Metamorphosis: Nearly Admiral-Level?

"Xia Le! Keep it up!"

"Even if the enemy is Dark King Rayleigh, you can do it!"

He clenched his fists and cheered Xia Le on.

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

Saron turned his head. After hesitating briefly, he picked it up.

"This is Sengoku!"

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

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

Saron hurriedly replied.

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

Sengoku asked.

"They're on the island, fighting the Roger Pirates. I can't participate because both my legs are injured, so I'm staying aboard the warship."

Saron immediately answered.

"Phew!"

It was easy to hear Sengoku taking a deep breath on the other end, seemingly trying to suppress his anger.

"Good!"

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

"And immediately report your current location!"

Saron nodded. "Yes, Admiral Sengoku!"

He could understand what Sengoku meant. These past few days, everyone had seen Xia Le and Vice Admiral Garp's dismissive attitude toward Sengoku.

"Vice Admiral Garp is fighting Roger! They're evenly matched for now."

"Xia Le is fighting Dark King Rayleigh. They also seem to be evenly matched."

"Bogard and Kuzan are fighting Gaban."

"The others..."

"..."

Saron stared at the battle on the island and described it all to Sengoku in detail.

Yet just hearing the opening words caused Sengoku's expression to change. It seemed almost surreal.

"What did you just say?"

"Xia Le is fighting Dark King Rayleigh? Xia Le can exchange blows with Rayleigh?"

His voice was filled with disbelief and intense doubt.

"Yes!"

"Ah, I left out one detail. Rayleigh vomited blood. Xia Le is still completely unharmed—not even his clothes are torn."

Watching the battle ahead, Saron laughed in his deep voice.

Sengoku: "?"

After a moment, he took a deep breath.

"Describe every detail of Xia Le and Rayleigh's battle to me, including their movements, the directions they shift in, and so on!"

"Remember, every detail!"

Upon hearing this, Saron furrowed his brows. This was a little too difficult for his not-quite-large-enough giant brain.

Even so, he nodded and answered honestly, "Yes, Admiral Sengoku!"

Then he began his bizarre commentary on the battle.

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

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

"Rayleigh tried to get up, but Xia Le vanished. That was Shave. Good heavens, his Shave is so fast!"

"Xia Le threw a punch!"

"..."

Sengoku kept frowning as he listened. The giant commander's ability to organize his words was truly stiff. He struggled to picture the scene in his mind, but soon managed to construct an illusory battle.

At the same time.

Xia Le abruptly appeared before Rayleigh, his fist wrapped in Black-Red Lightning as it slammed down once more.

"This kid has gotten faster!"

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

"His physical fitness and reaction speed are also stronger than when the battle began!"

Rayleigh sprang to his feet with a roll, tilting his head to the side.

The punch's impact skimmed past his ear, completely pulverizing the boulder behind him. Amid the surging Black-Red Lightning, it also blasted a massive hollow through the forest.

He swung his long blade and instantly appeared before Xia Le, slicing off his head once more.

Yet this slash strangely shifted to the side again. Just as before, Xia Le wasn't hurt in the slightest.

"Can't he be killed?"

"He's not a Devil Fruit User either! Even Armament Haki doesn't work!"

Rayleigh's heart grew heavy, and he found it utterly baffling.

He had never encountered such a troublesome opponent. It would have been one thing if Xia Le simply could not be killed, but his strength was rapidly increasing throughout the battle. It was even impossible to tell whether he had been deliberately hiding his abilities.

Xia Le, meanwhile, grew more excited the longer he fought.

Fighting a world-class powerhouse like this meant dying far more often, but the rewards were exceptionally abundant as well.

His Shave had already reached level fifty-six.

Compared to his initial speed, it had undergone a qualitative transformation. It could no longer even be described as Shave.

He could cross several thousand meters in an instant.

As his level increased, the speed of Shave's movement was not the only thing changing. Its range was rapidly expanding as well, to an almost absurd degree.

During his battle with Rayleigh, he had experimented. At most, he could shift across a distance of five thousand meters.

Furthermore, after shifting once, there was no longer any cooldown. He could instantly use it again.

"After reaching max level, will it become true teleportation?"

Just how fast was this speed?

When fighting an opponent like Rayleigh, he could instantly appear before him and smash down with a fist before Rayleigh could even predict, judge, or dodge his attack.

Thus, a simple formula could be established.

Shave + his Conqueror's Coating fist = instantly killing ordinary powerhouses.

Even top-tier powerhouses with slower reactions would be caught off guard and injured.

After all, the increase in attack power granted by max-level Conqueror's Coating was terrifying.

From this moment onward, level-fifty-six Shave combined with his immortal physique gave Xia Le the qualifications to truly go fifty-fifty with Rayleigh.

His death rate was no longer so high. He had even managed to leave injuries on Rayleigh.

"What a strange little fellow!"

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

"You haven't even entered the threshold of Armament Haki."

After another collision, Rayleigh wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and said with a low laugh.

That appearance of attacking without defending was truly crazy—and extremely troublesome. Yet by this point in the battle, he had also realized the truth of Xia Le's situation.

"I'll have to trouble you to teach me."

Xia Le pressed his lips together and smiled faintly.

"You're keeping your mouth shut pretty tightly!"

Rayleigh shook his head and sighed. After fighting until now, he still didn't have enough detailed information about his opponent.

The next second, the wind in the air suddenly grew louder. The two vanished once more, then collided violently.

Xia Le's eyes shone brilliantly, his blood boiling within him.

This was a battle that forced him to give his all. It was also a battle that corrected his previous cultivation and completely elevated his strength.

Death after death had made him even stronger. His power and reaction speed had already reached an unimaginable level.

He only knew that by nightfall, even in a direct clash of strength, he was merely a little weaker than Rayleigh.

At the same time, after raising Shave to level sixty, he began adding points to Tekkai.

What surprised him was that leveling up Tekkai caused his defensive power to rise at an exaggerated and unbelievable speed.

He had developed a new application for Tekkai.

"Come on, Rayleigh!"

"Let's keep fighting!"

This made him even more excited, his fighting spirit soaring. He could not sense the slightest fatigue.

Xia Le had a premonition that this would be the battle in which he transformed!

The frequency and number of his deaths were unprecedented!

Like the wind, like lightning, they remained by his side.

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Transformation: Admiral Candidate Level?

At night, the moonlight was bright as it spilled across the shore.

The great battle continued. The impacts from the repeated, violent collisions spread constantly in every direction, whipping up clouds of dust.

Saron racked his brains and used every word he could think of in his lifetime to describe the battle into the Den Den Mushi.

Yet the phrase he repeated most often remained the same.

"Xia Le was split open, but he wasn't hurt!"

"He was split open again, and he still didn't die!"

"Strange, Xia Le used Tekkai. Huh, he can use Tekkai during battle too?"

The astonished words made Sengoku freeze.

He naturally understood the advanced Hand-to-Hand Combat technique known as the Six Powers. Tekkai was mainly defensive. Once mastered, it allowed the body's defenses to easily withstand bullets and ordinary blades. Its weakness, however, was that the user could not move and could only passively endure attacks.

Generally speaking, practitioners would not use it casually. They only used it when facing attacks they could not dodge.

And in most cases, those who used Tekkai still could not avoid a miserable fate.

For this reason, many people considered it useless and did not bother cultivating it.

But Sengoku also knew very well that once Tekkai was cultivated to a certain level, it became different when used during battle. At that stage, it had already discarded its inability to move.

At the same time, its defensive power and hardness would rise another level.

If one continued refining it, it would even become possible to rebound the force of an attack the moment it struck the body. One could also harden specific parts of the body, making the flesh comparable to a weapon. Combined with Armament Haki, it would produce even greater offensive power.

Xia Le was experiencing the wonders of Tekkai now.

Level-thirty Tekkai had greatly increased his defensive power. He could use it even while moving at high speed. His body was like steel, his muscles like springs forged from steel cables. When he punched or kicked, the force was terrifying.