Chapter 65: Legendary Marine

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Chapter 65: Legendary Marine

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Garp noticed something strange.

Except for the slight bleeding on the nose and mouth, there was no other injury on Max's body. That was very strange because two punches from Garp would have put down even a giant.

Though the old man wasn't going all out, he didn't go easy on him either.

"It feels like you have gotten weaker, old man," Max commented. "Or maybe I got stronger?"

After saying that his body started morphing and he entered his hybrid form.

Baaam!

Garp felt the punch, but he didn't bother to dodge it. His body rocketed backward and he slammed through multiple walls.

"It is heavy," muttered the old man before casually getting up. He looked Max straight in the eyes and smirked. "You have made a lot of progress."

"Thanks for getting me out of that meeting," Max thanked him before his body moved strangely and disappeared.

<Kamisori>

His movements became three-dimensional, using <Soru> in combination with <Geppo> Garp looked at him with something acing to pride. 

"Damn brat, you are going to make me cry," Garp said jokingly as a huge smile adorned his face. His body shifted and disappeared too.

He then appeared above Max and punched downward, hitting the human-bear hybrid in the back.

BOOOOOOM!!

The hit seemed to shake the whole Marine HQ building. Max was on the ground again and another crater was made. Garp frowned as there was no injury on him again, but this time he had understood the principle behind it. 

"You used Tekkai to tighten your muscles, Life Return to make the fur around the punched area hard as metal, and then use Haki on top of it all," Garp guessed.

***

-Max POV-

That old man was impressive, people his age would be walking in canes by now. Yet Garp's version of walking with a cane was being able to shake the whole area around us with a punch that he probably wasn't even giving it his all.

My ability to make such a defense sounded great on paper. It wasn't as impressive as it seemed though. First, it needs a couple of seconds to prepare and predict your enemy's movement. I don't have Observation Haki that would let me see the future yet, so my only way to use this was to deliberately leave an opening in my defenses. Leading to enemies more likely attacking that place.

There are a bunch of other weaknesses in this technique, but once I got future sight with my Observation Haki then everything should turn out okay. This would become a technique that temporarily gave me resistance against a high number of attacks, as even my insides are protected by my muscles. 

Fwish!

Garp once again disappeared from my view and brought me out of my thoughts. While seeing him was hard, with Observation Haki, I could sense his position no matter how fast he was.

Baaam!

Though dodging him was a whole other thing. While mid-air I was confident that I would be faster than Garp, the ground on the other hand was his territory and he would be faster here. Using Awakening might change that, but I didn't wanna reveal everything here.

Also, Garp got me out of that meeting with Sengoku, so this was all okay and not that surprising. Still, though, none of the hits he was landing on me did any major damage. He would need a couple thousand more till I would start feeling them.

Now normally, I would just stop the fight here. But this world doesn't reward those too afraid to fight, so instead, I smiled, my heartbeat fast and my body clenched in anticipation. "There is no need to hold back old man, bet I can beat you already."

Though I said that, it was mostly to anger Garp to use full power and-

*$@%@^!$!

My thoughts suddenly rumbled as I felt that I was suddenly above the cloud… what? Looking around, I saw just whiteness and clouds. Wait… did I die?!! 

No, no, the pain in my chin is unmistakable and my head hurts, meaning that my brain got rocketed around my skull and I passed out for a second. Damn, even after using Life Return to grow my skull stronger with milk and other such products. Yet my jaw was already broken.

What a monstrous old man, but at the same time, I saw it. The difference between me and him, before when I was training he always seemed too strong, like an unmovable mountain.

Yet, now… his power was in clear sight. Even though Garp wasn't in his prime, being as strong as he was right now would be quite an accomplishment.

Suddenly a presence seemed to catapult towards me, it was Garp. So with a fluid movement.

<Kamisori> (Razorblade)

I was behind him, and while he could sense me, in the sky movements were different. Up here I was confident in my speed, but Garp didn't know that. 

My fists darkened as they got infused with Haki, slowly manipulating it and turning it into a lethal weapon. I punched Garp on the kidney. 

I could feel my Haki invade his body and crack a couple of ribs. That seemed to surprise Garp and he swung his fist backward, but it was easy to dodge. There was a reason the environment was very important during battles. 

Garp had an advantage on the ground, but up here…

*Fwish!*

I could run circles around him, everyone had places where they weren't strong. Luffy sucks at extreme long-range, and a sniper would be perfect against him. Garp on the other hand, while he wasn't bad at fighting mid-air, actually he was pretty good at it. But I had trained a lot to fight mid-air and always perfected every technique that would allow me to fight in the air. 

Also, it still felt like he wasn't going all out, well I wasn't going all out either and entering Awakening.

Kicking off blades of air at a distance was the best attack against Garp, and while they only gave him small scratches, that amount of damage would add up. The old man didn't have monstrous defenses like Kaido, so attacks like this were effective against him.

**

We clashed multiple times after that, and Garp even punched blasts of air towards me. Yet all of that was fruitless. While in the sky I wasn't injured even once, yet he gained more and more small cuts along his body. His white uniform was bloodied and he was breathing heavily.

"Ugh, I don't have the stamina I used to have back in the days," he complained, then his eyes suddenly brightened and a smirk appeared on his face. "Well, since I can't beat you up here…"

He fell towards the ground and the pavement below his feet cracked on his landing.

"What are you gonna do now brat?" Garp asked smugly, proud of his idea. "How about you come down here?"

That would be suicide, I am not dumb to fight Garp in his field. He might be an old man, but he was still dangerous. 

Looking around, I saw some marines looking at us fighting and whispering amongst themselves. News of this fight wouldn't be passed around, since it would ruin the Marines' reputation. Garp had a big influence within the Marines, he was the man who fought and caught the worst pirate the world had seen, Gol D. Roger.

But this fight had gone long enough, it was only to test myself. Fighting any longer would be useless for me, now I knew where I lay within the power spectrum. 

It was time to go to the New World!

With that resolution, I turned around and started to fly off towards my ship. But suddenly a dangerous presence appeared behind me. 

"Where do you think you are going?"

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