When exactly had his strength declined to this level?
No, can't think like that—there's still hope.
Oars...
As long as he finds enough powerful shadows, he can definitely become the Pirate King with Oars' might.
He still has his Devil Fruit Ability. As long as he slays a powerful foe like Hiroto, he can surely take revenge on Kaido.
Faith crumbling, self-doubt, extreme obsession—hard to imagine these traits in a man who once rivaled Kaido.
Hiroto sighed and shook his head, yet his eyes were cold and mocking.
Moria happened to lift his head. In that meeting of gazes, he saw the vibrant young man.
Strolling forward with sword in hand, radiating heart-stopping pressure—just like when he lost to Kaido.
Back then, Kaido had been as high-spirited as this.
Moria instinctively shrank, as if staring into sunlight and being burned, fear and timidity surging up. But then, he rebounded from rock bottom into a hysterical roar.
"No! I will not fail again! Whether it's you or Kaido, I'll crush you all!"
Shadow's Asgard!
With Moria's skyward roar, streams of black shadows raced from the sky and poured endlessly into his gaping mouth.
His body ballooned, growing taller, arms thickening.
If the original Moria had merely been abnormally tall and gifted, now he had left the realm of talent, reaching the twenty or thirty-meter stature of the Giant race and was still expanding. Correspondingly, his power soared madly.
Hiroto didn't interfere, merely watching coldly.
The Moria just now had been too weak, utterly unqualified as material for [Effort King].
To advance after this incident, to reach the level of slaying a Marine Vice Admiral and carry out his plan, he had to seize every chance to grow stronger.
I'm giving you the opportunity, don't disappoint me.
"Ugh..."
After devouring a thousand shadows, Moria clutched his mouth, looking utterly miserable.
But his body had already swollen to fifty or sixty meters, his strength skyrocketing beyond measure.
A single sweep of a gargantuan arm flattened a dozen houses, then a palm smashed toward Hiroto.
Shunpo!
Hiroto's figure vanished and the colossal palm slammed the ground, the terrifying force shaking the earth, razing a swath of buildings.
Close to B-rank strength.
Hiroto gauged silently, stamped fire and wind, and a razor-sharp slash shot skyward.
A slash coated in Armament Haki was dreadful, Moria's enlarged body couldn't stop the blade at all.
"Aaaaargh!"
Moria shrieked as masses of shadows escaped his gaping mouth.
Hundreds of crisscrossing cuts scored his frame. A slash dozens of meters long tore flesh, carving wounds to the bone.
The titan arm swung back—seemingly slow yet shockingly fast, even using Shunpo, Hiroto barely dodged.
Both power and speed had exploded upward.
Observation Haki!
Hiroto focused, shifting footwork. His speed didn't rise, yet every strike from Moria missed.
Slashes flew like a brutal whittling, carving Moria's mountainous body, blood flowing in rivers.
No... I can't fight like this. I'll die within minutes.
Moria spat out a huge mass of shadows on purpose, shrinking his intake to six hundred. His size shrank to thirty-odd meters, but his movements suddenly accelerated.
The ejected shadows didn't disperse, they became a skyful of bats. Chittering, they dived en masse, swarming Hiroto from every direction for an instant.
Blades flashed and dozens of bats fell, hundreds lasting less than a second. Yet that single second gave Moria hope.
Shadow slipped into the battlefield, hiding within ground-level darkness, virtually undetectable.
A titanic palm slammed down, raising a gale.
Whoosh—
Sensing danger, Hiroto surged again.
A single line split the bat-cloud, a savage slash cleaving the house-sized palm in two. That strike crippled one of Moria's arms.
"I've won!"
Moria howled through the pain, because his shadow had already crept into Hiroto's.
Shadow Revolution!
Hiroto's sword-wielding shadow behind him twisted into a spiral.
The Armament Haki-coated Shigure twisted into a helix and then—
A blast of fire lit the area, erasing shadows in a lightless zone.
Hiroto vanished and Moria's follow-up palm struck air, the earth cracking for hundreds of meters beneath the impact.
A display of monster power!
"Damn it! Still not enough!?"
The one-armed Moria's pupils shrank and the expelled shadow formed a spear, yet he could see no sign of Hiroto.
Where did he go?
"Sensei, lend me your blade."
On an intact rooftop nearby, Hiroto—arrived via Shunpo—scowled and reached back.
The watching Koushirou stood, instinctively finding his own sword. But then the trembling of Shusui at his hip made his face change.
So it really is because of that boy Hiroto.
The national treasure of Wano, the blade of his 'Sword God' ancestor, had chosen Hiroto after a single meeting.
Still...
Koushirou's heart stirred, he unfastened the sheathed Shusui and flung it outward.
In the next instant, Hiroto caught the sheathed longsword, startled to find it was Shusui. He gripped the hilt, feeling the sword's eager hum.
He drew the long blade, feeling a keenness—no, a crushing weight.
At the same time, it seemed to speak, to negotiate, yearning to reveal itself.
[Swordmaster] triggered and in less than a second, Hiroto became one with Shusui.
He sensed the stirring 'spirit', the trait called 'momentum'—different from Wado Ichimonji.
He could also feel Shusui's desire.
'You want to wash away the stale past too? Then let the blood of a Warlord suffice.'
Hiroto tightened his grip on Shusui, murderous intent surging.
He looked down at Moria. "You who have lost your spirit, leave the stage right here."
As he leapt skyward, a typhoon-like tempest rose and sparks flared in the wind, becoming a swirling pillar of flame.
Flying Slash—6X power!
Wind and fire suddenly condensed, turning into a sky-piercing roar as the slash was about to be unleashed.
At that moment, Shusui hummed, revealing the might of one of the twenty-one great grade swords for the first time.
The surging and condensed energy was suddenly absorbed, concentrating on the serrated pattern of the blade.
Whether it was Hiroto's killing intent, the sky-piercing stream of flames, the tyrannical wind, or the screeching slash born from them, all were incorporated into the "Great Trend" at this moment.
The magnificent Great Trend is irreversible!