Chapter 41: Roadblock
Luffy quickly caught up to Amu and Bubu Wang. Just as he was about to ask how Ace was doing, a wave of cold air spread around Amu.
Luffy's current strength could only be considered average, but the instincts honed by Garp helped him at a critical moment.
Luffy leaped behind Amu, spun around, raised his hand, and bit his thumb.
"Third Gear..."
Ding!
Shattered ice flew, stinging Luffy's face as it hit him. A sharp longsword pierced through an ice sculpture resembling Aokiji, the tip just a few centimeters from Luffy's nose. The strike was so fast that Luffy had no chance to dodge. If it had been meant to kill him, he would already be dead.
The longsword flicked upward, shattering the ice sculpture. Ice spikes suddenly appeared around Su Xiao. He shifted his body slightly, dodging them with ease as Banishment, a streak of blue light, wove through the air around him, breaking the arm-thick ice spikes.
"Thanks."
Luffy, displaying decent combat instincts, immediately ran toward Amu, preparing to protect Ace and break out of the square.
Su Xiao ignored Monkey D. Luffy, instead searching for the vanished Aokiji. Suddenly, he sensed danger from the Dragon-Slaying Flash in his hand.
A small patch of ice froze on the blade. This fingernail-sized piece of ice suddenly burst, spreading from the Dragon-Slaying Flash and instantly encasing Su Xiao in ice.
With a crack, fissures appeared on the ice layer trapping Su Xiao. But Aokiji had already appeared behind him, pressing one hand against the ice.
Crack, crack, crack...
The ice sculpture expanded into a massive block. Aokiji breathed a sigh of relief, only to feel a sharp pain in his elbow.
Pfft.
Banishment pierced through Aokiji's left arm. He immediately elementalized the limb, freezing over a dozen shattered blades. The next moment, Aokiji's left arm shattered into ice crystals. Unlike Kizaru, Aokiji's elemental form was solid, making him less vulnerable to the fragments left inside him.
The fragments recombined into Banishment, which sharply turned midair and flew straight at Aokiji.
Aokiji raised both arms, tracking Banishment's flight path. Banishment suddenly accelerated a second time, vanishing from his sight.
A faint stinging sensation appeared at Aokiji's brow, but he didn't elementalize his head. Instead, he waited for Banishment to strike.
"Freezing... Moment!"
Crack. A thin layer of ice before Aokiji fractured. A massive expanse of ice spread from Banishment, forming a twenty-meter-diameter ice sphere.
Beside the sphere, Aokiji, having de-elementalized, separated from the ice. He looked at the ice block that had frozen Su Xiao, now sliced into several pieces.
"Not good."
Aokiji's combat experience was immense. He instinctively rolled forward, but the anticipated slash from behind never came.
Whoosh. A surge of blood energy swept past Aokiji. He was astonished to find everything around him slowing down. The flames on the battlefield seemed frozen, and cannonballs hung motionless in midair.
Tap, tap, tap...
Clear footsteps reached Aokiji's ears. He saw Su Xiao walking toward him, longsword in hand, its tip angled toward the ground. With each step, Su Xiao struggled, blood energy surging from within him, causing his black hair to stand on end.
"Absolute... Shadow..."
With a shattering sound, the world around them seemed to break apart. Aokiji spat out a mouthful of blood, his face drenched in cold sweat.
Clang, clang, clang...
Countless slashes appeared out of nowhere, engulfing Aokiji. They were so dense they formed a sphere, conservatively numbering in the hundreds, cutting Aokiji into a mass of ice fragments.
After the dense slashes faded, Aokiji de-elementalized, crouching on one knee. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth as he stared warily at Su Xiao. Aokiji was certain that Su Xiao had only used half of that technique. If it had been completed, he would be dead or gravely wounded, possibly reduced to minced meat.
Su Xiao wasn't faring well either. Blood flowed from his sleeve, dripping from the Dragon-Slaying Flash. That technique was inspired by his time in the Land of All Beings, a secondary development of Absolute Shadow Flash. If he had managed to land the strike, he might have killed Aokiji on the spot.
Absolute Shadow Flash was an ability derived from Blade Grandmaster. Initially, Su Xiao misunderstood it, thinking it was a fully developed move. But in the Land of All Beings, he realized it was just a prototype, requiring the user to develop it according to their own path.
Developing Absolute Shadow Flash was difficult. So far, Su Xiao had only progressed about thirty percent. But that didn't mean it was unusable. The technique was developed in stages, growing stronger with each phase.
Currently, Absolute Shadow Flash was at the second stage. Conservatively, it could be developed to six stages. The perfected version would use blood energy to immobilize the enemy, followed by a single high-speed slash through their body for the first attack. That slash would then explode into thousands of cuts, overwhelming the enemy in the second attack.
The advantage of developing Absolute Shadow Flash was that it wasn't limited by cooldown. It consumed stamina and blood energy, not mana. In fact, almost all of Su Xiao's self-developed techniques consumed stamina.
"A rare talent like you, and you've sided with the pirates."
As Aokiji spoke, his clothes shredded into pieces, revealing crisscrossing bloody wounds. He was genuinely puzzled. With combat power like this, how had the World Government ever classified him as a researcher? Were those people at the experimental base brain-dead? Setting aside seniority, someone like this could easily serve as a Marine Admiral.
"I'm not with the pirates. I'm a research... combat personnel for the Revolutionary Army."
Su Xiao's gaze occasionally flicked toward the outer harbor. Just moments ago, Akainu had chased after them. He needed to shake off Aokiji quickly.
"The Revolutionary Army."
Aokiji's expression darkened. Pirates and the Revolutionary Army were fundamentally different. Pirates merely committed evil at sea, fleeing constantly. The Revolutionary Army openly opposed the World Government and the Marines.
Su Xiao took a deep breath. Blood energy spread outward from him. Aokiji's eye twitched—this was the same feeling as before.
But nothing happened. The blood energy gradually dissipated, and Su Xiao was nowhere to be found. A large hole had appeared in the massive ice sphere that had frozen Banishment.
Outside the harbor, magma churned. An ice warhammer melted, turning into rising steam.
Amu collapsed to the ground, the left side of his body and his entire arm charred black. Ace, slung over his shoulder, also had minor burns.
"Huff, huff, huff..."
The sound of labored breathing, like a broken bellows, came from a burly, blue-skinned fishman with tusks. His name was Jinbe, a former Warlord of the Sea.
"Luffy, are you alright?"
Jinbe, the Knight of the Sea, gripped Luffy by the waist.
"Ace..."
Luffy's voice was weak. His chest and collarbone were covered in burns.
"Ace is fine. A reliable man is protecting him."
Jinbe glanced at Amu, who was slumped nearby, his approval unmistakable.
"One after another, you pirates show up. None of you are leaving this harbor."
Akainu adjusted his Marine cap. Magma dripped down his cheek.
A figure suddenly appeared near Akainu. He snorted, and magma erupted without warning.
Rip. Bubu Wang, half his body on fire, vanished, blending into the environment. He rolled several times to extinguish the flames. At this point, he didn't care if his fur got singed. If he didn't hold Akainu back, Amu would be the first to die.