Chapter 200 — Dangerous Man
"I was actually burned!"
King stared in disbelief at the burns on his forearms. Beneath his mask, his expression twisted.
As a Lunarian, his blood itself could control fire—under normal circumstances, being burned by flames was impossible. Yet the purple fire that had just flared from Ace's body had touched him for less than a second, and still the sleeves of his coat were gone, the skin of his arms scorched.
"This is that rumored purple flame…" King muttered darkly, eyes narrowing. "I didn't think the Flame-Flame Fruit could evolve into something this terrifying."
Ever since the war, Ace's abilities had spread across the world. The three stages of his power—ordinary flames, white pure flame, and the ultimate violet flame—were no secret to the major forces of the seas. But no rumor could convey what the purple fire truly was until one faced it directly.
When King had first heard of Ace's "Purple Flame," he hadn't taken it seriously. Now that he had felt it firsthand, he realized how close he'd come to dying in a single exchange.
"Hey," Ace lowered his arm and smirked. "There are still a lot of things you don't expect!"
In the next instant, his body vanished in a flash of violet fire. He appeared before King and drove a flaming fist straight at the All-Star's chest.
"Armament!"
King's grip tightened on his blade. Black Haki surged along his arm, coating the sword before he raised it horizontally to block Ace's strike.
The impact rang out like thunder.
King's Armament Haki could resist the purple flames—barely—but only for a short time. The temperature was so intense it would melt through his defense in less than five seconds.
Still, five seconds was all a fighter of King's caliber needed.
Zheng!
King twisted his wrist, slashing in a burst of light that forced Ace backward. Using the momentum, he spun and drove a powerful side-kick toward Ace's head.
Bang!
Ace crossed his arms to block, and violet fire exploded from the point of impact, blasting King away several meters.
"My Armament Haki can withstand that purple flame for about five seconds," King calculated coldly. "If I coat my blade completely, maybe ten seconds… enough to win."
His wings spread wide, King lunged again, sword flashing. A rapid slash shot forward, and his body followed immediately behind, propelled by a violent downbeat of his flaming wings.
Ace blocked the slash with both forearms, but the follow-up thrust from King's blade struck squarely, the power sending him flying tens of meters backward.
"Drink!"
While spinning through the air, Ace roared, violet fire bursting from his back to halt his momentum. He landed lightly, shaking the numbness from his arms.
"It hurts," he admitted with a grin, glancing at the white mark on his skin where King's sword had struck. "But you still can't break my defense. Guess your Haki's weaker than mine."
"…"
King said nothing. The words stung because they were true.
"Fine then," Ace said softly, crouching forward. "Let's see whose Haki really burns hotter."
BOOM!
A torrent of fire erupted from Ace's back, propelling him forward like a comet. In an instant he was before King, palms outstretched—yet they stopped ten centimeters short of King's chest.
"Missed?" King thought for a split second. "Too fast—misjudged the distance?"
Then he felt it. The air between Ace's palms rippled with invisible pressure, the flow of Haki compressed to a single point.
"No… this is—!"
Before King could finish, a powerful impact exploded from Ace's hands and slammed into his chest.
"Armament Style—Heavenly God Strike!"
BOOM!
The invisible shockwave of concentrated Haki struck King like a cannonball, hurling his massive body through the sky. He crashed through rock after rock before embedding into a mountainside with a deafening crack.
"Th-That's incredible…" Yamato, who had been watching nearby, covered her mouth in shock. "King—the strongest of the All-Stars—he's being completely overwhelmed!"
"Cough!"
King half-knelt amid the rubble, blood dripping from beneath his mask. The armor of his chest plate was shattered, his ribcage dented inward from the strike.
"The flowing Haki… so he's mastered Ryuo as well," he rasped.
Setting aside those terrifying purple flames, even Ace's mastery of Haki alone was monstrous. Few across the sea could refine Armament Haki to the advanced Flowing form, capable of projecting power beyond the body. Even without his Devil Fruit, this man already had the strength to challenge Kaido himself.
And he was barely in his twenties.
"If he keeps growing," King thought grimly, "he might really become… the next Roger."
"He's indeed a dangerous man," King muttered aloud.
He stood, forcing his battered body upright. The crushed bones of his chest began to knit themselves back together as black smoke and fire rolled from his body—his Lunarian physiology accelerating his recovery.
Pain or not, he could still fight.
As long as he lived, he would never back down. That was the pride of the Beasts Pirates.
King unfurled his great black wings once more, the flames on his back roaring to life. His sword glowed with the full might of his Armament Haki. He crouched, ready to dive again—
—but then, a deep, rolling thunder echoed across the sky.
All three—Ace, Yamato, and King—snapped their heads toward the sound.
Lightning flickered far in the distance, and a storm of unimaginable power began to gather.
Their expressions changed at once.
Something—or someone—was coming.
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