength with strength, he was just a little behind Rayleigh.

And once Shave reached level sixty, he began putting points into Iron Body.

To his surprise, each upgrade to Iron Body raised his defense at a rate he could hardly believe.

He had found a new use for Iron Body.

"Come on, Rayleigh!"

"Let's keep fighting!"

The discovery thrilled him. His fighting spirit soared, and he felt no fatigue at all.

Xia Le had a feeling this battle would transform him.

He had never died so many times, or so often!

Wind and lightning followed him wherever he went.

P.S. Thanks to Rem-chan's Darling, I'll Just Quietly Read, and reader 1409855329654878208 for the monthly tickets! Please keep reading and send recommendation votes!

Transformation: Admiral Candidate?

Night fell. Bright moonlight washed over the shore.

The battle raged on. Shock waves from each fierce collision spread outward, kicking up clouds of sand and dust.

Saron racked his brains for every word he knew as he described the fight into the Den Den Mushi.

But one line kept coming up more than any other.

"Xia Le got cut open. He isn't hurt!"

"He got cut open again, and he still didn't die!"

"That's strange. Xia Le used Iron Body. Wait, he can use Iron Body while fighting?"

Sengoku paused at the surprise in Saron's voice.

He knew the Six Powers well. Iron Body was primarily defensive: once mastered, it let the user withstand bullets and ordinary blades with ease. Its weakness was that the user could not move while using it and could only take the hit.

Generally, practitioners used it only against attacks they could not dodge.

Even then, using Iron Body often failed to spare them a grim end.

As a result, many considered it nearly useless and never bothered to learn it.

But Sengoku also knew that, with enough training, Iron Body could be used in combat without that restriction. At that stage, its weakness of immobilizing the user was gone.

Its defensive power and hardness increased further, too.

With even more practice, the user could rebound the force of an incoming blow, or harden individual parts of the body until they rivaled weapons. Combined with Armament Haki, it could produce even more powerful attacks.

Xia Le was discovering those uses now.

At level thirty, Iron Body had sharply increased his defense, and he could use it while moving at high speed. His body was like forged steel, his sinews like springs wound from steel cables. His punches and kicks carried terrifying force.