OP: AMP Ch. 224

"Think Luffy can beat Shiki?"

Sanji asked, cigarette dangling from his lips as he surveyed the battlefield.

Zoro pulled off his bandana without even glancing in Sanji's direction. "Who knows."

"I believe Luffy can definitely do it!" Bon Kurei chimed in cheerfully, even though he was still trading tail-hammer blows with the guy transformed into an ankylosaurus.

The almost bored tone of their conversation stood in sharp contrast to the loud thwack thwack thwack of hammering coming from behind them.

The ankylosaurus' expression had gone from confident to grim.

As a Zoan user, an Ancient Zoan at that, he possessed ridiculous durability. Against Bon Kurei, who seemed evenly matched with him, he wasn't losing ground at all. Hell, he was even slightly suppressing the okama. If this kept up, he was confident he could fight for an entire day without breaking a sweat.

Of course, that also meant he'd be stuck here for an entire day, which was less than ideal. To deal with this guy who wouldn't leave him alone, he could only pin his hopes on backup. As long as someone came to support him, the current stalemate would shift massively in his favor.

But where were his teammates?

Taken out. Just like that.

His heart sank. Neither the curly-brow cook nor the moss-headed swordsman seemed to have any intention of jumping in for a "righteous" three-on-one beatdown. While he felt relieved they weren't ganging up on him, he also felt insulted that they were looking down on him so blatantly.

He currently had the advantage. Couldn't they see that?

If those two idiots didn't interfere, then once Indigo or the others finished their fights, these Straw Hats would still be screwed. He was an Ancient Zoan ankylosaurus! Tough as nails with absurd endurance! As long as he could find an opening...

"I think it's kinda uncertain. Luffy's abilities haven't been enhanced like ours have," Shira said softly as she walked over to join them, gazing up at the sky.

Behind her, a gigantic hornet was frozen inside what looked like a massive transparent mushroom, though calling it a mushroom was generous. It looked more like a block of ice.

"What?!"

The ankylosaurus stared at the scene in complete disbelief. Fine, those two men had Haki and freakishly tough bodies, so them defeating enemies quickly made sense. But this gentle-looking woman had also finished her opponent that fast?

But then he let out a breath of relief. At least she wasn't joining the fight against him.

Then came the annoyance. Even women were looking down on him now? He was the one with the advantage here!

The ankylosaurus fell silent, doing nothing but swinging his hammer.

"When we came up here, I heard him say he'd figured something out. He should be able to handle it," Alvida said as she emerged from a ruined building, carrying her mace over her shoulder.

She glanced once at the ongoing battle between the ankylosaurus and Bon Kurei, then planted her mace into the ground and turned her attention to the sky, completely ignoring the fight.

The ankylosaurus stared.

No... The tide could still turn! Just wait until he mounted a comeback!

ROAR!

A dragon's roar echoed across the battlefield.

A pillar of flame erupted from the corridor, sweeping past and barely grazing the ankylosaurus' forehead. The heat was so intense it singed his scales. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

Then he heard a piercing scream of agony.

He glanced over and saw the boxer, the one wearing brass knuckles, now completely engulfed in flames. The man desperately slapped at the fire consuming his body, but the flames clung to him like they were alive, impossible to extinguish. Even rolling on the ground did nothing. The fire just kept burning, hotter and brighter.

In the end, under the scorching blaze, the man gradually transformed into a blackened, smoking corpse. And the one responsible for all this carnage was that fragile-looking girl from before.

Except when the ankylosaurus looked again, she wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a dragon. The fire faded, and the dragon quietly shrank down, reverting back into a girl about 1.6 meters tall.

"I did it!" Kira cried out excitedly as she ran over to the gathered group.

Alvida smiled and ruffled Kira's hair affectionately. "Told you that you could do it."

"Mm!"

The ankylosaurus looked at the crew, who still hadn't spared him a single glance even after all that.

Complete silence filled his mind.

Every route to victory had just collapsed. Was this some kind of joke? If he could, he'd turn around and leave this instant. Screw his pride.

They were "elite" pirates who had traveled all the way from the Four Blues! A grand fleet formed from countless pirate crews. They were infamous pirates with bounties over a hundred million berries.

Even in their home Blues, they'd been big names, feared and respected. And yet... they were being defeated this easily in the first half of the Grand Line? Crushed by a bunch of small-time pirates who looked like complete nobodies?

How was this fair?

The ankylosaurus' composure shattered entirely.

---

High above, in the open sky, Shiki looked down at Luffy, who was struggling to climb higher using Geppo.

"So this is your solution?" he bit down on his cigar, not caring in the slightest as his subordinates were defeated below. "From the look of it, you're not very proficient."

He studied the Straw Hat crew with eyes full of admiration.

With just a handful of people, they had utterly demolished the pirate forces he'd publicly gathered from across the world. Warriors he'd personally selected and trained. With this kind of strength, even if placed in the New World, or hell, even back during the era of his youth, they would be rising stars destined for greatness. Given just a little time, every single one of them could grow to the level of today's Four Emperors.

They might even surpass monsters like Kaido and Big Mom.

Yet compared to those dazzling crewmates, this captain seemed painfully ordinary.

Reckless, unable to read situations, and no tactical mind whatsoever.

Watching Luffy struggle to even chain his Geppo steps together properly, he shook his head in disappointment.

"I truly don't understand why he chose you," Shiki said, smoke drifting from his cigar. "With his abilities and talent, even in the New World he'd be someone the Four Emperors would fiercely compete to recruit. Any of them would kill to have him on their crew."

Over the past few days, he had been shocked by Marcus' talent and potential, and then came the regret.

So young, with outstanding Conqueror's Haki that rivaled even Roger's in its early stages. Solid swordsmanship fundamentals. And most impressively, his Haki improved noticeably every single day, like he was absorbing combat experience at an accelerated rate.

Why would such a brilliant young man choose this idiot as his captain?

These past few days, he had watched them extensively through Surveillance Den Den Mushi footage. Not only did this Straw Hat brat lack a captain's commanding presence, he could even be called childish. There was no visible ambition either, no grand vision.

Powerhouses like Rocks D. Xebec had possessed lofty ambitions and intricate schemes. It was the kind of strategic thinking that separated legends from footnotes in history books. But as a captain, shouldn't you at least have some kind of presence? Some aura of leadership?

Yet this Straw Hat kid... where was any of that?

Luffy misstepped, nearly plummeting from the sky, and flailed about trying to regain his balance.

"Mm... this is really hard to control," he said, one hand clamping down on his straw hat to keep it from flying off, the other desperately trying to stabilize himself.

His feet went puff puff puff as he kicked the air. He was being extremely cautious, one could even say completely focused on not falling.

"Yeah, you're right. Marcus is amazing," he said suddenly, lowering the brim of his hat to hide his eyes. "He's crazy strong, he can make food appear out of nowhere, and he's got all kinds of fun gadgets. Even the ship we're sailing on now... he helped build most of it. If it weren't for him, maybe I wouldn't have made it this far."

Seeing Luffy suddenly speak with such melancholy, Shiki raised an eyebrow, finding the shift strange.

"It's good that you understand your limitations. Why not hand him over to me? I can give him a bigger stage—"

"I refuse!" Luffy's grin split his face wide open. "Since he chose me as his captain, then I have to live up to his expectations! I'm gonna be the Pirate King!"

"You?" Shiki raised one hand.

From the ground thousands of meters below them, countless streams of clear seawater suddenly surged upward, defying gravity as they spiraled toward the sky.

"You can barely stay airborne, and you think you're qualified to become Pirate King?"

Shiki's mocking laughter echoed across the battlefield, but Luffy's expression didn't change.

His eyes tracked the water lions rising from the ground below. Last time, this technique had beaten him. Shiki had only needed to temporarily give the Sea Clouds special properties, and that alone had been enough to defeat him. Now they were fighting on Shiki's home turf, where everything was under his control.

For most Devil Fruit users, seawater was a death sentence. Touch it and you lost all your strength, became helpless as a newborn. But Luffy wasn't most Devil Fruit users anymore. Thanks to enchantments, seawater boosted his abilities instead of draining them.

This time, he'd bothered to wear the diamond armor for protection.

Before, he hadn't worn it not because it was uncomfortable, but because he'd stupidly thought it would be unfair to his opponents. Real naive thinking, and he'd paid the price for it.

Shiki looked at Luffy, who appeared to be standing there doing nothing. His confidence wasn't just arrogance, it was backed by decades of combat experience. He could control massive amounts of material and slam it down on his enemies. Even a great swordsman who'd learned advanced Armament Haki techniques would struggle against formless water. Sure, you could cut it, shatter it into droplets... but so what?

He only needed to keep the outer layer of water intact enough to hold its shape. As long as that seawater-wrapped mass landed on a Devil Fruit user, they became a lamb waiting for slaughter.

Non-Devil Fruit users were slightly more troublesome since he couldn't just envelop them directly in seawater. But if their Haki wasn't strong enough, he'd just crush them with sheer mass instead.

Roger had been the exception to all of it. Pure swordsmanship combined with unmatched Haki. He was an opponent Shiki couldn't defeat easily. And one of the few warriors he'd actually respected. And that man had let himself get captured by Marines and executed. It still didn't make any sense.

Shiki snapped back to the present and studied the Straw Hat kid. He knew Luffy and his crew came from the East Blue.

He closed his fingers.

The water lions under his control roared and surged toward Luffy, who was apparently still spacing out in midair.

Shiki turned to leave. No point watching the rest, the outcome was already decided. Once a Devil Fruit user got wrapped in seawater, they'd lose all their strength and collapse into helplessness.

Pop.

A weird sound cut through the air.

His eyes narrowed. His Observation Haki screamed danger from behind. He twisted his head around and was shocked to see a steaming red fist appear right in front of his face.

Fast. Damn fast.

He managed to tilt his head at the last second, and the steam-shrouded fist grazed past his cheek.

He'd watched the kid get completely enveloped by his water lions. Had Luffy released a massive burst of steam at the instant of contact, creating an air pocket to protect himself? If so, it wasn't impossible, but the timing would've had to be perfect.

A hint of excitement flickered in his eyes.

Both his hands flared with power, three water lions materialized on his left, three earth lions on his right.

When water and earth mixed together, they became mud. Under his control, the water could still drain Devil Fruit users while the muddy mixture provided massive resistance. Escaping wouldn't be so easy this time.

In an instant, Luffy's fists became a blur as steam erupted from his body. The six lions were smashed to pieces before they could even get close.

This time, the broken chunks didn't reform.

Shiki raised an eyebrow. The kid had already figured out the weakness?

The Float-Float Fruit could make objects levitate, but controlling those objects depended on them maintaining their "object" status. Make an apple float, then shatter that apple completely, and the floating property became invalid.

Put simply: if you destroyed something to the point it was no longer recognizable as an "object," his ability stopped working on it.

As long as something retained some semblance of form, his power could repair and control it indefinitely, especially formless materials like water and earth.

His grin widened as he pressed his palms together. "You're fighting on my territory. That means you're fighting the earth itself."

The ground beneath them transformed, the fortress structure warping as a massive lion's maw began to take shape.

"Oh, and your friends are still down there, by the way." His smile turned vicious.

He was a legendary pirate, but he was also a complete bastard. In battle, he'd use any tactic to win. He had zero hesitation about any of it, and he sure as hell didn't care about fighting fair.

The earth began to deform with grinding sounds. It was like watching a sleeping lion wake up, opening its enormous jaws to devour everything in its path.

Everyone in the fortress below panicked as the ground started shaking violently. Debris flew in all directions. Massive fangs of stone and earth rose into the sky.

"If you've got a problem, come at me!" Luffy shouted.

Last time, he'd lost while trying to protect his crew. This was the same situation all over again. But he wasn't panicking like before. He had only one target: defeat the man in front of him.

"Jet Gatling!"

Luffy vanished from sight.

Geppo wasn't particularly fast for aerial movement, but in his current state, he exploded forward with shocking speed.

Shiki's Observation Haki detected the movement, but his body couldn't react fast enough. You can see an attack coming and still not be able to dodge it.

A kid who'd been struggling just to chain Geppo steps together suddenly moving this fast? Who could've predicted that?

WHAM.

He took Luffy's punch straight to the face.

But the attack didn't end there. Luffy didn't let up for even a second. Punch after punch rained down like a machine gun. Steam poured off his body as he unleashed everything he had.

BAM BAM BAM BAM.

The explosive sounds of impact echoed across the sky.

But Shiki didn't dodge.

His entire body was coated in Armament Haki, hardened to the point where Luffy's barrage did nothing. The fists hammered against him like rain on stone... loud, but ineffective.

Luffy noticed this, and his expression grew serious. A new sensation spread across his hands as a faint shimmer appeared over his fists.

Armament Haki was the path to becoming a real powerhouse. Marcus couldn't just enchant that onto someone, it had to be earned through combat.

Luffy had first touched the threshold of Armament back during his fight with Crocodile. But the battles since then hadn't pushed him hard enough to develop it further. Now, facing a monster like Shiki, he could feel just how outclassed he was. Shiki's Haki was so strong that even with the diamond armor protecting him, he could feel pain radiating through his knuckles with every punch.

The gap was obvious. Armament Haki at this level wasn't something an ordinary person could endure, let alone break through.

He gritted his teeth and kept swinging.