"Rokushiki, huh... So you are a Cipher Pol agent."
The moment the man vanished from sight, Jig, no stranger to battle, recognized it immediately.
Sure, many officers and even admirals in the Marines could use Rokushiki. But those Marines always wore the cloak of justice. Only World Government agents donned jet-black suits.
Suddenly, Jig snapped to the rear without warning and drove a fist behind him.
A ring of white shockwaves burst outward.
There stood Rob Lucci, his right leg raised high, blocking the blow with the sole of his foot.
"Tch... That's some power. So that's Armament Haki..."
He felt the force and pain travel up through his foot. Lucci's expression darkened.
The man had blocked his attack using just his weaker left arm, and still made him feel that impact. That kind of strength shattered Lucci's assumptions about power itself.
"Looks like it's time I learned this so-called 'Haki' for myself," Lucci thought grimly.
Of course, if Aeridar knew what was going through Lucci's mind, he'd probably be praying for Luffy's future. The difference between having Haki and not having it was immense, especially since Lucci's base power already outstripped Luffy's pre-time skip self.
If Haki-trained Lucci ever crossed paths with Luffy again, it'd be just like when Luffy met Sentomaru on the Sabaody Archipelago—utterly one-sided.
Jig's arm trembled as he unleashed another burst of strength. Lucci felt a massive force surge up through his foot and didn't bother resisting it. Using the momentum, he flipped backwards through the air and landed five or six meters away.
But this time, Lucci didn't charge back in. Instead, he twisted his torso and unleashed a powerful kick, his core snapping into motion.
A blue-white crescent slash tore through the air.
Just as the air blade streaked toward him, Jig sidestepped, only a meter, but enough. The Rankyaku whooshed past, missing him entirely, before slicing through the air for nearly a hundred meters before fading.
"Observation Haki...!" Lucci's brows furrowed. This wasn't going to be easy. Even badly injured, the man still had mastery over such powerful Haki.
Suddenly, Lucci let out a low snarl. His body expanded and elongated, muscles bulging grotesquely. His mouth stretched forward into a muzzle, fangs protruding. Yellow fur with black spots rippled across his skin, he had transformed into a towering leopard-man, over three meters tall and rippling with power.
Jig's face turned grim. Zoan-types, especially Carnivorous Zoans, boosted every physical parameter: strength, speed, reaction time, perception, toughness.
Before his transformation, Lucci had already been powerful enough that Jig, despite using Haki, could barely hold the upper hand while wounded. But now, with this form, just his raw strength alone might surpass Jig outright.
Transformed and silent, Lucci blurred forward like a black phantom. In a flash, he was in Jig's face.
Jig's Observation Haki picked it up, but his injured body couldn't keep up.
Leopard-form Lucci snarled, thrusting his index finger forward with razor-sharp claws aimed straight at Jig's throat.
The claw struck, but hit something like black metal. The skin on Jig's neck had hardened, coated in Armament Haki.
"Didn't pierce?!" Lucci quickly withdrew his hand, inwardly impressed by the defensive might of Armament Haki.
Though he blocked the piercing strike, the concussive force made Jig stagger back, retching. The throat was a vulnerable spot; even defended, it hurt like hell.
Lucci stepped in again, twin index fingers outstretched. In an instant, he unleashed a hail of rapid-fire Shigan, each strike stabbing like a bullet toward every inch of Jig's body.
Rokushiki, Shigan: Madara!
Faced with the flurry, Jig's expression changed. He shut his eyes and began weaving, his body swaying unpredictably. Every single Shigan missed.
"Damn it... How the hell—"
Lucci's face grew colder. None of his strikes landed.
He finally stopped the barrage, realizing it was futile. At the same moment, Jig halted his movement and lashed out, his fist, black with hardened Haki, aimed at Lucci's chest.
Lucci inhaled sharply, puffing up his chest.
The punch struck. A tremor shook the air. His chest caved slightly inward.
The two men held position for a moment, until Lucci suddenly exhaled, his chest expanding with a shockwave that sent Jig flying backwards, fist and all. Lucci himself slid back several meters, gouging two long trenches into the ground.
Jig landed over ten meters away, left arm bruised and throbbing. He clenched his teeth in pain.
Lucci, clutching his chest, didn't speak, but the contorted look on his face made it clear he hadn't come out unscathed either.
For a long beat, the two locked eyes, then charged.
Jig's punch struck like a cannon blast, quaking the ground and kicking up clouds of dust. A two- to three-meter-wide crater spread underfoot.
But Lucci was already airborne, kicking off the edge of the pit and running upward—on air.
In midair, he flipped like a swallow and drove a powerful kick downward toward Jig's head.
The air trembled. A bluish-white slash of compressed force tore forth, slicing through the sky like a shriek.
In the blink of an eye, that slash transformed, shifting into the shape of a razor-sharp bird in flight.
Rokushiki, Rankyaku: Gaicho!
The flying bird-shaped slash whistled toward Jig with breathtaking speed. But Jig wasn't slow either. At the last second, he twisted his body and sidestepped several meters—
The slash missed him by a hair and carved straight into the earth behind him, as effortlessly as slicing tofu.
In a flash, a gash over twenty meters long split open in the ground. Ten centimeters wide, and easily seven or eight meters deep.
Jig glanced at the fresh scar etched into the battlefield, lips twitching in grudging respect.
"That's one hell of a Rankyaku... Didn't think the World Government still had agents of this caliber lurking around."
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