Bzz!
A piercing ring of steel sounded without warning.
The instant Bai Yu whipped his head around, a third sword appeared in his mouth, though no one knew when it had gotten there.
Three-Sword Style!
His stance resembled Zoro's.
Yet every movement Bai Yu made was like a bloodthirsty beast wildly counterattacking.
The instant the third sword clenched in his mouth collided with the incoming attack.
The fourth sword appeared!
From a completely unpredictable position, Bai Yu balanced on one leg like a golden rooster, using that foot for leverage as he slashed straight at Onigumo from an exceedingly tricky angle.
This was the fourth sword, clamped in the crook of his right arm.
No one had expected Bai Yu to wield a sword in such a posture.
Moreover, whether in speed or strength, its explosive force was every bit as swift and fierce as a sword wielded in both hands.
Bang!
Onigumo's pupils contracted, and he drove another blade forward to meet it head-on.
The evenly matched collision immediately stirred up a fierce gale across the deck, sweeping over everyone present.
But all of this was only the beginning.
After landing that strike, Bai Yu's entire body seemed to turn into a spinning top of battle.
Especially now that Kenpachi Zaraki's innate bloodthirsty madness and bone-deep talent for slaughter had fully merged with Arakuri Heron, which fought using the body itself.
After Onigumo blocked the fourth sword, the fifth suddenly flashed into view.
Clamped between his right shoulder and neck, the fifth sword rode his spinning-top speed, breaking straight through the shock wave of the collision and closing in again.
Feeling that savage presence rushing straight at him, Onigumo's face turned livid, but the only thing he could do was still raise a blade to block.
Unlike wielding swords with both hands, Bai Yu incorporated his own momentum into his attacks.
There was no such thing as a cooldown between moves.
There was only turning force against force, the attacks chaining together like raging waves and furious tides, each surge fiercer than the last.
Bang!
Onigumo blocked the attack once again.
But cold steel flashed before his eyes again, and, already at a disadvantage, he had yet to fully neutralize the recoil from his fifth sword.
The sixth and seventh swords appeared before him once more.
The sixth sword, clamped between his abdomen and right thigh, and the seventh, held between his right thigh and calf, unleashed attacks from exceedingly tricky angles.
Onigumo's pupils had already contracted to their limit. Faced with this Seven-Sword Style that utterly shattered the bounds of his understanding, he was both shocked and furious, hastily activating Life Return to meet it head-on as well.
Boom!
The two swords collided, unleashing a gale that swept outward like a hurricane.
The deck beneath their feet seemed unable to withstand their powerful clash and shattered as well.
Some of the nearby Marines were also hurled away by that immense gale.
But Onigumo paid no attention to any of it.
Because he discovered that the seven swords that had vanished into thin air and reappeared on Bai Yu's body had now all been used up.
Amid these powerful collisions, spaced barely fractions of a second apart.
Onigumo strongly suspected that Bai Yu had made a fatal mistake.
As long as he seized on that opening, Onigumo believed he could turn the situation around.
"Hahaha, brat, didn't you say yours was Eight-Sword Style? That was already your seventh sword. Unless you lie down on the ground, I can't imagine where your eighth sword could be."
Onigumo burst into savage laughter, yet his last remaining sword did not hesitate in the slightest, erupting with unprecedented sharpness.
Under Life Return's control, it thrust straight at Bai Yu.
At that moment, both Onigumo's gaze and those of Zoro and the others were fixed on Bai Yu.
After all, Bai Yu had only thrown out seven swords at the start.
Now, the number of swords he wielded with his body had already reached an inhuman seven.
Just where could he unleash the eighth sword from?
They could rack their brains to pieces and still could not figure it out.
Yet just as that thought surfaced in their minds.
The cruel, bloodthirsty smile that spread across Bai Yu's face sent an endless chill surging up from the soles of Onigumo's feet.
The instant ink-black Armament Haki rapidly covered his forehead.
Bai Yu charged headfirst into the incoming eighth sword, utterly unafraid of death.
Head Eighth Sword!
Boom!
This blow carried the force of ten thousand tons.
It was the final sword, formed by stacking the momentum generated by every sword collision through Arakuri Heron.
In Bai Yu's words, this was the final, all-out killing blow.
Bang!
The sword snapped at the impact.
Carrying the force of ten thousand tons, Head Eighth Sword rammed straight toward Onigumo.
Feeling that savage impact rushing at him, he abandoned every other thought and hastily brought the remaining seven swords in front of him to block.
Boom!
The deafening clash of metal rang through the heavens.
The explosive storm it whipped up hurled more than a dozen Marines straight into the sea.
As the deck at the center of the collision shattered, Onigumo's entire body shot backward like a cannonball.
Only after he smashed headfirst into the thick steel cabin, forcibly leaving a human-shaped dent, did his body abruptly stop.
Along his path, his legs had forcibly torn two shocking, deep furrows through the deck.
As his sword-bearing hands trembled slightly, the shock wave of the collision shredded the clothes on his body into strips.
The six arms he had formed using Life Return had long since reverted to loose, disheveled hair.
Some of it had even snapped off in the collision.
Apart from the two swords in his hands, the remaining six had already broken into several pieces and fallen onto the deck.
"Gulp!"
The sound of swallowing rang out across the deck, one after another.
The Marines who had regained their footing stared so hard their eyes nearly split their sockets.
Looking at Onigumo, who had been blasted more than twenty meters away and left in a sorry state, their faces were filled with disbelief.
"Heavens, did Vice Admiral Onigumo lose?"
"That blow just now didn't just drive Vice Admiral Onigumo back. It even shattered his swords."
"Vice Admiral Onigumo didn't have time to use Armament Haki at the end, but this result is still far too terrifying. If word gets out, I'm afraid even the people at headquarters won't believe it."
The scene instantly erupted.
Despite how elaborate the battle had seemed, only a little over ten seconds had passed from beginning to end.
Perhaps many people would say that this battle had not yet reached its end.
But this was only a spar, not a true fight to the death.
Both the Marines and Onigumo himself, a Vice Admiral, knew clearly that this battle had already been decided, with a true winner and loser.
Yet, looking at the swords held in his hands, Onigumo still could not believe it.
The Eight-Sword Style he had immersed himself in for decades before finally mastering it completely.
Had lost in a head-on clash to an unconventional Eight-Sword Style in the hands of a boy just starting out.
Had he not seen it with his own eyes, Onigumo would never have believed that such a day would come for him.