"Is this the power to burn everything you wanted to show me?"
Lin Xuan tilted his head back, looking at the enormous fireball.
The oncoming heat curled his eyebrows, and the Wooden Sword in his hand crackled, on the verge of charring.
But he was smiling.
"Good. Very good. You've really improved quite a bit."
Lin Xuan murmured softly, slowly raising his left hand from his side.
He gripped the other end of the hilt.
For the first time since the battle began, he held his sword with both hands.
The moment he did, the world seemed to fall silent.
The grip felt rough against his palms. The wooden hilt had already charred in the heat and gave faint cracking sounds as it buckled under his grip.
But that didn't matter. When both hands closed around the hilt, the soul of Kenpachi Zaraki in his mind, hungry for slaughter, finally gave a satisfied roar.
"What a pain..."
Lin Xuan lowered his eyes, staring at his whitening knuckles.
It was simply that the power surging out of his body was so immense that he felt swollen with it.
Boom!
A rumble came from the depths of his soul.
A visible pillar of dark gold light erupted from Lin Xuan's body.
It was spiritual pressure, high-density energy given physical form.
The dark gold energy instantly spread outward.
The rampaging currents of scorching air were forcibly pushed back by that overwhelming power.
The sea, searing hot a second ago, now felt bone-chillingly cold. It was a cold formed from pure killing intent.
The Flame Emperor hanging in midair stopped three meters above Lin Xuan's head.
On closer inspection, its dancing tongues of flame were constantly shrinking beneath that terrifying spiritual pressure. No matter how Ace urged it on, the fireball could not descend another inch.
"Wh-what is this?"
Through the dazzling golden light, Lin Xuan saw the fear on Ace's face.
Cracks appeared in Ace's confidence.
"Since you love playing with fire so much, then you and this thing can both..."
Lin Xuan's mouth split into a grin, baring a row of white teeth, his smile as savage as a demon's.
The Wooden Sword raised above his head had turned pitch-black, splitting with golden arcs of electricity as it bore an excessive amount of spiritual pressure.
"Kendo: Two Cuts!"
This move existed for one purpose: to cut things apart.
The Wooden Sword fell.
There was no wind. Even the wind had been severed before this strike.
A dark gold Sword Aura rose from the ground, condensing into a thin line.
A line that could cut through anything.
Ssshh-
There was no resistance.
The enormous fireball, Flame Emperor, did not last even a second before a black line appeared through its center.
Then, as everyone stared blankly, the artificial sun split in two.
It was not only the flames that were cut, but also the space where Ace stood and the sea below.
"Split... apart!"
Lin Xuan roared, his blade losing none of its momentum as it swept toward Ace behind the fireball with the lingering force of the strike that had cleaved it apart.
Rumble!
The belated explosion thundered through the sky. The bisected Flame Emperor instantly went out of control, scattering to either side in a sky full of streaming flames.
A terrifying shock wave swept outward, mingled with hundred-meter waves.
The wreckage of the pirate ship was swept into the air. In the distance, metal groaned and twisted aboard the floating restaurant Baratie, its two fin-shaped decks warping outright.
"Hold on! We'll be blown away!"
Someone screamed, but the voice was instantly swallowed by the towering waves.
Lin Xuan still stood on a fragment of deck, holding the finishing pose of his downward slash.
The Wooden Sword in his hand finally reached its limit, crumbling into powder with a crack and scattering on the wind.
He slowly exhaled a hot breath that smelled of sulfur, shaking his numb wrist, still not quite satisfied.
Steam and thick smoke covered the sea before him, obscuring everything.
Only the trench he had cleaved through the sea, which remained open long afterward, testified to the power of that strike.
Even a Logia couldn't possibly take a slash carrying such powerful spiritual pressure head-on and come away unscathed, could he?
Chapter 46: Big Brother?! You Call That a Fist of Love?
Scalding white steam still churned over the sea, blocking everyone's view.
"He's... he's alive!"
Someone shouted, and the deathly silent deck of the Baratie instantly erupted.
Through the thinning mist, a cluster of orange-red flames was gathering again in midair.
First came the scattered streams of fire, then a blurred outline, and finally, the familiar figure of Portgas D. Ace appeared before everyone again.
Although his hat had flown off somewhere, and his bare chest heaved violently, he was indeed still standing.
"I told you! He's a Logia!"
Although the blast had cracked the mask on Deuce's face, he paid it no attention. His voice brimmed with the exhilaration of surviving a disaster. "Even a ridiculous slash like that is useless against fire as long as it doesn't hit his physical body! The captain is invincible!"
"Thank goodness... He really is immortal." Mihal pushed up the sunglasses that had slipped to the tip of his nose and let out a long sigh of relief, lowering the hand that had been reaching for his gun.
The pirates erupted into cheers. In their eyes, Ace had already won.
Lin Xuan stood on a precariously bobbing piece of driftwood. From more than ten meters away, his deep eyes caught Ace's exact condition.
That was not the bearing of a victor.
Ace's legs trembled faintly, utterly beyond the control of his will.
His wild pupils contracted sharply as he stared fixedly at his empty hands, seemingly checking whether his body really still belonged to him.
That brush with death had already been etched deep into his mind.
Had he not instinctively dispersed his elemental body as widely as possible the instant the Sword Aura reached him, Portgas D. Ace would probably have been split in half and sunk to the bottom of the sea as fish food by now.
"Looks like your body is a lot more honest than your mouth."
Lin Xuan chuckled softly. His voice was quiet, yet it seemed to ring right against Ace's eardrums.
Ace jerked his head up. The sight reflected in his pupils instantly made every hair on his body stand on end-the figure of Lin Xuan standing in the distance was slowly fading.
It was an afterimage.
Not good!
Years of street brawls made Ace's body react before his mind did. Instinctively, he tried to turn into his elemental form again.
But a hand had already settled on his shoulder.
It exerted no force, yet the flames that had just surged inside Ace instantly froze.
"Don't be in such a hurry to leave."
Lin Xuan's voice came from behind him, carrying a trace of casual languor.
With his right hand, he casually pulled a charred section of broken mast from the wreckage floating nearby-its shape was irregular, but in his hand, it was little different from the Wooden Sword that had shattered.
"These so-called Logias have ordinary human bodies if they don't actively turn into their elemental forms, right?"
"Oh, shit..."
Ace whipped his head around. Before he could finish speaking, the blackened wooden club filled his vision.
Lin Xuan made no fancy moves. He simply powered the charred club with his waist and abdomen, sweeping it sideways like a baseball bat.
Thud-!
There was a dull impact.
This time, Ace's body failed to turn into its elemental form.
As every pirate's smile froze, the captain they considered invincible doubled over from the blow. With several teeth flying free, he was blasted straight into the churning waves below.
An enormous splash rose three meters high.
"Captain-!"
Deuce let out a shrill cry.
"Damn it! He's a Devil Fruit user! He'll drown in the sea!" Mihal reacted immediately, flinging the sniper rifle on his back to a nearby crewmate. Without even taking off his clothes, he vaulted over the railing. "Deuce! Hold that madman off! I'll get the captain!"
With a splash, Mihal plunged into the water and swam rapidly toward where Ace had fallen.
On the deck, Deuce stared at Lin Xuan's back out on the sea, his clenched teeth grinding.
He knew going up against him would only mean death.
"Don't underestimate the Spade Pirates!"
Deuce roared, drawing two daggers from his waist. Without even bothering to find cover, he charged toward Lin Xuan over the connected floating walkways. "Get away from that part of the sea!"
Lin Xuan looked down at the bubbles rising from the water, traces of Ace's struggles.
Hearing the rush of air behind him, he could not even be bothered to turn around and merely sighed helplessly.
"Why are young people these days all in such a hurry to die?"
Just as he was about to swing the charred club backhanded to clear out the small fry, a sharp, cold gleam suddenly cut in diagonally from the side.
Metal rang against metal.
A sharp pain shot through the web of Deuce's hand, and his daggers nearly flew from his grip.
He stopped abruptly and saw a man wearing a dark green bandanna, with three swords at his waist, blocking the way between him and Lin Xuan.
"Hey, you in the long-nosed mask."
Zoro held his sword in one hand, Wado Ichimonji firmly blocking Deuce's twin daggers. A battle-hungry grin spread across his face. "Since this is a duel between swordsmen, whether you're a pirate or a Marine, everyone else had better stay out of it until this man has had his fill."
"Roronoa Zoro?!" Deuce recognized the famous Pirate Hunter of the East Blue, and his heart sank.
Why was this guy here too?
"Get out of my way!" Deuce's eyes were bloodshot. Abandoning any semblance of swordsmanship, he hurled himself at Zoro recklessly.
"Too many openings."
Zoro snorted coldly, turned his wrist, and swiftly struck Deuce's wrist and abdomen with the back of his blade.
Two thuds rang out.
Before Deuce could even make out his opponent's movements, he slid four or five meters backward and dropped to his knees on the slippery deck, his two daggers clattering to the ground.
The gap in their strength was plain to see.
"Damn it... Damn it!"
Deuce pounded the deck, then abruptly pulled a black, round object from inside his clothes and yanked its fuse. "In that case... let's die together! This is a specially made Gas Bomb! If it explodes at this range, none of you will survive!"
The sizzling fuse was less than two centimeters long.
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