Chapter Forty-Four: Swordmaster, Alfred [First Update]

“Whew, it took quite a while to master the Six Powers, but now I can finally begin training in Haki. I just wonder if any of the pirates imprisoned here know how to use Haki.” Shu Mingyuan gazed at the circle of cells around him, muttering to himself.

“Hey, look, that brat’s coming over. He actually mastered the Six Powers so quickly. What’s he up to now?” The pirates in the cells whispered among themselves. By now, nearly all the pirates in the Freezing Hell of Level Five regarded Shu Mingyuan with hostility.

“Do any of you know Haki? Either Observation or Armament,” Shu Mingyuan asked, standing outside the cell doors and looking in at the pirates.

“Haki, that’s advanced energy you only see in the second half of the Grand Line. How could there possibly be any here—”

He hadn’t finished speaking when ten “Air Piercing” Finger Bullets shot forward, piercing through his skull. The rest of his words died with him.

“Useless,” Shu Mingyuan muttered.

“And what about the rest of you?”

“Brat, don’t get so cocky! Attacking people in prison is a serious crime! Magellan will kill you for this!”

“Annoying,” Shu Mingyuan replied coldly. Seeing no one could answer, he flicked his fingers, sending a barrage of compressed air bullets into the cells, slaughtering the pirates inside—men who had once committed heinous crimes outside these walls.

Had they not been stripped of their powers, these pirates might have dodged his attacks using all manner of tricks. But now, powerless, they were nothing more than human targets, allowing Shu Mingyuan to test the might of his Finger Gun technique.

“So even here in the Freezing Hell of Level Five, Haki is a rare skill. These so-called infamous pirates, feared in the first half of the Grand Line, become nothing but ants in the second half without a Devil Fruit or Haki,” Shu Mingyuan thought, having just massacred four cells’ worth of pirates. Not one of them knew Haki; a handful had heard of it, but none were what he sought, and so he executed them without hesitation.

“I’ll just have to ask each one, cell by cell. If I still have no luck, I’ll have to descend to Level Six, the Eternal Hell. There, at least, some pirates must know it.”

He lapsed into silence, passing one more cell—inside, all the pirates were dead.

“Hey, do you know how to use Haki?” he asked at the next cell.

Inside was only a single man, sitting motionless on the ice like a statue. His scapula was pierced, and his Seastone shackles were fixed with two iron spikes driven through his palms.

He must be a pure martial artist, Shu Mingyuan mused. But without Haki, he would die all the same. Standing at the cell door, Shu Mingyuan asked calmly.

After ten seconds passed without a reply, Shu Mingyuan extended his finger, about to strike. But in that instant, a streak of jet-black light flickered across the man’s skin, and Shu Mingyuan’s breath caught—then erupted in joy.

His Sharingan saw it clearly: when the black light appeared, the man’s body suddenly hardened to an extraordinary degree. The color, according to Shu Mingyuan’s memory, was unmistakably Armament Haki.

After all this searching, he’d finally found it.

“You know Haki?” Shu Mingyuan withdrew his hand, surprised.

“Brat, why are you so desperate to find someone who knows Haki? Slaughtering people in prison—Magellan is sure to kill you for this,” the man finally spoke, his voice as cold as a blade.

“Obviously, I want you to ‘teach’ me. If you can use Haki, I’ll release you. If you can defeat me, you get a chance to escape. If you lose, I’ll kill you.”

“Oh? Like what happened to Kurosta?” The man narrowed his eyes, his gaze sharp as a knife.

Shu Mingyuan shrugged, neither confirming nor denying it.

“Interesting. I’ve been locked up here so long I’ve lost track of the years. Brat, Haki isn’t like the Navy’s Six Powers. Even with your talent, you can’t just steal it by watching.”

He looked at the boy’s blood-red eyes, recalling the battle between Shu Mingyuan and Kurosta, the master of the Six Powers—the same eyes had copied his martial arts in an instant.

“No need to worry. Just fight me,” Shu Mingyuan replied coolly.

“Heh heh heh… Very well, let me out, then. You really have no idea what you’re getting into, boy.”

Shu Mingyuan nodded almost imperceptibly. With Chidori, he unlocked the cell. He removed the man’s Seastone shackles and leg irons. The man then tore the iron spikes from his pierced palms, pulled the iron pin from his scapula, and threw them to the ground, his body instantly drenched in blood.

These restraints had fused with his flesh over time in the freezing hell, yet he showed not the slightest hint of pain as he removed them—an agony no ordinary man could bear.

Shu Mingyuan’s eyes flashed with a peculiar light at the sight. Another ruthless fighter, he thought, though now I have both ninjutsu and the Six Powers—my strength has grown by leaps and bounds over the past month.

Boom!

With all obstacles removed, a wild, violent power began to awaken in the man. In Shu Mingyuan’s estimation, his danger level was no less than Kurosta’s before him.

“Remember my name, boy.”

“I am Alfred. Bounty: 300 million Berries,” he said coldly. Then, after a brief pause, “But the Navy outside prefers to call me ‘Alfred the Swordsman’.”

Swordsman!

The word made Shu Mingyuan’s pupils contract. It signified an extraordinary level of attack—such swordsmen could cleave through anything. Few in this world deserved the title of “swordsman,” and even fewer could be called “great swordsman.”

There was, for example, Ryuma the Swordsman, said to have slain a flying dragon in his lifetime.

And in two years’ time, even Zoro, after his training, would be considered no more than a swordsman.

In their creed, there was nothing that could not be cut down.

“Let me witness the true might of a swordsman in this world. I wonder just how much of your swordsmanship you can still wield now? Is a swordsman without a sword just a joke? Don’t die too easily, now,” Shu Mingyuan taunted.

Alfred offered a cold smile. He walked to the iron bars, his entire body erupting with killing intent, shattering the ice and snow at his feet into powder.

“What a powerful sword aura. With a single thought, sword energy stirs. His strikes must be unimaginably fierce.”

“No-Blade Style: Palm Slash!”

With a low shout, he raised his palm in a vertical chop and, faster than lightning, swept his arm down. Shu Mingyuan saw clearly that a layer of black light, as hard as steel, coated Alfred’s palm with each movement.

With that shout, an iron rod snapped in half. Alfred seized the sharp end, pointed it at Shu Mingyuan’s throat, and said calmly, “Crude and unrefined, not quite to my liking, but it will suffice.”

PS: Flying from Nanjing to Chongqing today—will try to get a chapter out on my phone between flights, but it might be late.

Thanks to Fadai Dai, It’s Still Raining, The Echo After the Bustle, Book Friend 199***, Muyan Painted Pavilion, and Zang for the recommendation votes. Special thanks to Zang for the 588 coin tip!

Please bookmark, recommend, and support!