Slardar whipped his trident in a blur, a solid wall of steel that batted down the driving rain of water-shot. Even so, the barrage forced him back dozens of meters.
"What monstrous power!"
Each pellet carried enough force to punch through hardened plate. Blocking that single volley left his arms tingling and numb. The look on his face hardened; the easy arrogance he'd shown John was gone. The dragon before him was Sea-King large and far more terrifying in raw might than any Sea King.
The sea demon zigged and zagged, arrowing through the water. "I don't care how strong you are today you die in this sea!" He lined the trident up and waited for an opening.
"Show me what the Sea Demon Tribe can do!" Ares's golden eyes flashed. Excitement burned through him. He didn't dodge he met the charge head-on, hardening his head in a sheath of crimson Armament Haki.
Clang!
Even underwater, the metal scream was sharp enough to sting. The power behind it made Slardar's forearms shake; pain lanced through the web of his thumb as if it had split open. It was the same feeling John had suffered a moment ago being steamrolled by a force you simply couldn't stop.
"You want the Sea Demon's strength? Fine feel it!" Slardar roared. His arms went ink-black Armament Haki and his retreat halted as he braced and held.
Ares's eyes lit, pleased rather than alarmed. "Good. Now this gets fun."
His massive tail carved the sea, rolling it up like a god of the ocean. The pressure wave thundered toward Slardar. At the same time, Ares scooped a globe of seawater the size of a boulder and hurled it like a cannon round.
He didn't even need the Azure Dragon's elemental gifts; just fish-man combat principles layered over a Mythical Zoan body. Even without "magic," the result was overwhelming.
This was the first stir of the legend: the strongest creature across sea, land, and sky.
Wherever he went above the clouds or under the waves he would smash straight through.
"Damn it!" Slardar spat. "How can a Devil Fruit user be this strong in the sea?!"
He fled in tight arcs, dodging the sweeping tail and the plunging water orb. If it hit, the sea itself would turn to a storm of needles high-speed water, a butcher's tool.
The relentless pressure shoved him onto the back foot. He'd never imagined there could be someone who could dominate him in the ocean.
It wasn't right.
Ares bared a grin full of fangs, a trace of disappointment in his eyes. "All dodge? Boring."
"You're fast, I'll give you that. Guess I need a different approach."
Speed was the one thing Slardar had in the deep; life in the sea had honed it to a razor. Ares, for all his control, still wore a body the size of a temple bell drag was drag.
Maybe I can fold the Six Powers into water… He thought of Geppo, Soru, Rankyaku the Navy's Six Styles.
Think it do it.
His tail began to trace the motion for Rankyaku, not to cut air, but to cut the sea.
"No-Sword Style Ocean: Rankyaku!"
The currents twisted, shaping into a visible hydra-blade tens of meters long, near a hundred from hiltless base to edge. The sight made Slardar's scalp prickle.
"Sea Dragon's Cruise!"
His muscles ballooned. Armament flooded into the trident, the stone-gray shaft and tines taking on a steel sheen. He spun it hard, churning up a shockwave of water to meet the cut.
Boom!
The moment the blast shuddered the deep, Ares's tail drew again another clean hydro-cut.
"Again!" Ares's dragon-roar thrummed through the water.
To the eye it was instant; in truth, he'd already corrected the micro-flaws from the first swing. The second looked smaller, but the edge bit deeper, faster the drag pared away by better form.
That was his "cheat" at work observe, adjust, perfect during the fight.
This second blade hit harder and moved quicker, and the sea resisted it less. Technique, not brute force that was the difference.
Is this bastard using me for practice?! Slardar's face went blue, then purple. He didn't dare test that edge. He spun and bolted, arrowing toward the deeper dark.
"Don't run!" Ares hadn't had his fill and he meant to wring every lesson he could from this "instructor." He raised one great claw and flicked, as if snapping marbles.
"Shigan Sea Gun Rain!"
On land, Shigan was a fingertip bullet close-quarters, puncturing. But distance changed things; CP9's Lucci had once pushed it into an "air bullet."
Ares did the same in water compressing and snapping pellets of sea into slugs that streaked out even faster than lead.
Earlier, his water-shots had been about force. Now the technique bent toward speed and let speed make the power.
Or, as Admiral Kizaru liked to say: "Speed is power."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oh, you like the story? Wow, who knew. Go ahead, drop a review and throw some power stones maybe I'll be motivated to keep going.
The story's already ahead on Patron. Go there if you want to catch up faster!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"