Clang.
Clang.
The heavy mechanical arm swung, emitting muffled thuds. The tall Zephyr walked towards Rorschach, stepping over shattered ruins.
Looking at the old figure radiating pain, struggle, and guilt, Rorschach felt a pang in his heart.
In this carefully woven, real beautiful dream, this old man was probably the one who least wanted to leave.
Zephyr's unwavering commitment to justice was undoubtedly the most tenacious among all Marines.
The hardships and struggles he had endured throughout his life would likely cause anyone else to suffer a mental breakdown and abandon their principles.
But Zephyr did not.
He still believed in justice, still wanted to protect this world that had brought him endless pain.
Yet, in that deep, unknown recess of his heart, this outwardly strong old man was ultimately just a husband who had lost his wife and son, and a teacher who had lost his students.
The students on whom he had placed his hopes were not merely students to him; Zephyr treated them as his own children.
The passage of time could not erase the profound guilt and longing in his heart.
Zephyr believed he was incompetent, unable to protect his wife and son, unable to protect his students.
As a Marine Admiral, he had protected countless civilians across the seas, defended nations plundered by pirates, yet he couldn't protect those he cherished.
If, if there was a chance for him to reunite with his deceased wife and son again.
If time could rewind.
"I really don't want to leave them again."
Zephyr looked up, his eyes filled with immense weariness as he looked at Rorschach, at his most cherished student.
The moment Rorschach met Zephyr's exhausted, cloudy gaze, he understood.
Zephyr's mind was not entirely controlled by that woman.
He was still struggling, unable to break free from that deeply engraved memory.
"Teacher Zephyr," Rorschach said softly.
Zephyr stopped about ten meters in front of him, nodding with a relieved expression, "Rorschach, you are even better than I imagined. It is my fortune to have taught such an excellent student in my final years."
He raised his heavy mechanical arm, "A truly excellent student needs to surpass their teacher. Come, defeat me, and let me see if your conviction, your determination, can carry the future of justice."
Rorschach was silent for a few seconds, gently placing the unconscious Hibari on the ground. His body shrank, returning to human form, and he cast a cold glance at the frozen Rhinoceros Beetle Giant.
"Please keep your distance. My mood is not good right now."
The giant's throat swallowed, and he very decisively turned and fled.
He felt that if he said no, he would instantly be pulverized and have no burial place.
"Teacher Zephyr, you must know that everything here is merely an illusion, though this illusion appears somewhat difficult to distinguish."
Rorschach's eyes showed an incredibly complex expression as he looked at Zephyr, who stood silently opposite him.
Zephyr looked at him with a weary expression, saying nothing.
Master and student stood silently facing each other like that.
For a long time.
Until, from a distance, a baby's cry echoed, as if striking a chord in Zephyr's heart. His cloudy eyes suddenly darkened.
Boom!
The ground shattered. The heavy mechanical arm pressed through the void, striking a punch towards Rorschach!
His long hair billowed in the wind from Zephyr's punch. Rorschach took a deep breath, exhaled, and on his right fist, deep blue Haki flowed, transforming into tangible armor, meeting the punch.
"Teacher Zephyr! Excuse me!"
Clang!
The massive mechanical arm vibrated violently, emitting a piercing hum. The moment their fists collided, a surging gust of wind swept in all directions, blowing shattered stones and dust.
Rorschach frowned slightly. The corner of his eye flickered towards Hibari and the others lying unconscious. Then he looked at Zephyr opposite him, whose eyes had turned a dark hue. He steeled his heart, and his body rapidly expanded in sections. The violent power within him surged madly towards Zephyr, who had raised his mechanical arm, like a bursting mountain torrent, unstoppable.
A right leg as thick as a stone pillar supporting an ancient palace, churning the vacuum, gathered a massive slash hundreds of meters wide, which Rorschach kicked out, slicing Zephyr across the waist.
Black Armament Haki encased Zephyr's entire body. The Super Rankyaku Rorschach unleashed couldn't break through his high-level Armament Haki defense in a short time.
But the immense force sent Zephyr flying through the air like a cannonball, exploding backward.
Rorschach's imposing figure, like a demon or a god, followed closely. His giant arm, over four meters long and bulging with muscles, crushed the void and tore the atmosphere, creating ripples of air in mid-air as he pursued Zephyr's retreating body, grabbing down from above.
His colossal size and terrifying aura made Rorschach captivating, like a demon god emerging from a bloody battlefield.
But this time, his opponent was Zephyr!
Zephyr had lived a life of constant battle. How rich was his combat experience?
With a bang, Zephyr's backward-flying body abruptly stopped. He stomped his foot, and the air exploded in a wave, pushing his body back with a burst, narrowly dodging Rorschach's terrifying Kirin claw. A kick, imbued with Armament Haki, landed on Rorschach's armpit.
With a dull thud like a drum, Rorschach's colossal body was sent flying dozens of meters by Zephyr's kick.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Puffs of white air continuously exploded beneath Zephyr's feet, propelling his body to accelerate wildly, drawing a refracted trajectory in mid-air, and launching a punch towards Rorschach's throat.
Rorschach blocked with his arm across his body, while simultaneously, thick beams of lightning energy continuously surged from within him, blasting towards Zephyr.
Dozens of meters up in the air, the atmosphere became thick and chaotic, like stirred seawater. Zephyr's heavy mechanical arm slammed down, and Rorschach below was like an anvil under a pile driver, slammed down into the town below.
Rumble!
In the massive explosion, the town within the basin was struck as if by a meteorite from the sky. Houses were easily blown apart and broken like paper, the hard ground rolled and undulated like waves, and thousands of tons of dirt surged into the high sky.
Zephyr, who had smashed Rorschach down from the sky with a punch, was also not doing well. His tall body was continuously bombarded by dazzling lightning bolts, making the Armament armor covering his body tremble incessantly.
The exploding electric arcs illuminated the dark sky above the town brightly.
The flickering candlelight that had previously lit the basin had already been extinguished when Rorschach unleashed his violent winds. If not for the current lightning burst, this mist-shrouded island would have been completely dark.
Allowing the lightning to strike, Zephyr descended, pressing down his mechanical arm, and smashed towards the giant rising from the crater below.
"Smash Blaster!"
The heavy metal giant arm vibrated with a humming sound. Black Haki flowed and intertwined around its metal surface, erupting with mountain-like might as it slammed down.
Rorschach bared his teeth, similarly clenching his huge fist. With a heaven-supporting stance, he unleashed a punch from below, aiming at Zephyr's descending fist.
"Smash! Blaster!"
The same moves, the same aura. The two fists, one above and one below, collided like comets, as if to shatter this endless darkness.
Boom!
A sky-shattering roar exploded above the entire island, reverberating far and wide across the vast sea of the Calm Belt, like thunder.
Two fists, one large and one small, stood in a deadlock in the air. Terrifying power surged in waves from both bodies, impacting and vibrating against each other.
The ground where Rorschach stood trembled violently, cracking open with large fissures, and the entire island shook.
He felt a sharp pain in his fist, followed by a feeling of weakness spreading throughout his body from his fist, preventing him from maintaining his beast transformation.
It was Seastone!
Zephyr's mechanical arm was infused with a large amount of Seastone ore, specially developed by the Marine's scientific unit as a weapon against Devil Fruit users.
The mechanical arm, striking down from above, with the enhancement of high-level Haki, was like a sharp nail, breaking through Rorschach's immensely thick deep blue Haki, allowing the Seastone claw to press onto his fist's surface.
In terms of Haki quality alone, Zephyr at this moment clearly surpassed him.
However...
"Deep Blue Armament!"
Rorschach roared, forcing himself to endure the weakness that threatened to undo his transformation. He unleashed the Armament Haki within him, blasting it towards Zephyr above.
Invisible air currents swirled, similarly forming a solid air shield, which, along with the torrent of deep blue Haki emanating from Rorschach's fist, slammed heavily into Zephyr.
In a deafening roar, crimson blood spurted from between Zephyr's teeth. His entire mechanical arm vibrated incessantly, as if it could fall apart at any moment from Rorschach's violent Haki impact.
The immense power bonus from the Mythical Zoan, even Zephyr, an Admiral, could not stop. Rorschach sent him rocketing into the sky with a single punch.
Rorschach squatted his legs, winds swirling around his body, and thick tendons in his calves tensed and bulged.
Rumble!
The ground exploded, dust and smoke rose, and a violent figure shot into the sky, swinging countless massive fist shadows with both arms, striking at the retreating Zephyr like a sudden storm.
"Smash Short Strike!"
Zephyr spat out a bloody phlegm, stopping his ascent. His eyes widened, and he simultaneously launched countless fist shadows from his heavy mechanical arm and left arm towards Rorschach, who was chasing him from below.
"Smash Short Strike!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The dense succession of punches was incessant, like rain hitting banana leaves, or oil cooking on a raging fire.
The same moves, yet the effects produced by master and disciple were completely different.
The experienced Zephyr aimed every punch at Rorschach's weakest defensive points.
His continuous attacks contained not only immense power but also advanced combat techniques.
Rorschach, on the other hand, relied on his terrifying physique and profound Haki, unleashing punches imbued with his conviction through absolute power.
If he were fighting Kaido, who also favored this fighting style, Rorschach's attacks would undoubtedly be fully absorbed by Kaido, who would then counter with even more brute force.
But his opponent was Zephyr, and Rorschach suddenly felt a sense of emptiness, as if his punches weren't landing.
His brute strength had nowhere to vent, making him increasingly irritable, and the speed at which he swung his arms only increased.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Amidst a series of explosions, master and disciple furiously clashed, causing the air to violently churn and roar incessantly.
Rorschach's strength was incredibly brute, but Zephyr's attacks focused on his wrist joints. The destructive vibration of his Armament Haki continuously broke through Rorschach's Haki defense, blasting into his body and numbing Rorschach's arms.
Zephyr's punches and Haki were like nails, constantly piercing his Haki defense.
If not for his sheer amount of Haki, Zephyr's mechanical arm, forged from Seastone, would probably have touched his body's surface again by now.
"Strength, is not necessarily better if it's stronger. If overly powerful, without perfect control, one becomes a slave to that power. How to make one part of strength deliver two or three parts of striking effect is what you should earnestly learn and master."
During their continuous exchange of punches, Rorschach's mind suddenly recalled Zephyr's teachings from Marineford.
At that time, with the immense power and defensive amplification of his Mythical Zoan, Rorschach had been somewhat arrogant, always refuting Zephyr with arguments like "one force breaks all techniques."
Zephyr told him that the premise of "one force breaks all techniques" was that your strength had to be powerful enough, so powerful that there was a tenfold or hundredfold gap in combat power with your opponent, allowing you to defeat them by ignoring any combat techniques.
Like an Admiral facing a Vice Admiral or a Rear Admiral.
Naturally, they could achieve an overwhelming victory with one move.
But when the strength of the enemy and oneself was similar, then combat techniques and experience became the key to victory.
A true strong person should be able to win against the strong with less strength, rather than overpowering others with brute force.
As they fought, Rorschach suddenly realized that Zephyr's attacks carried clear intentions of guidance and tempering.
Each time Zephyr struck a weak point in his Haki, Rorschach would immediately use his Haki to compress and fill the gap.
His own enormous punches, seemingly deflected by Zephyr's attacks, were actually being corrected by Zephyr, allowing his punches to unleash even greater explosive power.
Feeling this, Rorschach's heart warmed, and he sighed again.
Amidst the thunderous roars of their clash, the two fought from the air to the ground. Wherever they passed, the earth collapsed, rock layers shattered, and houses and streets turned to dust.
Rorschach felt that the precision of his punches was becoming increasingly refined.
His use of Haki also became smoother and more powerful.
Just as the two were fighting, causing the air to vibrate and roar, crashing into the towering cliff walls at the edge of the basin and stirring up a sky full of dust, Zephyr's dark eyes suddenly became perfectly clear. He let out a long cry, stomped his foot, and the ground beneath him instantly collapsed and shattered downwards. A terrifying force pushed him upwards like a cannonball, and he directly blasted his heavy mechanical arm towards a certain direction high up on the cliff face!
And Rorschach, after a moment of stunned silence, simultaneously thrust his right hand, entwined with electric light, into his own chest. A violent and furious aura erupted from his mountain-like body. Faster than Zephyr, he drew a shining arc in the air and blasted a deep blue Haki-infused lightning storm towards the void where no enemy was visible.
The battling master and disciple almost simultaneously ceased their attacks and unleashed their punches.
"Damn you, Zephyr! How dare you! I will send your wife, son, and students into an eternal dream purgatory!"
A shrill scream echoed from the void.
The next instant, the simultaneous attack from Zephyr and Rorschach seemed to shatter an invisible barrier. The air exploded, revealing a mountain-sized monster behind it.
And at this moment, this colossal monster's enormous body had been blasted open with flesh and blood by the master and disciple's single attack, revealing two bottomless holes of flesh!
(End of Chapter)
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