Hum!
Skyler swung his blade forward with force, and a streak of dark, slashing wave abruptly burst forth from the edge of the blade.
It sliced right through the invisible wind!
This was the hallmark of a master swordsman.
A slashing wave!
To unleash a blade rainbow that was as solid as substance, strength, swordsmanship, and willpower were all indispensable.
Hawkeye, Big Mom, and even Zoro, who grew up later, would have terrifying blade lights rushing out whenever they wielded their weapons.
Even if they were hundreds or thousands of meters away from the target, they could still cut it down with a stroke of their blade.
For top powerhouses like Big Mom and Hawkeye, their slashing waves possessed the might to split the heavens and earth, and could even cause anomalous phenomena in the world.
Before Zoro went to train under Hawkeye for two years, his early methods were mostly based on sword techniques; on one hand, it was to improve his combat experience, and on the other hand, it was to hone his mind.
Although the weapon in one’s hand was important, what mattered even more was the person holding the blade.
Zoro was very talented and probably realized this when he was very young.
“Only a dozen zhang…
not bad.” Skyler watched the slowly fading blade light and said softly.
Lowering his head and overlooking from high altitude, he could catch sight of a peak where the currents surged violently.
It was the Red Line.
The waters where the Four Seas converged at the highest point of the continent.
“West Blue!”
Gazing in a certain direction, Skyler quickly fled into the distance.
Maintaining the state of the Air Dance Technique for a long time consumed a huge amount of stamina; flying over Reverse Mountain was fine, but if he kept flying all the way to the islands near West Blue…
It was still a bit too much to bear.
The distance was simply too far.
You must know that the combined area of the seas in the Four Seas was several times broader than the entire Grand Line.
The locations of the islands were well known, but the distances between them were not as close as they appeared on the map.
After a long while, the towering Red Line was already behind him.
Skyler descended from high altitude, stepped on a drifting plank of wood, and left as if treading on the waves.
Near here, many shipwrecks could be seen, almost all of which were vessels scattered by the currents after various pirate crews failed to cross Reverse Mountain…
For these people, their dream of navigation was shattered before it even began.
…
“Captain…
there’s a person over there!”
A moment later, a fleet bearing the same pirate flag happened to sail over.
A sailor at the bow of the ship raised his telescope and saw a black dot drifting on the sea.
That seemed to…
be a person?
Shortly after, when they got closer, the sailor saw clearly that someone was standing on an extremely small wooden board, approaching in a bizarre manner.
The man was dressed entirely in black.
The moment he was targeted by the telescope, he seemed to sense it and glanced sideways at the sailor.
“Ah!”
Skyler’s gaze frightened the sailor so much that the telescope slipped from his hands, and he let out an exclamation.
“It’s too bizarre.
Even though the sea area nearby is relatively calm, undercurrents still appear occasionally.
Besides, he is only stepping on a single plank of wood.
Even the smallest wave could easily overturn this person…
How is he navigating on just a board?
Furthermore, looking at his direction…
could he be a shipwreck victim who failed to enter the Grand Line?”
Someone else picked up the telescope to take a look.
More and more pirates gathered around.
“Hahahaha…
This Reverse Mountain isn’t somewhere just any tom, dick, and harry can barge up onto.”
A fat man holding a wine barrel with a tipsy look burst into laughter.
“Captain.”
Hearing this, a group of people immediately turned to greet him.
“Captain, this person is almost right in front of us!”
“Send him a cannonball and let him sleep forever at the bottom of the sea…”
The fat man ordered with a malicious sense of humor.
“Hahahaha!”
The people around him joined in the jeering.
Although they were fellow pirates, they wouldn’t kindly save anyone…
Most pirates acted entirely on whim; asking for morality was just laughable.
Boom!
A pitch-black cannonball shot out, accurately smashing into the sea surface where the man was.
It was unclear whether it hit, but just the white waves blasted up were nearly twenty meters high.
Even if this person could swim, no other ships would appear around here anytime soon; in the end, he would either drown or become food for marine life.
“Chuck, you brat, not bad…
You’re getting quite skilled at firing cannons.”
“Thank you for the praise, Captain!”
Everyone bantered as if they had just watched a show.
“Captain…”
“Hmm?”
Suddenly, a crew member screamed in horror, his expression changing drastically.
His trembling finger pointed overhead, towards a dark figure standing at the top of the sail.
It was precisely the mysterious swordsman who should have been sunk by a single cannon shot.
Skyler glanced at the momentarily panicked crowd on the deck and drew his black blade.
Cleanly and neatly, from top to bottom, he delivered a single slash.
A dazzling slashing wave erupted, stirring up a sky full of wood chips on the deck surface, which was easily torn apart.
Even the bottom of the ship was punctured through, causing a massive influx of seawater.
This single blade strike nearly cut off a third of the ship’s volume.
“Hmm…
If it were Battojutsu or Tsubame Gaeshi, a single strike should be able to directly destroy an ordinary pirate ship.” Skyler gazed at the pirates who were swept away and annihilated by the blade momentum in an instant, pondering for a moment.
His attack headed straight for the fat Captain who was surrounded like the moon among stars.
To have the confidence to enter the Grand Line, his strength should be considered outstanding in West Blue…
But this fat man couldn’t even put up any resistance before his body was sliced open smoothly.
Like a block of tofu.
“Eh?”
Abruptly, the corners of Skyler’s brows twitched.
Even though he had killed people, the combat points he harvested were pathetically less than before.
Aside from the fat man giving a yield of dozens of points, the others gave no prompts at all.
“Not even giving the minimum baseline of 1 combat point?
It seems compared to people from the Grand Line, the Four Seas really have quite a big gap…
It must be a ‘experience value’ mechanism of the system.” Skyler came to an understanding.
Just like leveling up in a video game, if you are a high-level player and go kill level-one mobs, you won’t get any experience gains anymore.
In this case, his hunting targets had to be figures with a certain level of capability.
Skyler, who originally wanted to go on a slaughter, instantly lost interest.
Watching the large ship quickly sinking to the bottom of the sea and the panicked crowd jumping into the sea to survive, he turned into a streak of lightning and left.
Continuing to step on a log that had fallen from a section of the hull, he slowly drifted away into the distance.
It had quite the feeling of “brushing off one’s clothes after the deed is done, leaving not a single leaf attached to one’s body.”
Who is this person?!
Some pirates who survived by luck stared at his figure, their minds completely blank.
As for the other two affiliated pirate ships of the fleet, they dared not act rashly even more.
A single strike had capsized their flagship.
Such a big shot was someone they couldn’t afford to provoke.
Sasaki Kojiro was not only a master swordsman, but also a martial artist.
The piece of wood under Skyler’s feet seemed to lack any propulsion, but upon careful observation, one would find that his feet were as if glued to the tree trunk, adjusting the angle of the wood by borrowing the movement of the ocean current, naturally gliding across the sea.
It was similar to surfing.
The advantage of this method was that it didn’t require effort…
but the speed definitely couldn’t be fast.
Fortunately, Skyler wasn’t in a rush.
This trip to the Four Seas aimed to recruit crew members…
He needed to slowly inquire about where his pre-selected candidates currently were.