God Breaker

Having raised the fundamental principles of swordsmanship—mind, technique, and body—to their utmost limits, he listened to every sound and severed all things with the divine gale. Duke swung his blade down. Its edge sliced like the wind, and with a fleeting flash of cold light, it swept through the air in an instant, carving out a distinct dividing line.

Kanzaki Kaori bore the brunt of it. Before the Sword Qi even arrived, she felt the stinging pain of gale-force wind slicing across her skin. Several strands of hair were severed. Her mind became utterly clear; neither panicked nor attempting to dodge, she was warned by an unseen voice that retreating or evading would surely invite disaster.

Rather than retreating, Kanzaki Kaori advanced. Her right foot stepped forward, and the arm resting on Seven Heavens Seven Swords moved slightly, leaving behind an illusory afterimage. Slender blades traced out from the sword’s body, cutting through the air with hissing explosions.

A violent roar erupted from the empty space between them. Ear-piercing metallic screeches, like grinding teeth, rang out one after another. The force unleashed by their collision swept in every direction, carving countless fine grooves through the concrete-and-steel urban jungle.

Under the full moon, a breeze drifted past. The shattered road surface and the greenery lining both sides of the street scattered like dust, turning into drifting ash. Duke and Kanzaki Kaori faced each other from afar. At some point, dense metal threads had shot out from the void, filling the space between them.

"Magic?" Duke frowned in dissatisfaction. What he wanted to challenge was a master swordsman, not a magician. If Kanzaki Kaori insisted on fighting him with magic, it would be far too boring.

"My magic name is ‘Salvare000,’ and its meaning is ‘to extend a helping hand to those who cannot be saved’! Against someone as strong as you, concealing my magic name would be overestimating myself." Kanzaki Kaori exhaled a breath of foul air. Just one probing exchange had left her momentarily dazed. It was fear of death. Not an illusion, but a warning from the depths of a battle-hardened warrior’s heart about what lay ahead.

"Is your sword just for decoration? What about your swordsmanship? If this is only a magic show, I have no interest at all." Duke raised his blade. The black edge swept across the metal threads before him, sparks flickering as the hair-thin, nearly invisible wires were instantly severed.

A trace of surprise rippled through Kanzaki Kaori’s calm, ancient-well-like eyes. Her magic used steel wires for mid- to long-range attacks, and the wires’ strength was directly tied to the destructive power of her magic. They could not be destroyed by human strength. Their toughness was such that even large-scale magic could be blocked by them. This was the first time she had seen someone cut through them so easily.

Kanzaki Kaori looked thoughtfully at the black sword in Duke’s hand. Though his education was painful to comment on, she still understood basic physics. The colder ice became, the more brittle it was. It could not possibly slice through her steel wires so easily. Which meant…

"What is that black substance?" Kanzaki Kaori muttered to herself, disbelief in her voice. It was not magic—could it be an esper ability? But she had never heard of one person being able to use multiple abilities!

"Judging by your explosive power, your physical abilities have already surpassed humanity. Such powerful physical strength would be wasted on magic. Stop using magic and let’s have a real fight!" Cold light flashed across Duke’s longsword. Bone-piercing chill burst forth, freezing the nearby moisture into icy grains that fell to the ground.

"As you wish!" Kanzaki Kaori snorted coldly. Duke’s contempt for her magic irritated her.

"It should have been this way from the start." Duke dispersed the chill from his black sword. Its tip touched the ground before slashing sharply upward. Sword Qi spread out like mercury spilling across the earth. Wherever it passed, it scraped violently against the metal wires, and the released energy turned the surrounding ground entirely into dust.

Once the Sword Qi had cleared out a wide open space, Duke vanished from where he stood. His whistling blade was already at Kanzaki Kaori’s throat.

So fast! How could he be this fast?

Kanzaki Kaori’s hairs stood on end. Her two-meter-long sword left its sheath in an instant. Her Saint’s physique allowed her to draw her sword and block at a speed beyond human limits.

Clang—

The two longswords collided. Kanzaki Kaori felt an overwhelming force travel down the blade. Ignoring her shock, she swiftly raised her other hand and pressed it against the back of the sword. Only then did she avoid the embarrassing sight of Seven Heavens Seven Swords being knocked from her grasp. Even so, the tremendous force still sent her staggering back again and again.

After Duke’s slash, he did not press the attack. He glanced at his longsword coated in Armament Haki. At the center of the blade, a small notch could faintly be seen beneath the moonlight. Though Armament Haki had been stripped of its elemental-countering properties in A Certain Magical Index World, its defensive enhancement had not weakened in the slightest. Yet with the strength of his Haki, he had gained no advantage in close-quarters weapon combat. That could only mean the longsword in Kanzaki Kaori’s hand was unquestionably a divine weapon.

Duke even wondered whether Kanzaki Kaori’s Seven Heavens Seven Swords, if placed in the Pirate World, would be much inferior in durability to the Supreme Grade Sword Twelve Works.

"What a fine sword!" The negative effect of inheriting the Pirate World’s obsession with collecting famous blades had surfaced. Duke stared greedily at the sword in Kanzaki Kaori’s hand.

Kanzaki Kaori instinctively tightened her grip on Seven Heavens Seven Swords, suddenly feeling a chill crawl from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. She glared at Duke with an unfriendly expression. Seven Heavens Seven Swords was the culmination of a thousand years of accumulation by the Amakusa-Style Remix of Church. As the current female Pope, she merely had the right to use it, not own it. When she stepped down, the sword would have to be returned to the Church. The responsibility she bore in inheriting this sword was no simple matter, so she would never allow anyone to covet it.

"Let’s make a bet. We’ll use this sword as the stake. If I win…" Duke licked his lips, but before he could finish, he was brutally interrupted.

Kanzaki Kaori’s figure vanished from the spot. At lightning speed, she broke the sound barrier and swung her sword at Duke. The transition from stillness to motion was so fast that Duke had no time to react at all. The power of a Saint was displayed to its fullest at that moment.

Duke only had time to raise his black sword before him. Massive shockwaves collided, sparks flying where the blades met. The next second, a destructive aura spread outward from the two of them. Kanzaki Kaori, borrowing the power of her Stigmata, took half a step back, while Duke’s figure disappeared.

Boom—

A tremendous force erupted. Duke was violently blasted away, smashing into the building behind him. He tore through more than ten walls in succession before being buried beneath a pile of rubble.

"Did I win?" Kanzaki Kaori fixed her gaze tightly on the front. Even after using the power of her Stigmata, she was still uncertain.

Crash—

Duke pushed away the broken stones covering him and flashed onto the street. His lab coat had been shredded into something resembling beggar’s clothes. His body was covered in grime and blood, and the black sword in his hand had snapped into two pieces. He cut a thoroughly miserable figure.

"I got careless!" Duke’s fighting spirit surged. Compared to Accelerator, Saints like Kanzaki Kaori, with their powerful bodies, suited his tastes far better.

Articuno’s healing ability activated, wiping away all of Duke’s injuries. The Ice Blade in his hand extended from the broken section and was once again coated in Armament Haki.

"Regenerative abilities…" Kanzaki Kaori’s gaze sharpened as she spoke with some difficulty. From the beginning until now, Duke had displayed several different abilities before her, making it difficult for her to determine what kind of fighter he was.

With insufficient intelligence, Kanzaki Kaori did not dare let Duke act freely. She entered the God Breaker state once more. Moving beyond the speed of sound, she flashed above Duke’s head as if teleporting. Her longsword traced a crescent-shaped light close to the ground before slashing down at high speed.

As Kanzaki Kaori’s slash descended, the entire space around Duke seemed to be imprisoned by an invisible force, becoming abnormally viscous. Duke knew this was not magic, but an illusion caused by the other party’s speed surpassing its limits.

"Good!"

Facing that unstoppable slash, Duke no longer held back. The tip of his sword sliced through the air, tearing open a vast vacuum as it stabbed toward the descending blade. The sword tip tapped repeatedly, clusters of fiery sparks following in its wake. Every tap sent ripples through the void, spreading rings of waves, while the scattered aftershocks made their clothes flap loudly.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang—

Seven Heavens Seven Swords moved from swift to slow, forming a half-circle. From every tricky angle, it chopped and thrust, falling like a torrential downpour. In the God Breaker state, less than one-hundredth of a second passed between Kanzaki Kaori swinging her sword and withdrawing it.

Duke was no slower. His figure became an afterimage, almost blending into a single blur. In less than a second, their blades collided a hundred times.

The colliding Impact Waves spread in all directions. Vast amounts of rubble and dust were thrown up from the street. Trees and streetlights on both sides toppled, while the glass of nearby office buildings shattered completely. The entire street became a broken wasteland as though the apocalypse had arrived, without a single intact corner to be found.

At the center of the raging energy, Duke and Kanzaki Kaori’s clash grew ever fiercer, and the light in Duke’s eyes became brighter and brighter.