"You’re saying you sold me because you didn’t want Lord Oden to die with his eyes closed?"
Ashura Dōji’s expression twisted instantly. He gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and roared furiously.
"Very well. Very well! Then I’ll see exactly why Lord Oden would die with his eyes closed."
"Ryuo: Armor-Piercing Slash!"
The samurai sword in Ashura Dōji’s hands was instantly enveloped in immense Armament Haki.
The next moment, his entire body tensed to its limit.
Like a ferocious dragon bursting from the sea, he once again brought his sword crashing down toward Lucas.
Rumble!
The enormous impact swept outward like a hurricane.
The resulting dust and gale-force winds sent the samurai who had been preparing to support the battle tumbling backward.
Even the thick layers of rock beneath their feet seemed unable to withstand the force. The ground cracked apart and collapsed under the tremendous impact.
Having landed his attack, Ashura Dōji hurriedly looked toward Nekomamushi and Inuarashi.
But the instant his gaze fell upon them, his pupils contracted violently, and his face filled with disbelief.
He had assumed that invoking the name of Kozuki Oden and the Nine Red Scabbards would make Nekomamushi and Inuarashi remember their old bonds and immediately come to his aid.
He never expected...
They ran!
Watching the two of them flee seventy or eighty meters away in an instant, an absurd thought flashed through Ashura Dōji’s mind.
Was this young man really that terrifying?
Terrifying enough that Nekomamushi and Inuarashi would completely disregard their old bonds and immediately turn around and run?
Otherwise, Ashura Dōji simply couldn’t believe that the two of them had truly forgotten even the debt they owed Kozuki Oden.
But before these chaotic thoughts could settle, Ashura Dōji saw Lucas through the endless clouds of dust.
Lucas was holding his wine gourd.
He slowly raised his head.
An indescribably terrifying aura suddenly erupted from his body, sweeping through Ashura Dōji like a hurricane.
"I’m sorry. Twenty million is actually pretty good. I like it just fine."
"But if I want Fleet Admiral Sengoku to pay extra without any complaints, I’d still like you to give it everything you’ve got."
"Otherwise, I won’t have the face to tell Fleet Admiral Sengoku that you’re worth twenty million!"
Rumble!
The Conqueror’s Haki lying dormant within Lucas’s body exploded.
It surged forward like a raging tidal wave, crashing toward Ashura Dōji head-on.
"That is Conqueror’s Haki, just like Lord Oden possessed?"
Ashura Dōji’s expression changed slightly, but he tightened his grip around his sword and charged directly into the oncoming Conqueror’s Haki.
"Don’t think you can intimidate me with Conqueror’s Haki! You’re underestimating me!"
In Ashura Dōji’s eyes, Conqueror’s Haki was indeed an extraordinary power, the mark of a king said to appear in only one person among millions.
The fact that Lucas possessed Conqueror’s Haki was certainly beyond his expectations.
But Ashura Dōji didn’t believe that the same ability possessed by Kozuki Oden could easily intimidate him.
"Ashura, you idiot! His Conqueror’s Haki isn’t the same as Lord Oden’s!"
Inuarashi hurriedly shouted a warning.
"He’s not using it merely to intimidate you with his presence. He’s using it to overwhelm you with absolute power! Get out of there!"
Ashura Dōji froze.
In his mind, wasn’t Conqueror’s Haki all the same?
However, just as that thought arose, Ashura Dōji prepared to forcibly withstand the mental pressure of the Conqueror’s Haki and push through the overwhelming wave before launching another attack against Lucas.
Unfortunately...
The moment he approached the surging Conqueror’s Haki, Ashura Dōji’s expression changed dramatically.
It felt as though he had slammed headfirst into an invisible steel wall.
An immense force erupted outward, giving Ashura Dōji the sensation of being struck head-on by a colossal wave.
It was no less overwhelming than the Thunder Bagua Kaidō had unleashed against him all those years ago!
Rumble!
The tremendous surge of Conqueror’s Haki crashed into Ashura Dōji like a raging tsunami.
Blood burst from his mouth as his enormous body was sent flying like a cannonball.
He slammed into a rocky mountain several hundred meters away.
The tremendous impact caused the mountain to collapse with a deafening roar.
Ashura Dōji’s massive body was embedded deep within the shattered rock.
The sudden reversal left the samurai following Ashura Dōji staring in disbelief.
In their eyes, Ashura Dōji was someone even Kaidō of the Beasts had taken an interest in.
He had fought Jack the Drought several times and could go toe-to-toe with him.
Yet the result before their eyes had completely overturned their understanding.
Ashura Dōji had actually been blasted away by nothing more than a glance?
Was this some kind of joke?
"Ashura, stop attacking him. Twenty million is actually pretty good!"
Nekomamushi had fled three or four hundred meters away and hurriedly shouted again.
"Once we’re aboard the ship, we’ll even feel like we’ve benefited from the deal!"
Inuarashi stood beside him, silently staring toward the ruins in the distance before urgently calling out,
"Ashura, we’re not trying to hurt you!"
"You don’t want Lord Oden to die with his eyes closed either, so stop!"
"Die with his eyes closed?"
Within the ruins, Ashura Dōji struggled to his feet.
He tightened his grip around his samurai sword, a ferocious glint flashing through his eyes.
"Shut up!"
"You two who have forgotten even your sense of honor have no right to mention Lord Oden!"
"I’ll see whether Lord Oden will die with his eyes closed because of you two..."
"...or because of me!"
"I want to see just how long you can keep standing there acting so smug!"
The moment his words fell, every muscle in Ashura Dōji’s body tensed to its absolute limit.
His entire fighting spirit rapidly climbed.
As his Armament Haki—Ryuo—erupted, his aura instantly reached its peak.
The next moment, he took a single step.
His entire body shot through the air like a cannonball.
"Oden Two-Sword Style: Togen Totsuka!"
Rumble!
A cross-shaped slash tore through the heavens and earth.
Everything in its path—whether earth or even the surrounding space—was violently ripped apart.
The several-hundred-meter distance between them disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Watching Lucas’s rapidly enlarging figure in his pupils, Ashura Dōji desperately wanted to know just how far the Oden Two-Sword Style he had secretly trained for decades could truly reach.
No.
Rather, in Ashura Dōji’s eyes, even if he couldn’t seriously injure Lucas with a single strike...
Surely he could at least pierce that turtle shell of his, couldn’t he?
Yet the moment that thought appeared in his mind, the scene before his eyes left Ashura Dōji completely dumbfounded.
If the Thousand-Armed Kannon, previously reinforced with Armament Haki, had already given him an impression of absolute indestructibility...
Then the Susanoo, towering more than ten meters tall and enveloping Lucas like a monstrous guardian, gave Ashura Dōji an entirely different realization.
At that moment, only one question remained in his mind.
Could the turtle shell he was looking at really be broken by the Oden Two-Sword Style he had spent decades painstakingly mastering?
At long last, he understood.
He finally understood why Nekomamushi and Inuarashi’s first reaction under the pressure of their supposed sense of honor had been to turn around and flee.
Whenever Kozuki Oden was mentioned, they even kept talking about how he would "die with his eyes closed."
Could that possibly mean...
He was actually so stupid that he would make Kozuki Oden die with his eyes closed?
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