"What kind of Conqueror's Haki is this... Why can't I..." Luffy's expression was grim. He didn't dare to trade blows head-on, pouring all his energy into desperately evading Red Hair's strikes.
Before long, he registered that his movements were somehow being constricted. He had initially calculated that Red Hair's attacks were merely slow, but the reality was that his own operational speed had crawled to a terrifying halt. It was even slower than Red Hair's tempo.
The data disparity felt completely surreal. His Future Sight compounded by the absolute velocity of Snakeman felt like a decrepit old man who couldn't even run. It was entirely defenseless.
"Luffy! If your goal is to become the Pirate King, you must surpass me!" Shanks materialized before Luffy in a flash. He tightly balled one hand into a fist, condensing a strange, specialized force.
Luffy felt as though his physical vessel was under someone else's absolute dominance, his muscles failing to execute the motor commands generated by his brain.
"Luffy..." Back on the shoreline, the Straw Hat Pirates watched with tense focus as their captain remained completely suppressed.
From the exact microsecond Luffy had set out to sea until this very day, that straw hat had been the treasure he cherished as his own life. And today was the definitive moment to fulfill that sacred covenant.
"The Boss is being entirely too ruthless. He's deploying his full power right out of the gate," Lucky Roux muttered, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow for Luffy's sake.
Ordinary men lacked data regarding Red Hair's true terrors, but his core executives understood them with absolute clarity. Even though their own combat metrics had broken into the elite tier, not a single one among them harbored the delusion that they could ever surpass Shanks. In their eyes, Red Hair was a monument that was mathematically impossible to eclipse.
At least, it was impossible for them.
But because the individual stepping up was Luffy, their public analysis might claim it was impossible, yet their hearts secretly placed fundamental trust in him. For no alternative reason other than the fact that he was Luffy!
"Luffy, keep driving forward!" Lucky Roux barked at the top of his lungs, frantically waving a massive piece of meat on the bone toward the battlefield.
"Hey, hey, hey, are you actively rooting for the Boss to lose?" the surrounding Red Hair Pirates chuckled.
"Hmph! Don't act like you bastards aren't thinking the exact same thing," Lucky Roux huffed, twisting his head to the side.
The rest of the Red Hair Pirates fell into a heavy silence. Regarding this duel, though they recognized it was functionally impossible for their Boss to suffer a defeat, they still yearned for Luffy to emerge victorious. After all, his grand dream had germinated because of them, so it could never be permitted to terminate at their hands.
If a man truly wished to claim the mantle of the Pirate King, his boots could never pause along the path. It was high time a true sovereign emerged to anchor this ocean.
"This is unmistakably Conqueror's Haki! Why is my Conqueror's Haki infusion completely failing to deflect it?" Luffy's mind raced in total bewilderment.
The specialized infusion method that normally scaled his destructive output to exponential heights was proving entirely useless. Did Conqueror's Haki genuinely possess an even more advanced level of application?
"Luffy! Why have you ceased your assault?" Shanks stood poised, his unsheathed saber in hand, a warm smile playing lazily on his lips.
Yet every single soul watching the exchange was filled with profound awe. This was the true reality of the legendary Emperor of the Sea, Red Hair Shanks—the ultimate guide who had set Luffy onto the path of a pirate.
"Red Hair... Shanks..." Zoro's gaze turned exceptionally sharp. This Red Hair was actually a man who wielded a blade. Evidently, he was a swordsman!
Analyzing these few offensive sequences, Zoro even found himself considering that Red Hair, rather than Hawk-Eyes, might actually be the true World's Strongest Swordsman. To suppress the current Luffy into such a pathetic state was a feat an ordinary individual could never hope to execute. Not even Mihawk...
If I fail to conquer a swordsman of his caliber, I can never truly call myself the World's Strongest Swordsman! Zoro silently resolved, his fingers tightening slowly around the hilt of Wado Ichimonji.
At this fraction of a second, his heart executed another violent tremor. A supreme swordsman possessing absolute, overwhelming power stood directly before his face. As a man harboring the unbridled ambition to claim the zenith of the sword, he could not permit his mind to rely on a single shred of fluke luck. If he lacked the capacity to overcome an adversary of this tier, how could he ever sit upon the absolute throne of swordsmen?
His past oath loomed directly before his eyes.
However, he still maintained a realistic assessment of his own metrics; given his current strength, his probability of securing a victory against Red Hair was practically zero.
Stronger! I must become stronger!
"Fine! Shanks, you'd better keep your guard up!" Luffy stabilized his breathing, unleashing another Snakeman sequence.
It was still anchored by Conqueror's Haki infusion. He recognized that harboring designs to conquer Shanks at this exact juncture was nothing short of a delusion. If he wished to survive Shanks's offensive pacing, he absolutely required the extreme velocity of Snakeman.
The maintenance window of Snakeman was fundamentally governed by his Armament Haki reserves. To maximize his resource management, he determined to withhold his Advanced Armament Haki. Ryou simply drained his Armament reserves at too catastrophic a rate. When it came to offensive capabilities, he still possessed Conqueror's Haki infusion. Infusing his strikes with the qualities of a king required only a miniscule fraction of his Conqueror's Haki reserves, yet it yielded a destructive metric that comfortably outperformed Ryou.
This was his tactical window!
Compounded by his Future Sight, he could still sustain his defense for a short timeline.
His fists snaked through the air currents like living serpents, twisting and coiling through frantic trajectories to bombard Shanks's perimeter. Yet Red Hair smoothly tilted his head and executed minimal, precise footwork, cleanly weaving out of the path of every single incoming fist.
Luffy was not the least bit discouraged, smoothly redirecting his elastic limbs to launch consecutive follow-up strikes after every missed connection.
In a matter of breaths, countless fists saturated the sky. Luffy gritted his teeth, driving his offense forward while desperately trying to decipher the exact nature of the force Red Hair was deploying.
"Gah!"
Luffy's pupils suddenly shrank to pinpricks. For some inexplicable reason, Shanks had materialized directly before his face.
The deceptively slow saber strike was on the absolute verge of cleaving his physical vessel when a fist abruptly cut through the flank to intercept Red Hair.
"Hmm?" Shanks raised an elegant brow. Before his muscles could execute a defensive pivot, a fist slammed squarely into his wrist.
The saber slipped from his grasp...
"A perfect opening!" Luffy rejoiced.
He had finally manufactured a tactical opportunity; at some unknown point during the flurry, he had cleanly coiled one of his limbs back. The fist that had successfully intercepted Red Hair was none other than his left hand.
His right arm instantly compressed, gathering a massive concentration of Advanced Conqueror's Haki.
"Gum-Gum..."
"Using Future Sight to mask his true intent!" Shanks's expression shifted slightly.
This maneuver from Luffy had genuinely delivered an unexpected shock to his command structure. Previously, while he acknowledged Luffy's combat metrics were impressive, they hadn't broken past his baseline calculations. After all, carrying the mantle of a newly instated Emperor demanded this caliber of power.
But just now, Luffy had actually connected a blow against him. He had detected zero behavioral markers beforehand; that was an absolute display of high-level Future Sight coordination!
"Shanks! I'm bringing you down!" Luffy unleashed a strike packed with the absolute limit of his physical power, driving it forward in a fraction of a second.
Sundering the atmosphere with a violent, high-velocity screech, thick bolts of dark red lightning rippled from his fist.
"If this represents the absolute ceiling of your power, it is still far from enough, Luffy!"
Right then, a bare palm materialized to block the path of his assault.
KABOOM!
A colossal shockwave of raw energy erupted outward, yet it failed to move Red Hair a single fraction of a millimeter. Luffy's colossal fist was firmly and immovably locked within his palm.
"Luffy, allow me to demonstrate the true reality of top-tier Conqueror's Haki!" Shanks's low voice resonated across the cove.
The exact microsecond he drove his saber into the bedrock beneath his feet, a crushing, absolute presence erupted from his physical vessel.
The surrounding space rapidly condensed into a rigid grid, the tranquil sea churning violently into a manic frenzy as the surrounding trees whipped back and forth under an unnatural gale.
The heavy storm clouds saturating the sky... were cleanly sundered...
"What manner of power is this..." Every single onlooker below stood frozen in absolute horror. Was this a reality a human vessel could logically generate?
To alter the global weather patterns and manipulate the ocean currents solely through the release of one's presence...