"Let's see where you run now!" Ares was buzzing. Even if his underwater Soru scaled for a body this huge and the drag of the sea could only burst him forward a few dozen meters at a time, that was enough to run Slardar down.
He flickered again. Another burst another few dozen meters. In the space of a breath, the gap shrank by nearly a hundred.
The Sea Demon's outline sharpened in his sights.
Then a golden vertical pupil slid into view right beside Slardar's face.
" He caught up?!" Slardar's soul lurched. He'd been sure he'd shaken this monster. How ?
A wet rip.
Blood geysered from his chest. Slardar screamed, "Aaaah!"
Pain didn't kill his instincts. His tail snapped; he slipped back, widening the space between them, eyes gone dark and ugly. "You can't match my speed. How did you catch me?"
He asked to buy time, mind racing for any way to break free.
"Just figured out a way to move fast in the water," Ares said, those vast gold eyes bright with the thrill of a real fight. "You're not getting away. So how about you stop running and fight me for real?"
Slardar glanced at the mangled flesh over his heart the rake of that dragon claw and something flickered in his gaze. "That trick where you kept slapping the water with your tail… was it that?"
Every angle, every metric, this mystery Devil Fruit user was crushing him. He had one option left but it gave him pause.
"Correct."
Ares didn't bother to hide it. "I failed a bunch, and now it works. Your speed advantage in the sea is gone. Which means your only path left is beat me!"
He tipped his massive head, arrogant and electric. "Come on."
"Use your very best and try to put me down!"
The naked provocation scorched Slardar's pride. "You'll pay for that arrogance!"
His fingers locked like iron around the haft of his trident. Murder flashed in his eyes.
"Sea God Spiral Lance!"
True to the grand style of the age, he roared the name as if to bend the sea to it. The trident spun into a blur, and with it the water whirling into a top-shaped vortex whose point narrowed to a killing tip.
Slardar's body swelled; power poured through corded muscle as he drove the spiraling spear of water straight at Ares.
"Iron Body Golden Dragon Claw!"
Ares's talons were already harder than steel; layered with Tekkai, even his palm was beyond tempered metal.
The giant claw shot out
and closed around the spinning vortex. In Slardar's stunned eyes, the "lance" crumpled like wet paper.
"Fun idea," Ares said, eyes alight. "But not enough."
Rotation gave the water bite like a grinder's edge but the spin wasn't fast enough, and the user, not the sea itself, capped its force.
"Got anything stronger?" Ares called down, perfectly sincere and, to Slardar's ears, unbearably contemptuous. "At this level you won't even make me go all-out. Not interesting."
Heat roared through Slardar's chest. His rage called up power like a black tide. Dark-blue flame licked over his body, streaked with ink-black the outpour of Armament Haki turning the deep-sea beast into something demonic.
An evil, crushing aura rolled off him.
"Poseidon's Wrath Destroying Tidal Surge!"
With trident and will, he drew the water into a sinuous ~~~ wave-form the sea itself rearing and slamming at Ares. It wasn't just mass and momentum; his Haki was braided through the surge.
Ares's eyes flashed. His tail swung like a blade tens of meters long, carving out a savage cutter of compressed water.
"No-Blade Style Wave-Resonance Slash!"
He called it no-blade, but Ares had sworn to forge his body past any famed sword; anything that could strike was a "weapon," and his flesh was his blade.
He knew the slash. He knew Rokushiki. He knew Haki. He had a Mythical Zoan on top and a bottomless well of raw force.
BOOM!
Wave and water-blade collided; spray exploded outward like a bursting sphere.
A second surge thundered in. Ordinary surf is harmless; a true breaker can smash ships. What Slardar conjured was a disaster greater than nature's a tide that could pulp a mountain.
Ares's talons ripped the sea, speed and strength and feel for the water woven into a volley of cutters that met the second wall head-on.
KRAAASH!
Another detonation.
The third surge fell like the sea's own guillotine. Slardar spun his trident till his arms were a blur, dumping every drop of strength and Haki into birthing tide after tide.
So long as he did not stop, the onslaught would not end. Each breaker fed the next, driving it higher, harder a devouring engine.
Veins bulged; his already-massive frame swelled thicker still. He bellowed at Ares, "Didn't you want to see my technique?"
"This is Destroying Tidal Surge! As long as I don't burn out, it won't stop and the next wave will always hit harder than the last. Let's see how many you can take!"
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