"Lord Bai Yu, this blade is actually the Demon Sword Murasame, one of the Twenty-One Great Grade Swords!"
Carina suddenly held out an old illustrated guide.
"The Demon Sword Murasame?"
Bai Yu took the guide, unsurprised, the bloodthirsty smile on his face growing wider.
Zoro, standing beside him, could no longer keep his composure. Few swordsmen could resist a Famous Sword.
Especially one of the Twenty-One Great Grade Swords.
Looking at the blood-red Demon Sword Murasame lying quietly in the wooden box, Zoro could not help reaching for it.
"Don't!"
Carina cried out urgently.
Unfortunately, Zoro's outstretched hand had already touched the hilt.
An endless devouring force instantly surged into Zoro's body, and as his head rang,
Zoro felt as though his entire soul were being dragged out.
His arm was forcibly drained until it resembled a dried corpse's.
Seeing signs that this bizarre, corpse-like withering was still spreading,
Zoro was going mad.
He was a young swordsman brimming with ambition. Ever since Kuina's death, apart from the beating Bai Yu had just given him,
he had never lost.
Now, before he had even ascended to the throne of the world's greatest supreme Great Swordmaster,
he was going to be sucked dry by a sword instead.
Did this count as dying before his campaign had even begun?
"Get out of the way! A real man needs a demon sword!"
Bai Yu kicked Zoro straight out of the way.
Zoro had been far too cocky as a child, and now, having only just set sail and not yet received a beating from Hawk-Eye,
he was still far too green.
Bai Yu had almost given Zoro a rendition of "Memorial on Sending Out the Troops" as his background music.
Looking at Murasame's eerie, bloody glow in the wooden box, Bai Yu gave a bloodthirsty smile and reached straight for it.
"Lord Bai Yu, you're courting death. If you get sucked dry, we're going to run away on our own."
Hiding in a corner, Nami spoke with anticipation written all over her face.
When they had found this demon sword,
they had personally witnessed several people who knew neither the height of heaven nor the depth of earth being devoured alive by it.
Yet faced with this declaration, the smile on Bai Yu's face grew even more savage.
"Heh, if I really can't even measure up to a sword, what would it matter if I let you go?"
"But right now, I'd really like to see what qualifies this blade to be called a demon sword."
Shing!
The ring of a blade suddenly sounded.
The Demon Sword Murasame left its sheath in an instant.
As cold light flowed across its scarlet blade, an immense aura of sinister malice swept through the entire cabin like a raging tide.
In an instant, the surrounding temperature seemed to plummet.
As Nami, Carina, and the others felt as though they had fallen into an ice cellar,
a roar sounded in Bai Yu's mind, and an endless sea of blood-red rushed straight into it.
In the original story, Zoro's old friend Saga had his mind bewitched by the Demon Sword Seven Star Sword.
One could say that Bai Yu was now undergoing that very process.
But just as the blood-red flooded Bai Yu's mind, the figure of Kenpachi Zaraki, his Main Body Template, abruptly manifested.
The next moment, a burst of crazed laughter suddenly rang out.
"Hahaha! A demon sword indeed! It really is a must-have for a real man. This greedy feeling is just too damn good!"
Bai Yu suddenly opened his eyes. His right hand, which held the sword, had already been drained until it resembled a dried corpse's.
However, as a reincarnator, Bai Yu already understood that this Demon Sword Murasame, like Enma, could operate on its own and release its wielder's Haki seemingly without limit.
This meant it was only one step away from transforming into one of the Twelve Supreme Grade Blades.
Looking at his right hand, now almost nothing but skin and bones, the bloodthirsty smile on Bai Yu's face grew even wider and more ferocious.
As his five fingers abruptly clenched tight, the Three Types of Haki within him erupted.
"Good, very good! Just what I'd expect from the demon sword I set my sights on. Let's see whether you suck me dry or I burst you from overfeeding!"
Boom!
The Three Types of Haki surged like raging waves and a furious tide, blasting straight through the cabin.
As his withered right hand suddenly swelled back up,
the Demon Sword Murasame let out a piercing ring like the wailing of ghosts and howling of gods.
A figure resembling an asura demon unfurled behind Bai Yu.
Roar!
A Sea King lurking a thousand meters away, feasting on the pirates who had fled earlier, was suddenly frightened into flight.
Its enormous, fifty-to-sixty-meter body showed that it was the Lord of the Coast that ruled these nearby waters.
Ordinarily, it paid no heed whatsoever to so-called pirates or Marines.
Unfortunately, at this moment, it felt an aura of death envelop its entire body.
"What a pity. I'll use you to test the blade!"
Bai Yu gave a savage smile and swung the Demon Sword Murasame through the air.
Bang!
A blood-red slash dozens of meters long instantly tore through the air.
Wherever it passed, both pirate ships and the sea itself were easily ripped apart like paper.
The thousand-meter distance passed in the blink of an eye.
The next moment, bloody light flashed, and the enormous Sea King, dozens of meters long, exploded into pieces.
Boom!
Huge waves towered into the sky. The sea along the slash's path had been cleaved open into a vacuum.
Carina and Nami were chilled straight to their cores.
Nami in particular hurriedly covered her mouth as she recalled what she had just said, genuinely worried that Bai Yu would slash her now.
If that happened, her little arms and legs
probably really would not withstand it.
Beside them, Zoro's expression had also grown complicated. His gaze at Bai Yu was filled with disbelief.
When he had lost to Bai Yu's single strike earlier,
he had thought that strike had already been Bai Yu's full strength.
Unfortunately, looking at things now, the clown had been him all along.
His opponent had not even used his full strength.
No!
He should say that he could not even compare to a Sea King.
Wasn't this gap far too vast?
"A demon sword indeed!"
Bai Yu gave a savage smile and sheathed the demon sword with a turn of his hand.
A single slash spanning a thousand meters-this kind of Flying Slash was very rare in the East Blue.
However, it was not unheard of on the Grand Line or even in the New World.
When someone at the very ceiling of combat power, like Golden Lion, unleashed Lion: Senjiridani, combining it with his Devil Fruit ability,
a single slash could cut through over a hundred kilometers.
That was a truly monstrous existence.
One could say that Bai Yu knew his own strength was still a long way from that ceiling.
However, with the system's support, Bai Yu believed he would soon reach that level.
"System, open my status panel."
Bai Yu entered his mental space.
Host: Bai Yu Doriki Value: 620 Strength: 780 Speed: 800 Stamina: 810 Main Body Template: Kenpachi Zaraki (7.2%) Subordinate template: None Equipped swords: Ordinary wooden sword, Demon Sword Murasame of the Twenty-One Great Grade Swords. Skills: Sword Pressure
Looking at the rather bare-bones panel, Bai Yu helplessly exited it.
In that battle just now, Black Axe had provided a pitiful 0.1 percent of unlock progress.
Bai Yu suspected that even this was a courtesy point from the system.
As for Zoro, the future world's greatest supreme Great Swordmaster, he barely qualified as a pleasant surprise, directly unlocking two percent of the Main Body Template.
It was a fairly substantial step toward reaching ten percent and unlocking the next skill.
Most importantly, Bai Yu suspected that, given Zoro's considerable achievements in the original story, once he had fattened him up in the future, he might be able to farm him a second and third time, or even a fourth and fifth.
If that really was the case, this pig looked pretty good too.