Chapter 38 - Victor versus Sakazuki, Part 2

From the start, everyone had felt deep shock over the impacts caused by the collisions between Victor and Sakazuki.

A lot of civilians, especially the ones from the four seas, their enthusiasm had already reached the summit.

Because for a lot of them, the only way to gain power was to eat a Devil-Fruit, and yet, here is a person who can go head to head with, — from their knowledge, — the mother of all Logia Devil-Fruits, only with pure physique and brilliant skill.

The large battle ground had now been covered with chunks and chunks of molten magma, and the terrain slowly started changing bad for Victor, who obviously wasn't the Magma Logia.

Moreover, the expressions of both Sakazuki and Victor clearly spoke their diminishing stamina.

*BOOOM*

*Hound Blaze*

Sakazuki punched forward, spewed a blast of magma shaped like a fanged doghead, and launched directly at Victor.

*WOOOOSHHH*

Victor charged, head-on towards the face of this dangerous wave of magma.

*SLASH! *

The magma doghead split in the middle, and Victor charged fast between the divided face.

Sakazuki reacted quickly. He retreated a few steps back, but not before his signature, *Meteor Volcano*, and blasting out multiple magma chunks at Victor's direction.

Once again, it was another similar display of tag.

One shooting and the other deflecting. Only this time, some of the Haki imbued slashes hit, while simultaneously, some of the blasts of magma also made contact.

The movements continued until Sakazuki, he suddenly decided to halt his bombardment, while charging seemingly to melee head on.

Victor's eyes narrowed momentarily following the latter's change.

Sakazuki imbued Haki to his elementalized molted fist, and punched towards Victor's sword, which was already swung and coming from overhead.

*BOOOOM*

This time, they did not step back with the follow-up shock-wave, but tried to overpower one another.

However.

The power behind each other's attacks were nearly the same.

After a few seconds, since seeing no result, they both resorted to use their free hand.

Simultaneously, with a *Rokuogan*, both shot, while the sword and hand retreated.

With a *BOOOM*, the dust and debris spread out in a circle.

The shock-wave from the collision of two powerful *Rokuogan* forced Victor and Sakazuki a few steps back before they stopped, five meters from each other.

Victor now had many burnt marks on his shirt, and similarly, Sakazuki also had numerous gash wounds.

Victor moved, *RANKYAKU*, a wind slash was shot towards Sakazuki, but the latter countered easily with a lava fist.

But this effortless counter subconsciously made Sakazuki to lower his vigilance. Because Victor had hurriedly sent another, a more powerful sword slash.

Just as a the *RANKYAKU* got countered, the said sword slash followed, which made Sakazuki's eyes widen.

He focused, and hurriedly, just barely in the nick of time, managed to elementalize his body, and let the slash pass through.

*WOOSHHH*

Or so he thought.

"That was brilliant..." Tsuru commented.

"This brat is strong... For sure... But Victor is not only strong, but very smart..." Kong added before letting out in a higher tone, "GO! I don't want any accidents..."

Then immediately, with a, *SWOOOSHH*, a silhouette flickered out of the platform where the high-ranking officials sat.

At the same time, the sword slash Victor sent went past, separated Sakazuki from head to bottom, then flew towards the walls, before being stopped by Sengoku.

The stadium became quiet, as a lot of the audience were civilians, who had not much knowledge about Logia.

The next moment the separated two halves started boiling red bubbles before mixing, diffusing together to a complete body, once again.

But this time, Sakazuki had a half foot long gash which was dripping blood, as the previous slash had evidently hit before he completely elementalized.

Sakazuki's eyes narrowed, and showed a more, angrier expression.

"You should give up…" Sneered Victor, knowing full well that the latter would not do so.

The response was obvious. Sakazuki's hands, both hands turned into magma before it was lashed out towards Victor.

*GREAT ERUPTION!*

The magma fist expanded forward, akin to an oversized rocket, burning everything, even the ground in its path.

Subsequently, Victor gripped his sword tightly using both hands, imbued a large reservoir of his Haki to it, and raised the blade overhead.

But before lashing out, "Names? Names?? Should I? …. Ah Fuck it…" he thought.

*Getsuga…*

The blade swung

*TENSHO!!!!!*

Victor's counterattack was a powerful sword slash, launched directly towards center of the advancing monstrous irruption of magma.

*BOOOOOMMMM*

With a deafening roar, a shock-wave spread from the center which immediately cratered the solid rock ring, and even the rocky ground beneath, before the entire venue shook.

At the same time, this huge after shock made Victor and Sakazuki both groan, as they were forced a few meters back, dragging the ground in a mess akin to a trail.

Some time after colliding and trying to overpower one another, the attacks slowly lost their momentum and dissipated into dust.

Slowly, the smoke cleared and and between Victor and Sakazuki now was a large pit with a diameter of 15 meters, and the ring had completely disappeared, destroyed into tiny rocks.

None of it mattered.

Victor and Sakazuki's eyes met once again. They narrowed momentarily before the next attack launched.

*Rankyaku*

*Swooshh* ... *Swooshh*

Multiple Rankyaku and sword slashes were launched from Victors side, and Sakazuki countered with his own, *Meteor Volcano*, spewing out huge amounts of lava, one after the other from his hand.

Once again, their attack canceled each other, only to damage the battle venue even more.

Victor calculated. His Haki and physique were definitely better than Sakazuki, but the latter had the advantage of Devil-Fruit. A ridiculously destructive one at that.

Granted, he could use pure energy to end this instantly, but, he hesitated.

He frowned. He did not want to resort to pure energy in this fight. He wanted to beat him only using the physique and Haki of this world.

But looking at everything now, he doubted if he could pull this off.

With more determination, he disappeared with a *SORU*.

He appeared midair using *Geppo* to launch another barrage of attacks.

However.

Simultaneously.

Sakazuki had suddenly appeared, just a meter under him.

It was a bit late, but Victor's Observation Haki had fortunately caught notice of this sneaky movement.

*Meteor Volcano*

Sakazuki did not waste a moment, and fired a barrage of magma fists, this time, at point range.

Victor was fast. He dodged quickly executing the *GEPPO* to left and right.

But.

His pseudo-form of precognition started alerting another, a greater sense of crisis.