Tatsuki's pupils shook violently. He hadn't even been able to see this strike clearly, the tip of that red umbrella had already heavily pierced into his chest.
"Hmph!"
Tatsuki let out a muffled groan, a trail of blood overflowing from the corner of his lips.
However, far from retreating, a sharp light of success flashed in his eyes instead.
"Got you!"
His chest muscles, forged like steel, suddenly contracted and hardened, then were infused with high-density Armament Haki, death-gripping the umbrella tip that had entered his body.
"What?!"
A flash of astonishment once again crossed Redfield's eyes.
"You were careless!"
Tatsuki's empty left hand instantly clenched into a fist, immediately covered in Armament Haki. The pitch-black Haki was as thick as ink, entwined with the powerful force of Internal Destruction, and slammed solidly into Redfield's astonished face.
BOOM!
The flow of time seemed to slow down at this moment.
The high bridge of Redfield's nose instantly collapsed at a visible angle. His facial muscles underwent a wave-like distortion under the terrifying force, and teeth mixed with blood foam sprayed from his mouth.
Immediately following was an explosive sound that shook the world.
Redfield turned into a shrill red line, flying backward at a speed several times the speed of sound.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
His body successively smashed over a dozen reefs protruding from the sea before finally slamming into the mountain body of a medium-sized island five kilometers away.
Boom!
The entire mountain peak let out a pained wail and then collapsed with a roar, rolling dust obscuring the moonlight.
Life Return!
With a thought from Tatsuki, the muscles at the wound wriggled, stopping the bleeding and scabbing over. In a few moments, it had mostly recovered, leaving only a hideous scar.
Under the double enhancement of 90 points of monster-level Physique and Life Return, his recovery power had long since surpassed common sense.
In the distance, Redfield slowly walked out from the pile of rubble. His face had become even paler, and a trail of blood also overflowed from his mouth. He moved his jaw, the bones making a "clack clack" sound. Clearly, having taken Tatsuki's suicidal punch, he wasn't feeling well either.
"Cough..."
He spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, looking at that figure standing proudly with a blade in the distance.
"Good physique, good calculation... It's been a long time since anyone could wound me."
There was no longer the slightest bit of contempt in Redfield's eyes, replaced instead by an intense fighting spirit of having met his match.
"Brat, state your name."
Tatsuki flicked the blood droplets off Tensa Zangetsu, the blade pointing from afar at Redfield, his voice loud and clear, spreading across the entire sea area. "Remember it, I am the G-5 Base Commander, Tatsuki!"
"Also, the bill has been updated."
Tatsuki held up four fingers with a serious face. "Medical fees, passage fees, mental damage fees, plus the industrial injury compensation for that umbrella stab you just gave me."
"A total of four billion Berries!"
"Short by one berry, and even if G-5 is sunk today, don't think of leaving!"
Before his voice had even faded, Tatsuki's figure flashed, once again turning into a black lightning bolt pouncing toward Redfield.
Tensa Zangetsu swung, the black blade turning into an airtight offensive, every strike carrying the power to cleave mountains.
The umbrella in Redfield's hand danced like the wind, sometimes defending, sometimes counterattacking, engaging in a frantic exchange with Tatsuki.
The battlefield of the two had completely spiraled out of control. They fought from the sea surface to mid-air, and from mid-air to the distant group of deserted islands.
BOOM!
An uninhabited small island was forcibly torn apart by the Conqueror's Haki shockwaves of their clash. After a bout of violent shaking, half the island collapsed into the seabed, stirring up monstrous waves.
Crack!
Tatsuki slashed down, leveling the mountain top of another island. Redfield's umbrella tip counterattacked, carving a deep wound on his shoulder that reached the bone.
Getsuga Tenshō!
Tatsuki fought more and more wildly, his fighting spirit and Haki climbing to the peak. Holding the blade with both hands, a huge black crescent-shaped slash over a hundred meters long, carrying Haki compressed to the limit, roared straight at Redfield.
"Hmph!" Redfield snorted coldly.
Without retreating or evading, the umbrella in his hand suddenly spun, and an even more concentrated blood-colored full moon slash met it head-on.
RUMBLE!
The two terrifying slashes collided in the air, erupting in a deafening roar. The destructive shockwave completely leveled the third deserted island, turning it into a field of ruins.
Tatsuki's Haki continuously sublimated in these collisions that surpassed limits time and again, and the power of the Storm-Storm Fruit was also unconsciously integrated into every move and style by him.
Tensa Zangetsu's slash almost obscured half the sky.
"This madman... this monster... could his stamina be infinite?"
The umbrella in Redfield's hand trembled slightly from Tatsuki's slash. His breathing also began to become somewhat hurried.
—
Dawn broke, and dusk arrived once more.
A full day and night of slaughter.
The sea area where G-5 Branch was located had its geography completely rewritten.
The frozen sea surface was pierced through and then refrozen by Kuzan, who was watching from afar, a process that repeated a dozen times.
The distant desert islands had long since sunk to the seabed, turning into new reefs.
In the entire sea area, the geography was permanently altered under the clash of the two monsters.
Clang!
Tensa Zangetsu and the red umbrella collided again, sparks exploding like fireworks.
Redfield's breathing was no longer steady. His iconic wine-red suit had long been soaked in sweat, blood, and seawater, clinging to his body in tattered ruins. The muscles in the arm holding the red umbrella were trembling uncontrollably.
His experience, technique, and use of Haki were all textbook-level perfection. In the first half of the battle, he could rely on these to suppress Tatsuki.
But Tatsuki simply wasn't human. His stamina bar was nowhere near its end.
Every time he was hit, the wounds would wriggle and heal within a few seconds. Every time he seemed exhausted, the power he erupted with in the next second was even more ferocious than before.
What shocked Redfield even more was that Tatsuki's swordsmanship was growing at a speed visible to the naked eye during this extreme slaughter.
From the initial state of having plenty of ferocity but insufficient finesse, to now, every strike carried a terrifying sense of pressure.
And the most frustrating part was that, facing this madman, his trump card—Mind Reading—actually didn't work in the slightest.
In Tatsuki's head, besides 'making money' and 'grinding points,' there wasn't a single thought belonging to a normal swordsman.
Unable to predict moves, he was forced into this quagmire of pure stamina competition.