Uchiha Puppet Master, Starting from One Piece.

But he didn't.

This is the combat intuition of a Yonko (Emperor of the Sea).

"Not bad, you haven't regressed compared to a few years ago."

Loki's voice came from above.

He withdrew his hand and looked down at Shanks standing at the edge of his palm. The smile that had just disappeared returned to the corner of his mouth, but this time the smile was completely different from the previous one.

The smiles I gave before were social, meant for old friends, warm, nostalgic, and bearing the marks of time.

This smile, however, was combative, meant for the opponent; it was cold, hard, and bloodthirsty.

"You still love to navigate between the smallest details."

Shanks remained silent.

He rushed out the instant Loki withdrew his hand.

This time, Bai Yu saw something.

It wasn't that I couldn't see it at all, but rather that I saw a blurry, red afterimage, as if someone had drawn a line in the air at an incredible speed with an extremely fine red paintbrush.

The line started at Loki's feet, ran up his arm, and ended at his neck.

Griffin's blade was pointed at the giant's throat.

Loki's left hand moved.

It was much faster than his right hand just now.

The index and middle fingers of his left hand, brought together like two massive steel rods, thrust towards Shanks's blade from the side. It wasn't a parry, not a block, but an interception; before Griffin's blade reached his throat, he clamped the knife between his two fingers.

"Humans... are really weak."

If Loki were facing an ordinary swordsman, this would be enough.

But Shanks is no ordinary swordsman.

Just as Griffin's blade was about to enter the range of Loki's two fingers, it suddenly changed direction.

It wasn't a change of technique, nor was it sheathing the sword; rather, within the same continuous slashing motion, the blade's direction shifted from Loki's throat to the base of Loki's index finger.

Those are joints.

That was one of the most vulnerable spots on the giant's fingers.

Loki's eyes widened slightly; it was the first time he had shown surprise during this battle.

His left hand didn't have time to change; two fingers were already together, and the clamping motion was halfway done. He couldn't completely withdraw before Griffin's blade reached the base of his index finger.

Therefore, he chose not to withdraw.

Loki clenched his left hand into a fist.

Instead of grabbing the knife, he clenched his fist and used the bones and muscles of his fist to take Griffin's slash head-on.

At the same time, his right hand, the one that had just slapped the ground, rose up from below, its five fingers spread out like a giant net, encircling Shanks from behind.

This is a trap.

If Shanks continues to strike Loki's left index finger, his blade might leave a wound on the giant's finger, but he himself will be caught by Loki's right hand.

If a human is grabbed by a 60-meter giant, there is only one possible outcome.

Shanks knew it was a trap.

He still slashed down.

Griffin's blade sliced ​​into the outside of Loki's left fist.

Bai Yu heard the sound.

It wasn't the sound of metal clashing against metal, nor the sound of a blade cutting through flesh and bone, but a stranger sound, somewhere between cutting and impact, like someone using an extremely sharp knife to chop at a huge, dried, and extremely hard old tree root.

Then he saw blood.

The blood of giants.

It wasn't the kind of blood that slowly seeps from a wound when a human is injured, but rather a thick, lava-like blood that gushed out from a wound that Griffin had cut open.

The instant Griffin slashed into Loki's fist, Loki's right hand had already closed behind Shanks.

The five fingers are contracting inward, like a giant cage made of five steel pillars closing.

Shanks did not look back.

He didn't even turn around.

It was just a slight, almost imperceptible sway.

But Loki's right hand suddenly stopped moving the severed limb.

Conqueror's Haki.

It wasn't a wide-ranging, indiscriminate release, but rather a Conqueror's Haki entanglement compressed to the extreme, precisely targeting only that one point on Loki's right hand.

Loki's right hand froze for less than half a second under the impact of that domineering force.

Half a second is enough.

Shanks lightly tapped Loki's left fist with his foot, and like a red bird, he flew out from between Loki's clenched fingers, landing on the root of a giant tree about thirty meters away from Loki.

His breathing remained steady.

Loki looked down at the bleeding wound on his left fist, then looked up at Shanks, who had landed safely.

Then he laughed.

It wasn't the kind of laughter that arose from a specific reason, but a purer, more primal laughter that arose from the battle itself.

Even with a broken arm, you're still so difficult to deal with.

Loki said.

He raised his left hand to his eyes, stuck out his tongue, and licked the blood from the wound.

That movement looked particularly strange given the size of the giants.

"but."

Loki said, shifting his gaze from Shanks to a point further away.

That spot is Bai Yu.

Aren't you going to make a move?

Bai Yu felt a huge gaze pressing down on him, like an invisible mountain.

Loki is watching him.

It wasn't a pre-battle assessment, nor an evaluation of the opponent, but a stranger kind of gaze, one filled with a certain expectation.

"Didn't you come to see if I'm strong enough? How will you know if you don't try?"

Loki's voice was tinged with laughter.

Bai Yu did not move.

Loki is very strong, as evidenced by his brief clash with Shanks just now.

But Bai Yu has not yet seen Loki's true strength. The so-called "divine weapon Iron Thunder" has not yet been unsheathed, and Loki's true fighting style has not yet been revealed.

If that's all there is to it, he has no interest whatsoever.

"Don't rush."

Shanks' voice came from thirty meters away, his tone calm.

"Now is not the time to make a move."

Shanks paused for a moment.

“Loki, you are the prince of Elbaf, a genius among giants who appears only once every few centuries, a monster who was considered an ominous figure from childhood and was destined to stand at the top of this world.”

Loki's expression changed slightly when he heard the word "monster".

It wasn't anger, nor pain, but a more complex expression, mixed with self-deprecation and a deep weariness.

"monster."

Loki repeated the word, as if savoring its taste. He thought of his mother, who had treated him like her own son, that gentle woman…

"You're right, I am a monster."

His voice suddenly became very soft, so soft that it didn't sound like the volume a sixty-meter giant could make.

"So monsters should be kept in cages, right?"

This question has no answer yet.

Loki reached his other hand towards the pile of fallen leaves beside him.

That wasn't the hand that slapped Shanks earlier.

When the hand lifted from the pile of fallen leaves, something was between its fingers.

It's not a mine.

It is a tree branch.

A few meters long, an ordinary branch that had fallen from a giant tree and was already starting to rot.

Loki held the branch up to his eyes.

Then he made a gesture.

A move that seemed all too familiar to Bai Yu.

"Armament Haki Enhancement!!"

Loki held the several-meter-long branch horizontally in front of him, gripping the "handle" with his left hand.

If the branch has a handle, place your right hand on the handle, with the tip of the blade pointing towards the ground and the blade at approximately a 45-degree angle to the ground.

That's the starting stance for the Iaijutsu.

A giant, using a tree branch, assumed the starting stance for the Iaijutsu (a type of sword strike).