Chapter 1808: The Roadblock

Luffy quickly caught up with Amu and Xiang Ignoring Bubu Wang. Just as he wanted to ask about Ace's condition, a chill spread near Amu.

Luffy's current strength could only be considered average, but the intuition cultivated by Garp helped him at the critical moment.

Luffy leaped behind Amu, turned in place, and raised his hand to bite his thumb.

"Gear Third..."

Ding!

Shattered ice flew, causing a faint pain on Luffy's face. A sharp long sword pierced through the ice sculpture shaped like Aokiji. The tip of the blade was only a few centimeters away from Luffy's nose. This strike was so fast that Luffy didn't even have a chance to dodge. If it had been intended to kill him, he might already be dead.

The long sword flicked, and the ice sculpture shattered. Ice spikes suddenly appeared around Su Xiao. His body tilted, just enough to dodge these ice spikes. The Exile transformed into a blue light, weaving through his surroundings, shattering these arm-thick ice spikes.

"Thanks."

Luffy displayed a high level of combat intelligence at this moment, immediately running toward Amu, preparing to protect Ace and charge out of the plaza.

Su Xiao didn't pay attention to Monkey D. Luffy, but was searching for the vanished Aokiji. Suddenly, he sensed a feeling of crisis from the Checking Zhan Long Shan in his hand.

A small piece of ice froze on the blade. It was this fingernail-sized ice chip that suddenly exploded. Starting from Checking Zhan Long Shan, the cold ice instantly froze Su Xiao inside.

With a crack, cracks appeared on the ice layer freezing Su Xiao, but Aokiji had already appeared behind Su Xiao, pressing one hand on the ice layer.

Crack, crack, crack...

The ice sculpture expanded into an ice lump. Aokiji had just breathed a sigh of relief when he felt a stinging pain in his elbow.

Pfft.

The Exile pierced through Aokiji's left arm. He immediately elementalized his left arm, and a dozen broken blades were frozen. The next moment, Aokiji's left arm shattered, turning into ice crystals. Aokiji was different from Kizaru; he was in a solid form after elementalization and wasn't too afraid of the broken blades left in his body by the Exile.

The broken blades recombined on the Exile, which made a sharp turn in mid-air, stabbing toward Aokiji's face.

Aokiji raised his arms, staring intently at the Exile's flight trajectory. The Exile suddenly accelerated a second time, disappearing from Aokiji's line of sight.

A faint stinging sensation appeared between Aokiji's brows, but he didn't elementalize his head, waiting for the Exile to stab him.

"Ice... Time!"

With a crack, cracks appeared on a thin layer of ice in front of Aokiji. Large swaths of cold ice spread from the Exile as the starting point, forming an ice ball with a diameter of twenty meters.

Beside the ice ball, Aokiji, having canceled his elementalization, separated from the ice ball. He looked at the ice lump that had frozen Su Xiao; at this moment, the ice lump had already been slashed into several segments.

"Not good."

Aokiji's combat experience was incredibly rich. He rolled forward almost instinctively, yet the slash he imagined from behind did not appear.

With a whoosh, a blood aura swept over Aokiji. He was surprised to find that everything around him had slowed down. The flames burning on the battlefield seemed to have stopped, and cannonballs hung in mid-air just like that.

Tap, tap, tap...

Clear footsteps reached Aokiji's ears. He saw Su Xiao walking over step by step, holding a long sword with the tip pointing obliquely at the ground.

Every step Su Xiao took was strenuous, and the blood aura surging within his body prevented his black hair from moving automatically.

"Absolute, Shadow..."

With a snap, the world around them seemed to shatter. Aokiji spat out a large mouthful of blood, his face covered in cold sweat.

Zing, zing, zing...

Dense slashes appeared out of thin air, submerging Aokiji within them. These slashes were so dense they formed a sphere, conservatively estimated at hundreds of strikes, slashing Aokiji into large pieces of broken ice.

After the dense slashes disappeared, Aokiji canceled his elementalization and crouched on the ground, blood flowing from the corner of his mouth. He looked at Su Xiao with eyes full of vigilance. Aokiji could be certain that Su Xiao had only used half of that move just now. If this move had been completed, he would be dead or severely injured, or perhaps even slashed into a pile of minced meat.

Su Xiao wasn't having an easy time either; blood flowed from his sleeves and dripped along the Checking Zhan Long Shan. That move just now was inspired by his time in the Land of All Living Things, a secondary development of Absolute Shadow Flash. If he had been able to slash through just now, he would have likely killed Aokiji on the spot.

Absolute Shadow Flash was an ability derived from the Blade Master. Initially, Su Xiao had misunderstood this move, thinking it was a fully developed technique. But after arriving at the Land of All Living Things, he discovered that Absolute Shadow Flash was only a prototype, requiring the user to develop it according to their own development direction.

Developing Absolute Shadow Flash was difficult. So far, Su Xiao had only developed about thirty percent, but this didn't mean it couldn't be used. Absolute Shadow Flash was developed in stages, and the more it was developed, the more powerful it became.

The current Absolute Shadow Flash had been developed to the second stage. Conservatively estimated, this move could be developed to the sixth stage. The perfected Absolute Shadow Flash used blood aura to lock the enemy's movements. Su Xiao would slash through the enemy's body at high speed, causing one attack, and then that slash would erupt, transforming into thousands of slashes to submerge the enemy. This was the second stage of the attack.

The developed Absolute Shadow Flash had one advantage: it wasn't limited by cooldown time. It consumed stamina + blood aura, not mana, or rather, almost all the moves Su Xiao developed himself consumed stamina.

"A rare talent like you, actually joining the pirate side."

As Aokiji spoke, the clothing on his body shattered into pieces, and crisscrossing bloodstains appeared on him. Aokiji was actually very puzzled in his heart. With such combat power, how did the World Government identify him as a research scientist back then? Had the people in the experimental base lost their minds? Regardless of seniority, such combat power would have no problem being an Admiral in the Navy.

"I'm not on the pirate side. Currently, I am a research... combat personnel for the Revolutionary Army."

Su Xiao's gaze looked toward the outside of the port from time to time. Just now, Akainu had already chased after them. He needed to get rid of Aokiji as soon as possible.

"Revolutionary Army."

Aokiji's face looked somewhat ugly. Pirates and the Revolutionary Army were fundamentally different. Pirates only committed evil on the sea and fled everywhere, while the Revolutionary Army was at odds with the World Government + Navy.

Su Xiao took a deep breath, and blood aura spread with him as the center. Aokiji's eyelids twitched; that was the feeling just now.

However, nothing happened. The blood aura around him gradually dissipated, and Su Xiao was nowhere to be found. A large hole also appeared on the giant ice ball that had frozen the Exile.

Outside the port, magma churned, and an ice war hammer was dissolved, turning into rising water vapor.

Amu sat paralyzed on the ground, the left side of his body and his entire arm charred. Ace, whom he was carrying on his shoulder, also had small areas of burns.

"Huff, huff, huff..."

Wheezing like a broken bellows came, and a Fish-Man with blue skin, a sturdy figure, and fangs was panting heavily. His name was Jinbe, a former Warlord of the Sea.

"Brother Luffy, how are you?"

The Knight of the Sea, Jinbe, was grabbing Luffy's waist with one hand.

"Ac... e..."

Luffy made a weak sound. His chest and collarbone were covered in burns.

"Brother Ace is fine. A reliable man is protecting him."

Jinbe glanced at Amu, who was sitting paralyzed not far away, the approval in his eyes undisguised.

"Popping up one by one. You pirates, none of you will think about walking out of this port."

Akainu straightened the Navy cap on his head, magma dripping along his cheeks.

A figure suddenly appeared near Akainu. Akainu snorted coldly, and magma erupted without warning.

With a rip, Xiang Ignoring Bubu Wang, whose body was half on fire, disappeared. After merging into the environment, it rolled a few times to extinguish the flames on its body. By this time, it couldn't care about whether its fur would be burned; if it didn't hold Akainu back, the first to die would be Amu. ===== CHAPTER 1809 =====