"Pfft…"
A cloud of blood sprayed from Vito's mouth. His internal organs had ruptured, and his chest had caved in grotesquely.
If not for the power of his Devil Fruit, injuries like these would've meant instant death for any normal person, he'd be scheduling his own funeral.
And this was just the result of a single hit from the rhinoceros.
For the first time, Vito truly experienced what it meant to be on the brink of death.
"…What a huge payoff. I should be able to apply this next time."
He clenched his fists, bones audibly cracking and shifting back into place.
Even though they were broken, his muscle fibers pulled them tight, holding them steady until regeneration caught up. The gaping wounds across his body closed in real time.
So that's how it works, my regeneration actually speeds up in response to the severity of the damage.
This ability is ridiculously overpowered... it's basically cheating.
By now, his body had fully recovered.
In fact, his life force was more vigorous than ever before.
"Then… like this…"
He concentrated on the sensation he'd felt earlier and summoned that same power.
An invisible force wrapped around his fist, subtle, but present.
It was Haki.
Armament Haki.
His lips curled upward with barely contained excitement.
It was basic, raw, unrefined. But it was real.
With this, Vito had finally stepped through the door.
He had officially earned the ticket to become strong.
Armament Haki didn't have strict divisions, but techniques like Ryuo (Flowing Haki) and internal destruction were just different levels of application.
From what Vito had pieced together from the anime, he divided Armament Haki into three stages:
> Stage One: Coating , Wrapping the body with Haki, turning the skin pitch-black and hard. Most users fell within this range.
> Stage Two: Flowing , Instead of just coating, the Haki flows across the body. It boosts both offense and defense, like wearing an invisible armor.
> Stage Three: Penetration , Taking that flow and sharpening it further. Haki seeps into the target, destroying it from within.
Now that he'd awakened it, Vito wasn't going to waste time.
He bent his knees and charged straight at the rhino.
BOOM!
He slammed into it head-on.
The rhino barely flinched.
Its fortress-like frame didn't even budge.
And when it retaliated, the counterattack shattered the Haki coating on Vito's body, nearly breaking his bones again.
"Tch… My half-baked Haki's still too weak.
No wonder the top beasts on this island are part of the two-year timeskip training arc. This is next-level difficulty."
Still, Vito kept pressing the attack.
He couldn't do real damage yet, but every clash was another step in tempering his Haki, just like forging steel.
He was the raw ore.
The rhino was the hammer.
And battle was the fire.
...
The sun dipped low.
Crimson sunset painted the sky in flame.
Vito had lost count of how many times he'd charged in and been knocked flying.
Even with his boundless stamina and rapid regeneration, this was nothing short of self-inflicted torture.
The rhino only needed one hit to pulverize him.
Vito's body healed, but the pain?
That was real.
The rhino, too, was beginning to show signs of fatigue, but Vito still had no realistic chance of winning.
Its defense is insane. Even with Armament Haki, I'm barely scratching it.
No wonder Luffy needed Gear Fourth to take these monsters down…
After all, Vito was still just a ten-year-old kid. The fact that he could even spar with top-tier beasts like this was already insane.
If he were able to win, that would be even more unbelievable.
He now fully understood the despair the Red Scabbards must've felt fighting Kaido.
That beast's raw defense was undoubtedly beyond this rhino's,
And Kaido had a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit on top of that.
Mythical Zoan + monstrous body =
Most people never even get the chance to damage him.
Even Luffy had to awaken the ridiculous powers of the Nika Fruit just to finally win.
Vito had no such trump card.
Right now, he had no way of landing a decisive blow.
Neither side could defeat the other, so the fight ended in a deadlock.
...
Another month passed.
In the forest, bundled tree trunks, dozens of times larger than Vito, rose and fell in rhythm with his squats.
"1658… 1659… 2000!"
THUD!
Vito dropped the massive logs to the ground, leaving behind two deep pits where his feet had stood.
His growth in the past month had been startling.
His height had shot up. His hair, too, had grown longer, now flowing down like Rayleigh's signature look.
It was a side effect of his Life-Life Fruit.
Just as Luffy's rubber body had high resistance to blunt trauma and electricity,
Vito's metabolism ran at a supercharged pace.
Nails, hair, everything grew faster.
If he ever became a food streamer, he'd basically be a natural-born Mukbang monster.
With practiced ease, he tied up his hair, used a smooth branch as a makeshift hairpin, and secured it into a short ponytail.
Hah…
He exhaled slowly and raised his fist.
As Armament Haki flowed over it, his once-fair skin turned pitch-black, shimmering with a metallic sheen.
"Finally… some real progress."
His grin stretched wide.
He was itching to get back into battle, with the rhino.
And this time? He wasn't going in to get beaten up.
He blew his bone whistle.
The tiger came bounding toward him, wind howling in its wake.
After receiving multiple infusions of Vito's life energy, the beast had grown massive.
Not just in size, its strength had skyrocketed.
Having watched countless battles between Vito and the rhino, it had even learned the basics of Inch Force techniques.
Recently, it had defeated the giant lion in a pure brawl.
Vito's last month had been hellish.
He added extra weights to every exercise. If it didn't kill him, it wasn't enough.
"Should have better odds this time…"
But when he went to look for the rhino,
What he found instead stopped him cold.
A crimson mammoth.
Its body towered over every creature he'd seen so far. It was so massive, so overwhelming, it was no longer a beast.
It was a monster.
The mammoth wrapped its trunk around the rhino.
Lifted it.
Slammed it down.
The ground cratered instantly. Trees shattered from the shockwave.
The rhino's eyes rolled back, it passed out immediately.
And then,
The mammoth's blood-red gaze turned.
Locking onto Vito.
Who was sitting astride his tiger.
//----------------------------------------------------//
//--- Add to Collection!
//--- 150 P.S = 1 Extra Chapter