Marineford, on the Coastal Sandy Beach.
Sephiroth darted towards the charging Akainu, swiftly channeling Armament Haki into both of his swords.
A moment later, a surging red magma fist collided violently with the pitch-black Butcher Knife.
Boom!
A powerful wave of Armament Haki suddenly erupted from their point of collision, forming a devastating energy shockwave that spread in all directions.
Sand danced wildly, all the trees on the beach bent and were thrown backward. Even the nearby white waves crashing on the sand were pushed back, forming a large arc...
Sephiroth felt the strong Armament Haki continuously emanating from Akainu's fist, and he couldn't help but feel a chill in his heart.
So strong!
Even though he had the Butcher Knife to enhance his Haki's power, he still couldn't manage to cut his opponent!
Therefore, Sephiroth had no intention of competing with Akainu in Haki strength. The latter was twenty-one years older than him and had trained Haki for a duration presumably longer than Sephiroth's entire age!
In terms of Haki power, the other party was superior to him. And in terms of Haki storage capacity, the other party was clearly far superior to him...
Uh-huh!
Sephiroth slashed at Akainu's waist ribs at an extremely tricky angle with his left hand, forcing the opponent to choose to retreat and dodge, otherwise, he would be directly split in half.
Akainu had predicted Sephiroth's attack in advance through his Observation Haki, and elementalized to dodge, making the opponent's attack directly ineffective.
Uh-huh!
The Butcher Knife in Sephiroth's hand suddenly cut through the void and slashed towards Akainu's chest.
However, already predicting the future, Akainu retreated again in his form and performed a localized elementalization that allowed the Butcher Knife to only leave a scratch on his chest.
Seeing this, Sephiroth's eyes narrowed slightly. The Butcher Knife's attack was thwarted, something he had long expected.
After all, that attack method of his was used to bluff people who didn't react fast enough, or who lacked high-level knowledge and Observation Haki. It could be considered a surprise victory, but when the strength reached Akainu's level, these small tricks weren't enough!
However, Sephiroth had no hope of succeeding at all; he was just trying to maintain distance with his opponent!
Roar!
Sephiroth let out a monstrous roar, and with his black wings spread from his back, he rapidly ascended to a height of two and a half meters.
Life Return: Paper Drawing Body!
The explosive muscles on Sephiroth's body began to writhe and tighten, and in a burst of skeletal cracks, he contracted to a height of about 2.6 meters.
He dramatically increased his speed at the expense of muscular strength!
After Akainu saw that Orc-like transformation, and the silver-haired youth's use of Life Return, there was a hint of approval in his tone:
"It seems your strength is a little stronger than I imagined, but..."
"The Marine doesn't need people like you who have a weak heart for justice!"
Hearing that, Sephiroth's eyes were indifferent, and the corner of his mouth outlined a slight sneer:
"Hah! You Red Dog who's used as a weapon, Major General, your absurd standard of justice, you force it on me."
"You old bastard! Worthy of giving me some advice?"
"I spit! You little wafer! Shit!..."
The two of them were ready to fight with all their might, but still kept cursing and messing around, looking for trouble...?
Before, Sephiroth didn't quite understand this kind of thing.
However, after he initially grasped the future-predicting Observation Haki, he sparred with Gion to make the opponent make mistakes.
He tried to use dirty words to disturb the other person's mind, so that he couldn't maintain inner peace, and thus couldn't use future-predicting Haki. Then he suddenly realized!
The act of constantly verbally abusing and even trash-talking during a fight, turned out to be a good auxiliary means...
As long as your mouth is strong enough, you can not only boost your morale, but also disrupt the other person's mind, make them make mistakes, and even greatly weaken their future-predicting Observation Haki.
Akainu was just trying to place himself in the highest moral ground to crush Sephiroth with momentum. It would be even better if he could make him agitated and make a fatal mistake!
However.
Sephiroth was not intimidated at all and chose to curse back directly!
After all, to think that he was also an existence as tough as Admiral Sakazuki, trying to break his defense with just a few words, that was just a dream.
Great "Breath of Fire!"
After hearing Sephiroth's string of curses, Akainu's eyes suddenly became fierce. His right arm rapidly turned into a huge lava fist composed of lava. The scorching heat distorted the air, and thick black smoke billowed.
As he swung his right fist so violently, a powerful wave of scorching air instantly spurted out, and the huge lava fist broke free from Akainu's right arm, and with a sharp sound tearing through the air, it shot towards the silver-haired youth holding two swords.
Cannot be connected directly!
In an instant, Sephiroth made a judgment in his heart. He took dozens of high-speed steps, performing Soru, dodging and rushing inland, avoiding the huge lava fist.
Boom-boom!
The burning, boiling magma fist shot into a distant hill, and exploded from within, with debris scattering and the ground shaking. The entire hill was instantly leveled.
If Akainu used this trick to bombard large ships at sea, it would basically be a one-hit kill, and no one could stop it!
As soon as Sephiroth's figure stood firm, Akainu, with boiling magma flowing all over his body, waved his fists and rushed over, punching one after another, and the attacks continued. Magma spurted out from both his fists as if boundless, and fell on the beach. He wanted to use this to force out the opponent's weakness and defeat him.
Although Akainu was a Logia-type Devil Fruit user with various extremely powerful offensive abilities, he preferred to use his ability to create magma and elevate his attack power to a higher level, rather than just spraying magma at will.
In fact, the three of them, Akainu, Aokiji, and Kizaru, were able to defeat most Lieutenant Generals even if they did not rely on their Devil Fruit abilities and only used Haki and Fighting Techniques (Taijutsu).
Zefa chastised Kizaru for relying too much on his Devil Fruit and not being able to perform physical skills, which was only relative to the other Admirals.
If a Devil Fruit ability was too strong, it would easily cause the user to form a dependency, and the same was true for Boa Marigold after acquiring the Goro Goro no Mi ability.
For three years, she only practiced Geppo among the Rokushiki to assist in battle, and did not practice many other movements.
Compared with her two elder sisters, who were proficient in Rokushiki, she was one or two levels behind in pure physical skills.
Sengoku was walking back to his office when a sudden message arrived from the distance. Boom! The loud noise instantly drew his attention, and the other Generals who were still in the headquarters building and hadn't fully left were also attracted.
Among the crowd, wearing a purple suit and short purple hair, Zefa immediately released his Observation Haki and extended it into the distance.
He tried to vaguely sense the direction of the explosion.
"It turns out to be Sephiroth and Sakazuki."
"Why did these two suddenly make such a big fuss?"
While muttering, Zefa performed Geppo and rushed into the air towards the beach in the distance.
Several Lieutenant Generals and Major Generals with strong physical skills also followed Zefa's example, using Geppo to prepare to go and see what was happening.
"Sephiroth and Sakazuki?"
Wearing a white suit and a white justice cloak, Sengoku raised his hand and pushed the glasses on the bridge of his nose. His eyes narrowed slightly, and countless doubtful thoughts flashed within his heart...
That coastal sandy beach was at least five or six kilometers away from the central office building.
It had only been two or three minutes since the meeting ended, how could the two of them suddenly appear so far away?
Was it Sephiroth's spatial transfer ability from the Bat-Bat Fruit?
So the question was, why did Akainu go there with Sephiroth?
The two probably didn't have any personal friendship, but now they had made such a big move, and it was highly probable that there was some conflict.
Could it be that Akainu was the first to act on Sephiroth, and the other chose to resist?
Thinking of this, Sengoku no longer suppressed his curiosity, and immediately performed Geppo and rushed towards the beach.
The white sandy beach was now riddled with magma-made pits, radiating scorching heat, and the sand grains in the pits appeared shattered.
The surrounding rocks and trees were severed by incessant sharp sword energy, and even the mountain peak in the distance tilted into two.
One red and one black, two figures on this beach, engaged in a fierce and extraordinary battle, and every time they collided, they were filled with an aura of destruction.
"Red Dog! You're the best knife in this inventory operation, and the only one benefiting is Sengoku and Kong. You'll only offend a bunch of people!"
"I know! Sengoku must have promised you that after this is over, you'll be promoted from acting Admiral to Admiral?"
"You're truly making a good choice!"
"This way you can save yourself a few years of struggle!"
Sephiroth's tone was full of ridicule and mockery, but with two dark and domineering Armament Haki-wrapped swords in his hands, he showed no hesitation at all. Like two vipers, with extremely intricate and sharp attacks, he tried to snatch the life of the enemy before him.
"Hmph!"
Akainu snorted coldly and did not answer Sephiroth's question. His fists, flowing with red magma, enveloped in orange-red flames, collided with the opponent's two swords.
When Akainu was young and first joined the Marine, he was a swordsman with a sword, and his achievements in swordsmanship were not low!
It was only later that he acquired the Magu Magu no Mi, which changed his fighting style and developed various more efficient killing techniques.
Therefore, Akainu, who was proficient in the art of swordsmanship, responded to and resolved Sephiroth's attacks by simplifying the complex, becoming skillful like clumsiness, and directly confronting him head-on, making it impossible for the opponent to display his extremely explosive and extraordinary sword skills. He could only directly compete with him for strength and Haki power!
When the silver-haired youth's Haki power was too exhausted and his successor was weak, that would be the time for him to win!
"Hmm!?"
Sephiroth suddenly noticed Akainu's momentary distraction. He immediately swung the Butcher Knife in his right hand and launched a blow that had been secretly accumulating momentum for a long time!