"Combined? No."
Faced with Zephyr's question, stunned beyond measure as he was, Yas merely shook his head calmly.
He felt the two terrifying powers on his right fist, utterly different yet beginning to blend perfectly together, and the madness in his eyes grew even stronger.
"This isn't a combination. This is... evolution."
The instant his words fell, all the light around his right fist, wrapped in that strange blue-black energy, abruptly contracted inward!
The wildly leaping blue arcs and the ink-black layer of Armament Haki seemed to find a perfect balance at that moment, merging completely into one!
Finally, over Yas's knuckles formed a layer poised between tangible and intangible, possessing both lightning's violent texture and the solidity unique to Armament Haki... a blue-black keratin layer!
The keratin layer did not look thick, yet the pressure it radiated was more than ten times as terrifying as either Raijin Armor or Armament Haki alone!
Humm!
The air around Yas's fist began to twist and wail, as though it could not bear the existence of this power!
"What... what the hell is that?!" Even Garp, who had always feared nothing, could not help swearing. He stared fixedly at Yas's utterly transformed fist, his scalp tingling.
He could clearly sense that the power contained within that fist had gone completely beyond his understanding!
It was the destructive power of a higher dimension... born from the combination of pure energy and pure willpower!
"Zephyr! Watch out! Something's wrong with that brat's fist!" Garp instinctively shouted a warning to his old friend.
Yet not a trace of fear appeared on Zephyr's face. Instead, an unprecedented fighting spirit blazed within him!
"Good! Now that's more like it!"
Zephyr let out an earthshaking roar. Pitch-black Armament Haki surged wildly over his left arm, its color instantly deepening several times over and faintly giving off a dark red metallic sheen!
"Armament Haki: Iron Body: Heavy Fortress!"
Zephyr pushed his strongest single-point defensive technique to its limit!
He believed that with the top-tier Armament Haki he had honed for decades, he could take even Whitebeard's space-shattering fist head-on!
"Let me experience for myself just how impressive this 'evolution' of yours really is!"
The instant Zephyr assumed his defensive stance, Yas moved.
Boom!
The terrifying explosive force of his step drove a deep crater into the special-grade alloy floor beneath him!
He became a blue-black afterimage, crossing fifty meters in an instant and appearing before Zephyr with a shriek that tore through everything!
There were no unnecessary moves, no flashy techniques.
Just a simple straight punch... concentrating Lightning Release Chakra, Armament Haki, and Yas's savage will!
"Take this!"
Yas's low roar arrived together with his fist, which radiated an aura of destruction!
Zephyr's pupils contracted to pinpoints!
Fast!
Too fast!
After fusing the two powers, Yas was actually thirty percent faster than he had been using Lightning Release Chakra Mode alone!
I can't dodge it!
Zephyr clenched his teeth, pouring every ounce of strength and will in his body into his left arm, held across his chest!
The next instant!
Fist and arm collided with a thunderous crash!
BOOM-CRACK!!!
Time seemed to stop completely in that second.
Then came a terrifying explosion that seemed capable of shaking a person's soul out of their body!
With the two men at its center, a visible ring-shaped shock wave, blue-black intertwined with pure black, swept wildly in every direction like the halo of a nuclear explosion!
The entire training ground, constructed from special-grade alloy, gave an overwhelmed, mournful creak as the shock wave swept through it! An entire layer was scraped off the floor, and spiderweb cracks instantly covered the walls!
Even Garp, standing a hundred meters away, was forced back step after step by the violent blast. He shielded his face with both arms, disbelief written all over it!
"That... that's a fucking punch a recruit can throw?!"
Dust and smoke filled the air, obscuring everything.
When the lingering force of the shock wave gradually dispersed, the sight in the arena stopped even Garp's breathing for a moment.
Zephyr still held his defensive stance, but the floor beneath him had completely collapsed, and both legs were sunk deep into the alloy!
His left arm, coated in top-tier Armament Haki and reputed to withstand anything, was trembling violently at a strange frequency!
At the precise point where his arm met Yas's fist, that indestructible pitch-black Haki had actually... actually developed tiny cracks!
Though it had not shattered completely, this was unmistakably a sign that his defense was about to be pierced!
Yas, meanwhile, slid back less than half a meter before steadying himself.
He slowly withdrew his fist, still wrapped in the blue-black keratin layer, feeling the tremendous recoil transmitted from the other man's arm and the tenacious will of a top-tier fighter.
What a rush!
This was the fight he wanted!
"How... is this possible..."
Zephyr slowly lowered his left arm, which had gone completely numb and was almost devoid of sensation. He looked down at the alarming cracks on his arm, then up at Yas opposite him, whose breathing was steady, who had not even taken a heavy breath. His eyes filled with bewilderment and shock ten times stronger than when Four-Finger Nukite had forced him back.
He had lost.
In a pure clash of offense and defense, he, a former Marine Admiral, had actually lost to a recruit who had first encountered Haki less than half an hour ago!
Granted, he had only defended and had not attacked.
Granted, his opponent's ability was bizarre in the extreme.
But a loss was a loss.
The Armament Haki defense he took such pride in was as fragile as glass before this young man's absurd "fist of evolution"!
"Ha... hahahaha..." Zephyr suddenly laughed, sounding somewhat forlorn, yet somewhat gratified. "Old... we really have grown old..."
"The new generation pushes out the old, leaving the old to die on the shore... Garp, it looks like the day this era leaves us behind isn't far off."
"Bullshit!" Garp strode over, slapped Zephyr on the shoulder, and roared, "Stop getting so fucking sentimental! We're not old. This brat... he's not even human!"
Garp turned and stared at Yas as though looking at a prehistoric monster, baring his teeth as he said, "Brat! Tell me the truth! You call this thing... learning Haki for the first time?!"
Yas did not answer. He merely shook his slightly aching wrist, then clenched his fist again.
The blue-black keratin layer appeared over his knuckles once more, even more solid and stable than before!
[Ding! Through a high-intensity Haki clash, the host's understanding of Armament Haki has deepened! Proficiency +10%!] [Ding! "Lightning Release Armament" mode has achieved initial stability!]
The system notifications sounded in his mind.
Yas looked up at the two top-tier Marine fighters before him, who were already beginning to question their lives, the fighting spirit in his eyes undiminished.
"Again."
He slowly uttered the word.
"That was just a test. Now it's time to get serious."
"Again?!" Garp and Zephyr cried in unison.
Were this guy's stamina and energy endless?!
Yet just as Yas prepared to attack again and fully familiarize himself with this new power, his body suddenly shifted half a step to the left without any warning.
It was a very slight, even somewhat unnecessary movement.
But in the very next second after he made it!
A dark figure flashed through the spot where he had just stood, moving faster than sound!
It was Garp!
He had actually launched a sneak attack the instant Yas prepared to strike! That powerful roundhouse kick was so fast that even the air cracked explosively!
But it had missed!
Yas, who had begun evading before Garp even made his move, had dodged it perfectly!
The entire training ground instantly fell deathly silent.
Garp froze in place with his leg still extended, his expression even more horrified than when he had seen the cracks on Zephyr's arm!
Zephyr froze as well, staring fixedly at Yas as though he had witnessed something unfathomable.
"That just now... wasn't a coincidence, was it?" Even Zephyr's voice trembled.
Yas also stood there in a slight daze.
He himself did not know why he had made that movement.
The instant Garp had prepared his sneak attack, a blurry "image of the future" had suddenly appeared in his mind-or rather, in his perception.
He had "seen" the trajectory and landing point of Garp's kick.
In that instant, his body had reacted even faster than his brain, instinctively dodging.
What... what was this?
Just as Yas stood puzzled, Garp's roar, carrying a trace of a tremor and utter disbelief, thundered through the training ground!
"Brat! You fucking... don't tell me... you awakened Observation Haki at the same time?!"
Before you continue