A dull thud rang out.
When Lin Xuan appeared again, he was already standing behind Krieg, holding the finishing posture of a one-handed downward slash.
The seemingly harmless Wooden Sword in his hand now carried tremendous force.
Behind him, Krieg froze.
The poison needle he had yet to blow out caught in his throat, and the finger poised to pull the trigger went slack.
The next second, the notorious pirate with a bounty of seventeen million rolled his eyes back and went limp, toppling straight backward as a huge, blood-filled lump rapidly swelled on the back of his head.
One hit.
He had not even used swordsmanship, only raw strength and speed.
The entire Baratie restaurant fell deathly silent.
Only the sound of waves slapping against corpses reminded everyone of what had just happened.
"At this level..." Lin Xuan flicked nonexistent blood off the Wooden Sword, disappointment in his voice. "It doesn't even count as a warm-up."
He turned around and raised his head.
Across more than ten meters and through the shattered window, his utterly unruffled black eyes met Ace's, which burned with fighting spirit.
"So, you should be able to take a few more slashes, right?"
Lin Xuan's voice was quiet, but it cut clearly through the sea breeze and reached every ear present.
It was a blatant provocation.
"Ha..."
Ace froze for a moment, then his shoulders began shaking uncontrollably.
He pressed a hand against his hat's brim, hiding the flames blazing in his eyes.
"Take a few more slashes? Lin Xuan, you know what? Ever since I got the Flame-Flame Fruit, I've thought about you every day!"
Black smoke began rising from the floor beneath Ace, the wood fibers crackling and splitting in the heat.
"Captain! Don't be reckless!" Deuce reached out to grab him, only to be forced back by a scorching blast of air. "We're in the middle of the ocean! You're a Devil Fruit user..."
"So what?"
Ace jerked his head up, his entire body turning into a stream of orange-red flame. He smashed through the window frame, arced through the air, and landed firmly atop the sinking wreckage of the Delidano, which Hawk-Eye had cut apart.
Sparks flew everywhere.
The sodden wreckage dried rapidly in the heat, its edges beginning to curl and burn.
Terrified, all the pirates scrambled into the sea and swam desperately away from the two monsters.
"A Logia... the Flame-Flame Fruit."
Lin Xuan watched the boy surrounded by fire, feeling the heat washing over his face.
The heat, fierce enough to distort the air, made the dormant blood in his body begin flowing faster.
This was how this world should be: nothing but direct clashes of strength.
"I don't know how far you've gotten with your Haki training," Ace said, looking down at Lin Xuan from his elevated position, flames swirling around him, "but that wooden stick alone won't be enough to cut me."
His body began losing its solid form, half his shoulder becoming flickering flames as he demonstrated the ineffectiveness of physical attacks.
"Physical attacks don't work on me. That's common knowledge."
"Common knowledge?"
Lin Xuan smiled.
He gripped the Wooden Sword with both hands, spread his feet, and assumed a casual opening stance.
Spiritual Pressure surged through his body and flowed down his arms into the ordinary Wooden Sword, its once-dull grain taking on an oppressive air.
"Common knowledge exists to be broken."
The instant he finished speaking, the atmosphere between them suddenly grew tense.
Ace's smile faded, his expression turning grave.
His instincts screamed a warning-the guy holding the Wooden Sword really intended to cut him down.
"Then let's see you try... I won't lose to you again this time."
Ace yanked his right arm back. His entire arm instantly swelled and turned into its element, the orange-red flames deepening in color as they compressed.
The surrounding seawater boiled in the heat, sending up great clouds of white mist. "Have a taste of my flames."
Chapter 45: Flame Emperor? I'll Split It with One Slash!
"Fire Fist!"
With a deafening roar, the arm burning with orange-red flames shot forward.
As his arm thrust out, raging flames surged forth like a flood.
Blinding red instantly filled the view. The moisture in the air evaporated the moment it touched the heat, hissing as it vanished.
Scalding wind pressure struck Lin Xuan's face, blowing the loose hair over his forehead wildly backward. His skin felt tight and dry, as though he had been shoved into an oven.
An ordinary pirate could not produce this kind of pressure.
But Lin Xuan did not retreat. His dead-fish eyes did not so much as flicker.
He even raised the Wooden Sword over his head with a hint of boredom.
There was no flashy sword technique, nor any stance to gather power. He simply smashed downward on instinct.
"Too loud."
With that murmur, the dark-gold Spiritual Pressure wrapped around the Wooden Sword erupted, brutally shredding the fragile wood.
It was a vertical slash without a shred of technique.
Boom!
The instant the torrent of fire met the Wooden Sword, it was forcibly split apart.
The Fire Fist divided down the middle, roaring past either side of Lin Xuan and crashing into the sea behind him.
The seawater boiled, and steam exploded outward. Amid the white mist, the remaining half of the Delidano's wreckage completely fell apart.
The impact of the flames dealt the ship another devastating blow. Charred planks broke apart in the air, falling while still ablaze.
"So this is a Logia?" Standing on the scorching deck, Lin Xuan patted out the sparks on the hem of his clothes and looked ahead. "Looks impressive, but it's actually soft. Like cutting cake."
The thick smoke cleared.
Ace's figure re-formed more than ten meters away. Half his body was still flame, and the arrogance on his freckled face had vanished, leaving only rigid disbelief.
Physical attacks were ineffective-that ironclad rule had let him go unchallenged across the East Blue, yet today a piece of wood had broken it?
"Stop looking down on me!"
Gritting his teeth, Ace abruptly changed direction in midair and crossed his hands before his chest.
"Divine Fire: Shiranui!"
Two flaming spears several meters long instantly formed, thrusting toward Lin Xuan's throat and heart with spiraling force.
Immediately afterward, he flicked all ten fingers in rapid succession, unleashing a dense barrage of fire bullets.
"Fire Pistol!"
A rain of fire filled the sky, sealing off every route Lin Xuan could use to dodge.
"Tricks at this level aren't even enough to scratch the Kenpachi template's itch." Lin Xuan could not be bothered to move, swinging the Wooden Sword into a blur.
There were no exquisite parries, only brutal collisions.
Every fire bullet burst into sparks the instant it touched the force field around the Wooden Sword.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Amid the unbroken explosions, Lin Xuan advanced step by step.
With every step, a ring of cracks spread across the deck beneath his feet.
"Try taking a slash from me, too."
With a flick of his wrist, Lin Xuan swept the scorch-marked Wooden Sword sideways.
The air let out a groan under the unbearable strain.
A visible crescent-shaped blast of air, a full fifty or sixty meters long, instantly crossed the distance between them with suffocating wind pressure.
It was a shock wave formed by compressing air through sheer brute strength.
Ace had no time to dodge.
The blast cut Ace clean in half at the waist, then slammed into the sea without losing momentum, plowing a deep trench through the water. The waves it raised struck the third-floor windows of the Baratie restaurant.
"Captain!"
Inside the restaurant, Mihal and Deuce were terrified, leaning over the windowsill and crying out.
The next second, no blood flowed from Ace's severed body. Fierce flames ignited around his split waist, and the flowing fire reconnected his upper and lower halves in the blink of an eye.
Ace landed unharmed on a piece of driftwood. Apart from his somewhat pale face, he had no wounds.
"Ha... haha! I knew it!"
Deuce slammed a fist against the windowsill, his voice changing pitch with excitement. "That's a Logia! One of the strongest powers on the seas! Physical attacks can't kill fire! Even that freakishly strong guy can't do it!"
"What a troublesome gift." Zeff sighed, his gaze complicated. "Without mastering that power, there's no answer to Logia users in the first half of the Grand Line. No matter how strong that Marine brat is, it's useless if he can't hit the solid body."
The cooks and diners exchanged looks. Lin Xuan's destructive power had just kindled their hopes, but seeing Ace completely unharmed extinguished them again.
It was utterly unfair. One side would die if hit, while the other could revive endlessly.
"No answer?"
The sea breeze blew past, but Lin Xuan did not fly into a rage.
Instead, the corners of his mouth curved upward as he watched Ace in the distance.
Without Armament Haki, it was indeed difficult to catch a Logia user's solid body. But for Lin Xuan as he was now, that only further stimulated the battle maniac within him.
He only needed to scatter the flames faster than Ace could heal.
"What the hell... did you grow up eating?"
Ace panted heavily, staring fixedly at Lin Xuan.
Although his body was uninjured, the killing intent and fierce wind from that last attack had put him under tremendous mental strain.
His instincts told him he could not drag this out any longer. The growing excitement in Lin Xuan's eyes as he fought made Ace's heart tremble.
"Whew..."
Ace slowly exhaled a stale breath, and the orange-red flames deepened to golden red.
The surrounding seawater began bubbling, vast quantities of white steam rising to shroud that stretch of sea.
"You damned brats are going to bake my ship dry!" Zeff's expression changed drastically as he roared at the dazed cooks. "Hurry! Weigh anchor! Open the fins! Full speed astern! Get away from here!"
Zeff did not need to explain. Everyone felt that searing heat.
Countless spirals of flame converged, compressing continuously. In the blink of an eye, a massive fireball more than a hundred meters in diameter formed, hanging in midair.
The fireball's radiance eclipsed the sun, lighting the sea as brightly as day.
"Great Flame Commandment: Flame Emperor!"
Ace's voice was hoarse and feverish. This was his strongest move, and his pride as Fire Fist.
The enormous fireball radiated destructive pulses.
Before that power, Lin Xuan's figure looked exceedingly small.
Everyone fleeing for their lives could not help looking back, staring in terror at the apocalyptic sight before turning their eyes toward the boy holding a Wooden Sword in one hand.
He would die, wouldn't he?
If something like that came crashing down, wouldn't both the people and this stretch of sea evaporate?
Before you continue