The Pirate: I Could See Proficiency and Became a Legend

Dongze was too cunning for his own good. If he took on Robin now, she would tear into him, especially while she was angry and emotional. She would not stop to debate him. So Dongze kicked the problem back to Garp.

"You sly little brat! I'll teach you to respect your elders in a minute!"

"Sure thing! But first, you'd better deal with this victim of the Navy's justice!"

Garp looked at Robin, tears streaming down her face, and lowered his eyes. "Young lady, you've been through a great deal. I imagine you've formed your own view of this world."

"The Navy isn't an independent institution. Above it stand the World Government and the Celestial Dragons. Sometimes we don't get to make the decisions."

"As for the history of the Void Century, even without knowing what happened, I can guess that something deeply damaging to the World Government took place during those hundred years."

"Otherwise, the World Government wouldn't be so determined to keep it buried."

"In the end, the biggest fist calls the shots in this world. The scholars of Ohara crossed the World Government's line, so they were bound to be killed. Those scholars had no force to protect themselves, either. The path they ended up on was inevitable."

"From where I stand, I deeply regret what happened. But what they did was bound to throw the world into turmoil, and I didn't want that either. So I can't give you the answer you're asking for."

"I can't even judge whether it was right or wrong. If you want an answer, go out and see the wider world. Time will give you one."

"And now that bastard Roger has stirred things up and ushered in the Great Pirate Era. The world is growing more chaotic by the day. Someone has to uphold justice. Even if that justice falls short, it can still bring the world a little hope."

Dongze was taken aback. He had not expected Garp, who looked like a simple-minded brute, to see things on this level.

He had thought Dragon was the only clever one in the Monkey Family. But Garp was more perceptive than his rough exterior suggested. He had remained unscathed among the Navy's top brass even after Dragon became the leader of the Revolutionary Army. Clearly, there was far more to him than met the eye.

Perhaps his usual carefree manner was a disguise.

As Garp spoke, an imposing aura rose from him and locked onto Dongze.

"Brat, looks like I'm leaving empty-handed today."

"Sorry. You have your convictions, and I have my own path. I'm afraid I can't join the Navy."

Garp Versus Dongze: Armament Haki Pushed to the Limit The fight broke out without warning. Robin was still standing to the side, trying to collect herself, when Dongze and Garp clashed.

Garp had trained his body to the pinnacle. His mastery of Haki also placed him among the strongest in the world.

Not just anyone could chase the Pirate King across the world with nothing but a pair of iron fists.

Robin's vision blurred. She could no longer make out either figure.

A cold shout exploded over the island.

"Fist Bone: Mountain-Breaking Strike!"

Robin's face changed. A roar filled her ears.

A terrifying attack descended upon the island.

She thought she heard space itself cry out. Then she saw the most frightening sight of her life.

High overhead, the shadow of a fist struck down.

It swept aside clouds for miles, tearing a vast hole above the island and revealing the blue sky. It looked as though someone had punched straight through the heavens. Then the entire island began to shake.

To counter Dongze's speed, which gave even Garp a headache, Garp had gone all out.

A mighty body. Armament Haki pushed to its limit.

Together, they gave him the power to batter space much as Whitebeard did, though not nearly to the same terrifying degree.

There was no one else around, so he could fight without holding back. He was not yet as old as he would be seven years later. At full strength, Garp was a monster.

Dongze had just launched himself with Geppo when his body abruptly stalled. His heart began to race beyond his control.

A crushing pressure from Garp's fist bore down on the entire island, stopping him for a fraction of a second.

"Hey! Which one of us has a cheat here, me or you? Old man Garp, this is too much!"

"Let's see where you run now, brat!"

Before the words had finished ringing out, Garp appeared beside Dongze. His fist had turned completely black, with an iridescent gleam flickering across it.

"Ryuo?"

"Damn it. People complain about youngsters fighting dirty, but old folks are just as bad!"

With no time left to dodge, Dongze touched Forgotten Dust. Armament Haki instantly coated the sword.

Then: "Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness!"

With no other choice, Dongze raised two layers of defense.

Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness came from Yan Lu, the second-in-command of the Confucian School in The Legend of Qin.

In that world, Yan Lu was known as the Master of Draws. Here, once Dongze had mastered the move, he had unlocked its passive effect as well.

"A gentleman does not contend. Hidden light has no form; sitting in forgetfulness leaves the mind empty."

The moment he activated Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness, his mind entered a strange state.

It was just as the sword technique was described.

He drew in his form and concealed his wisdom, letting go of form and knowledge to disappear among the masses. Against weakness, he became weak. His offense and defense seemed like a mass of cotton, leaving a domineering attack nowhere to land.

"Got you!"

A smile had barely begun to form on Garp's face when his pupils contracted. His Armament Haki-infused blow felt as though it had struck cotton. There was no solid point of impact. It had not even produced the effect of a strike that carried its force through a barrier.

"How is that possible?"

While Garp was stunned, Dongze hurriedly used Shave.

He put some distance between himself and the old man who refused to fight fair.

At first, both of them had been testing each other. Thanks to Observation Haki, their attacks had struck nothing but empty ground.

Then, without the slightest warning, Garp had gone all out. He knocked Dongze out of his high-speed Geppo-and-Shave movement and followed up with a barrage of punches—five lightning-fast lashes. No, not lashes: fists coated in Ryuo. If Dongze had not activated Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness's passive effect, that blow would have beaten the shit out of him.

The sheer power of Garp's Armament Haki made his scalp prickle.

They both used Armament Haki, and Koshiro had also reached the Ryuo stage. But their Ryuo was hardly the same. Koshiro had struggled through countless hardships to reach that stage. Garp? He had reached it because Ryuo was as high as Armament Haki went.

It was like two top students taking the same test. One could score a hundred; the other was limited to a hundred because that was the highest score the test allowed. The difference was enormous.

Dongze looked down at Garp, who had landed on the ground, and could only marvel.

No wonder they call him Garp the Hero. His combat instincts and the force of his attacks are terrifying!

Garp had seized on a momentary pause and unleashed an earth-shattering assault.

Dongze now believed what the unreliable old man had said during the Paramount War. If Garp's strength had not declined so much by then, he really could have beaten the shit out of Akainu.

"Brat! What move was that?"

Dongze's eye twitched as he watched the panel change. His guess had been right. Koshiro's strike had given him only 1,000 points, but Garp's punch had given him five times that.

Observation Haki (Awakening): 400000/1000000;

Armament Haki (Awakening): 410000/1000000;

That single blow had raised his Haki proficiency by 5,000 points. The rate was like riding a rocket, even faster than when he had exploited the bug.

To be honest, the sight of the panel tempted him. Then he remembered that the bug had already been fixed, and his heart ached.

Why did I have to pick a fight with those Sea Kings? If that bug were still there, I could turn around and thrash this unreasonable old man in less than a day.

"Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, the two figures vanished again.

With his superior combat instincts, Garp kept Dongze under pressure, leaving him almost no chance to counterattack. But whenever it got that bad, Dongze activated Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness.

It made Garp furious.

For the moment, Garp had no answer to the move. All he could do was glare.

He grew increasingly cautious around Dongze, trying not to let him enter the state of Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness.

It did little good. Dongze could also activate the move through his Golden Finger. Even if his body was restrained, the Golden Finger could put him into that state in an instant.

As the fight wore on, Dongze gradually adapted to its rhythm and began to strike back.

The Armament Haki coating Forgotten Dust grew darker, and his Slashing attacks grew stronger. Even Garp could no longer take them lightly.

Bang!

Another fierce collision rang out with the shriek of clashing steel. The two of them flew apart, and Garp stared at Dongze in amazement.

At first, Dongze had been unable to keep up with him at all. He could only rely on that strange move to evade Garp's attacks. Then he had begun to counterattack. Now he was putting up a proper fight.

His Armament Haki and Slashing attacks were growing stronger, and his combat instincts were improving rapidly. He had not needed to enter the state of Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness once in the past three hours.

After their latest clash, Dongze changed tactics. Instead of using only Armament Haki to coat Forgotten Dust for close-quarters combat, he began using his sword techniques.

He drove his left foot into the ground and launched himself with Shave at full force. Then he hurled Forgotten Dust.

The pitch-black blade radiated a chilling killing intent. An ink-wash painting in black and white seemed to spread across the entire island.

An Azure Dragon, half-hidden in the white, flickered in and out of view. As Forgotten Dust cut through the air, its momentum grew, locking onto Garp from afar as he braced himself.

It was the Hundred-Pace Flying Sword, currently Dongze's most powerful killing move. It could strike a group or a single target. As the first skill Dongze had unlocked, it was also the one that came most naturally to him.

Better yet, the move bore down on its target and locked on, ensuring his thrust would not go astray.

Whether the target could block it was another matter.

Caught off guard by the move, Garp looked no better than Crocodile had.

But he reacted in the blink of an eye. As the sword's momentum locked onto him, he suddenly lowered his head. An overwhelming force erupted beneath his feet like a bomb.

It tore through the Hundred-Pace Flying Sword's terrifying pressure, freeing him.

"Conqueror's Haki?"

The Battle Intensifies, Proficiency Locked Boom!

A deep, muffled blast came with a violent shock wave. Feeling that world-ending force, Robin felt a chill shoot up from the soles of her feet.

At the island's edge, where she had nearly retreated into the sea, Robin suddenly felt her heart lurch. She looked toward the island's center.

Mountains and trees blocked her view, so she could not see what was happening there.

But Slashing attacks kept flying out of the forest, cleaving through waves nearly a thousand meters long as if by some miracle. The sight left her astonished and increasingly uneasy.

She had worked out why Dongze and the Navy hero Garp were fighting in earnest. It seemed to be because of her.

Dongze was a Pirate Hunter. He had no conflict of interest with the Navy.

She, on the other hand, was a pirate, and both sides had reason to come after her. She began to regret staying on his ship out of spite.

After spending these days with him, she had realized Dongze was not cold-blooded. He reserved his ruthlessness for pirates who had lost all sense of humanity. He never harmed ordinary people.

Pirates called him an executioner who left nothing standing. The civilians he had helped called him a savior who saw the truth of every case.

Her feelings tangled together.

Suddenly, Robin sensed something. Her expression shifted, and she looked up. The sky above the island was torn open again like a toy.

A black gash stretched across the sky, like the gaping maw of a giant. Thick clouds scattered outward as though fleeing in terror.

The terrifying sight caused by the clash of Conqueror's Haki sent a numbness through her body. She dropped to her knees on the beach.

"Are they even human?"

At the island's center, Garp stared at Dongze in disbelief.

"Conqueror's Haki?"

"Brat, you're full of surprises!"

"Fine Observation Haki, Armament Haki strong enough to hurt me, and now Conqueror's Haki too. Not to mention those bizarre sword moves and strange abilities! You could make a name for yourself in the New World. What are you still doing in the East Blue?"

Garp had avoided a fatal blow from the Hundred-Pace Flying Sword. But when he rushed in afterward to knock Forgotten Dust out of Dongze's hand, the sword broke through his defense.

Forgotten Dust had left a cut on the back of his hand.

Garp stood there laughing. Dongze looked far more battered: his clothes had been reduced to rags. Yet his eyes shone brighter than ever.

"If I said I was just about to head to the New World, would you believe me?"