Clang—
The knight's sword, coated in Armament Haki, crashed against a western blade that bore no Haki.
A violent shockwave burst from the two edges.
It became a gale, whipping Karl's and Rayleigh's hair.
"What monstrous strength…"
A faint numbness tingled up Rayleigh's wrist, and his expression shifted again.
He had meant to test Karl's Haki by meeting blades and had underestimated the brute force housed in that body.
After his second evolution, even a slight burst of speed made Karl's feet splinter the ground.
A serious punch could pulverize a hill, make a Warlord-class foe like Gecko Moria vomit blood, and knock him out cold.
If he swung the knight's sword in earnest without Haki, anything it touched would break, and the sword's own mass wouldn't matter.
Rayleigh had gotten cocky, using an uncoated weapon to block Karl's cut; like a giant taking a slap from Charlotte Linlin, anyone not standing at the very summit would feel more than numbness—they'd snap their wrist on the spot.
Without a moment's hesitation, Rayleigh wrapped his blade in Armament Haki.
That quality of Haki, far above Karl's, turned Karl's split-second edge in the clash into a loss the next instant as an unseen jolt knocked the knight's sword aside.
Even Karl's rooted stance, steady enough to stop a small sloop's ram without budging, stumbled back several steps.
"Uncle, you're as strong as I thought."
Since age nine, Karl hadn't felt himself forced back. Staring at Rayleigh, the strongest foe he'd ever faced, his fighting will surged to the limit.
Before the elder could speak, Karl shifted from one hand to two on the hilt and chopped down from above.
Swoosh—
Unlike a swordsman's blue flying slash, a black slash born of brute force twisting the air and fed with Haki ripped out from Karl.
It carried a tearing force, carving a deep gouge along the ground as it roared at Rayleigh.
"Not a flying slash, yet stronger than one. A familiar déjà vu."
On Karl's form, Rayleigh seemed to glimpse the shadow of Charlotte Linlin.
Faced with a black slash even supernovas would avoid, Rayleigh merely flicked it up with a light lift of his Haki-coated blade. It blossomed into a black halo overhead, bursting every bubble in the area.
In raw physique, Rayleigh might not match the gifted Karl.
But in swordcraft, the great swordsman's answers were too many to count.
Karl saw that at a glance.
Finding the blade got him nowhere against Rayleigh, Karl sheathed it at once. Haki-wrapped iron fists clenched, he unleashed his top speed, turning into an afterimage as he burst for Rayleigh.
"What speed…"
Rayleigh's pupils tightened. He immediately used Observation Haki, reading Karl's motion.
His sensing spread, and in his sight a fist swelled—small compared to the true monsters, yet holding a power not beneath them, a blow that could shatter rock ridges and crush the earth.
"Unmatched power and speed. If I take it head-on, it won't be pleasant."
Rayleigh truly admired it.
Yet he didn't evade as he had the Gale Burst Shot. He even put away his blade and raised a hand to catch Karl's punch straight on.
Once landed, Karl's blows blasted air cannons; even a freak body like Gecko Moria's would topple in one strike, yet Rayleigh's base didn't shift at all.
The fist didn't even get the chance to vent its shockwave. A force above it smothered the surge and pressed it back.
On Rayleigh's palm a golden, flowing Haki had appeared.
"…"
Seeing that flowing Haki, Karl blinked, and for a split second his gaze went blank.
Rayleigh, not noticing, pushed lightly after receiving the punch. Karl shot backward at the same speed he'd come, tumbling two to three hundred meters.
"Karl…"
For the first time seeing Karl knocked flying, Carina finally looked truly anxious.
If not for Karl's earlier warning, the usually rational girl would already have dropped the barrier and rushed in.
"Hey… I'm fine."
Dust had only just risen when Karl's voice and figure came out of it.
Facing Rayleigh, who now seemed to stand in another dimension of strength, Karl's smile didn't fade—it deepened. "Uncle, thanks. You just revealed my second trait."
"?"
About to praise Karl's defense, Rayleigh paused.
Then even he couldn't keep a straight face at what he saw.
"Thank you for teaching me a higher application of Haki."
The same golden, flowing Haki wrapped Karl's fists.
It was the advanced use of Armament Haki—emission.
"...Monster."
Hearing Karl, Rayleigh finally let the word slip.
He was sure that moments ago Karl's Armament was only hardening and coating.
But now the Haki rolling on those fists layered like waves, ready to burst into a shockwave that could smash anything, or fling away a beast countless times his size.
The wrap matched exactly what Rayleigh had used to fling Karl with ease.
Though he disliked admitting it, Rayleigh had to accept that Karl had learned Armament Haki emission.
Just as Karl said, he'd taught him the trick.
To learn an advanced Haki application at a glance—what else but a monster?
The shock was so great that Rayleigh ignored Karl's mention of a second trait.
As for Karl, he finally knew it.
That punch being stopped had stunned him. Someone had blocked him head-on.
As the Pirate King's right hand, who in his prime could thrash a still-growing Marco with one finger, Rayleigh's age scarcely dulled his might.
There was more than one way for a man who swam the Calm Belt to catch Karl's punch.
The reason Karl had gone blank was that when Rayleigh used emission, something changed inside his body.
In a heartbeat, his mind replayed Rayleigh's Haki emission again and again.
It was as if he dissected Rayleigh's body.
From surface to within, Karl's own body and cells automatically mirrored the state Rayleigh used for emission.
And then—
The technique of Armament Haki emission surfaced naturally in Karl's mind.
No grinding practice. Learned in an instant.
His second trait was revealed—Absolute Comprehension.
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