Just as Rayleigh had said to Luffy in the manga, Haki is the embodiment of will. With only pure training, unless one is gifted with extraordinary talent or lucky enough to grasp some trick, the improvement of Haki will be very slow. If you want Haki to become much stronger, the best way is to fight against strong opponents.
It took Luffy two years to master Haki to an initial level, but after entering the New World, it took only a few battles to master the highest-level usage of all three types of Haki—and he even awakened his Devil Fruit.
The same went for El. After being hit by Conqueror's coating a few months ago, he quickly mastered the method of using it. Now, after being repeatedly slashed, he had successfully upgraded his Observation Haki and gained another ability: Future Vision. Counting his innate mind-reading ability, he now stood at the top of the world when it came to Observation Haki.
Even Shirahoshi with her innate Observation, Kuina with her radio wave amplification, and Fujitora—who had honed his Observation Haki after blinding himself out of sorrow for all the evil he had witnessed—could not compare to El. Because mind reading combined with Future Vision—how terrifying would El's Observation Haki become?
El used Life Return (Seimei Kikan) to increase control over his body to the extreme, then wrapped his sword with high-level Armament Haki and slashed at Rayleigh at tremendous speed.
Facing El's attack, Rayleigh remained as before, using his Future Vision to find flaws while blocking. But the next second, the sound of tearing cloth came from Rayleigh's body.
While using Future Vision, it was as if Rayleigh had sensed some dangerous situation. Almost the moment his clothes tore, his figure suddenly distanced itself from El at great speed.
Looking at the hole in his clothes with a little blood seeping out—it was thanks to his timely use of Armament Haki that he hadn't been cut in half—Rayleigh stared at El before him and asked with some curiosity: "What did you just do? That wasn't like Future Vision at all."
"I don't know what it is. I just followed my feeling just now—and it felt wonderful."
After successfully slashing Rayleigh, El did not press his advantage but instead recalled that feeling, an intriguing smile on his face. "If I had to describe that feeling just now, you could call it invincible."
Just as Rayleigh had sensed, that sword slash wasn't Future Vision or mind reading at all.
When mind reading, Future Vision, and Life Return (Seimei Kikan) combined into a single ability, every one of El's attacks reached the world's highest level in terms of control, reaction speed, and explosiveness.
Life Return's ability allowed him to transform his body at any moment, instantly going from zero to a full-strength blow or from full strength back to zero—just like when he had thrown a punch at Shakky with full force, then the next moment unloaded it completely, catching her off guard.
If Kaido had possessed such an ability during his fight with Luffy in the manga, there would have been no situation where he was beaten so badly.
When El proficiently utilized the characteristics of Life Return, even if ordinary people could predict his sudden changes, they couldn't keep up with his swift, continuous shifts.
Only by mastering Future Vision could one ignore El's sudden changes in attack. However, his passive ability—mind reading, which was stronger than Future Vision—meant that no matter how the opponent wanted to block or dodge, he would see through their intentions in advance.
Future Vision was similar to mind reading, but their natures were completely different.
Mind reading could see through others' thoughts, while Future Vision saw in advance what others would do. However, Future Vision still had flaws: it could only predict actions, not read thoughts. Against an opponent with amazing feinting skills, those feints could be used to crack Future Vision. And if both combatants mastered Future Vision, they could neutralize each other's ability.
But when mind reading and Future Vision were used together, they canceled out each other's flaws and created a new ability—one that could see future actions while simultaneously reading thoughts.
Such an ability was just like a rule-type Devil Fruit: utterly outrageous.
And what kind of chemical reaction would such an outrageous ability produce when wielded by a monster who could freely control his body with swift, continuous changes? Obviously—just as El had said—he would become invincible.
The sword that had slashed Rayleigh just now was like Shakky being punched by El: both were completely caught off guard.
Because El had sealed Rayleigh's Future Vision, the images Rayleigh could see were all false. The future had been disturbed by El's own Future Vision and the inexplicable feints enabled by Life Return. At the same time, Rayleigh's thoughts were completely visible to El. By seizing the faint flaws Rayleigh revealed—suddenly changing his attack trajectory while interfering with Future Vision—El had caught him completely unprepared.
Now, El's sword slash was even more incomprehensible than Divine Departure (which added Conqueror's Haki to a flying slash), because his three abilities—each extremely rare in the world—had combined to form a new power.
Unless Rayleigh found a way to counter it, or unless his overall strength far surpassed El's, without the means to deal with El's new ability, he would undoubtedly lose.
With the elevation of his Observation Haki and the acquisition of this new ability, El's strength had entered a new level—he had nearly become invincible.
Though it had been said more than once, it bore repeating: as El grew older, his three talents would officially reveal their incomprehensible nature.
If any one of these three talents were missing—for example, without Life Return, El's new skill wouldn't be so incomprehensible; or without mind-reading, even if El mastered Future Vision and used it with Life Return, it wouldn't be so outrageous. But there was no "if." Before the next son of heaven appeared on the seas, the world favored only El.
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