The next morning, at the edge of the clearing in Little Garden that had been ravaged by the battle.
Ryoma sat cross-legged with his eyes tightly shut, recalling the marvelous sensation from yesterday's battle.
The image of Brogy's axe cleaving down replayed repeatedly in his mind.
However, while he could recall the feeling, he couldn't quite reach out and touch it proactively. It was as if you knew there was treasure behind a door, but it would take some time to find the matching key.
Just as he was lost in thought, a massive shadow loomed over him, completely blocking out the rising sun.
"Gegyagyagya! Little guy, what are you doing?" Dorry's signature laughter exploded overhead.
"Don't use your brain to think. That kind of thing isn't something you figure out with your head."
Dorry squatted down, bringing his enormous face close to Ryoma's.
"The feeling of battle must be remembered with your body. Your body is more honest than your brain."
Remember with the body?
Ryoma fell into deep thought.
"Get ready! Ryoma!"
Brogy's roar sounded from the distance.
Ryoma turned to look and saw Brogy lifting a massive rock weighing several hundred pounds with one hand, the muscles on his arm bulging and knotted.
"It's coming!"
Brogy shouted as his arm suddenly exerted force, and the giant rock, accompanied by a sharp whistling sound, smashed straight toward Ryoma.
Ryoma's heart tightened, and almost instinctively, he rolled on the spot, narrowly avoiding the flying stone.
Boom!
The giant rock exploded where he had just been sitting, sending stone fragments flying everywhere.
"Did you feel it? Before the stone flew over, the flow of the air! And my movements and presence!" Brogy's voice drifted over from afar.
Ryoma climbed up from the ground and patted the dust off himself. He had indeed felt it—the displaced airflow had brushed against his cheek before the stone arrived.
Over the next period of time, Brogy continuously repeated this process.
Before every throw, he would shout a reminder, allowing Ryoma's body to gradually become familiar with the various omens preceding an incoming attack.
On the third day, when another rock came whistling through the air, Brogy's warning voice disappeared.
Ryoma's body had already reacted before his consciousness. Relying on his instinctive perception of the airflow and sound, he took a side step in advance, easily and comfortably letting the giant rock brush past him.
"Gabababababa! Not bad!" Brogy laughed with satisfaction.
However, the true test had only just begun.
"Just dodging rocks isn't enough!"
Dorry stood up and snatched his massive longsword from the side. "Come on, Ryoma! Let us see where your limit lies!"
Brogy held his axe while Dorry held his broadsword, sandwiching Ryoma between them from the left and right.
The pressure brought by these two behemoths was far beyond what the previous one-on-one training could compare to.
"Here we go!"
Brogy was the first to strike, his axe drawing an arc as it cleaved straight down at his head.
At the same time, Dorry's broadsword, with a completely different rhythm, silently slashed horizontally toward Ryoma's waist.
One fast and one slow, one hard and one soft.
The state Ryoma had just entered was instantly disrupted. Two completely different attack intentions appeared in his perception, leaving him flustered for a moment and unable to attend to both.
He leaped backward awkwardly, avoiding both of their attacks simultaneously, but his posture had completely lost its previous composure.
The seventh day.
After several days of adjustment, Ryoma had gradually adapted to the rhythm of this two-man siege.
"Hah!"
Brogy once again launched his signature vertical cleave, his battle intent so majestic it seemed as if he would split the earth in two.
Ryoma's perception clearly captured this unreserved killing intent. He tilted his body slightly and slid a step to the side with minimal movement.
The axe fell beside him with a wild wind, smashing the ground until it cracked.
And at the very moment his evasion succeeded, a completely different gust of wind struck from the other side.
Dorry's seemingly slow horizontal swat had somehow arrived first by striking later. The massive blade surface was infinitely magnified in his perception.
Oh no!
Alarm bells rang in Ryoma's mind, but his body didn't have enough time to make a second dodge.
Bang!
An irresistible force hit him from the side of his waist, and he was swatted flying. He drew a parabola in the air, crashing through several trees before slamming heavily onto the ground.
"Cough, cough..."
He struggled to stand up but felt as if his internal organs had shifted, and a mouthful of blood welled up in his throat.
A giant hand lifted him from the pile of broken wood, and Dorry's magnified face appeared before him.
"Gegyagyagya! How was that, Ryoma?"
Dorry showed no apology. Instead, he laughed even more happily.
"An enemy's attack won't wait for you to be ready. Battle intent can be real or feigned, you must learn to distinguish which one is truly meant to take your life and which is just a feint to trick you into moving."
Feints? Real and feigned?
A bolt of lightning flashed through Ryoma's mind.
Observation Haki isn't just about predicting trajectories, it's about gaining insight into the human heart.
"I understand."
Ryoma wiped the blood from the corners of his lips, his eyes becoming brighter than ever before.
"Again!"
"Gabababababa! That's the spirit!"
The tenth day.
On the clearing, Ryoma's figure moved like a swimming fish between the two giant weapons.
At times, he would meet Brogy's violent axe, stepping aside with a strange footwork just before the wind of the axe reached his body.
At other times, he would seek survival within Dorry's tricky sword techniques, always able to predict the true killing move behind the feint half a step ahead.
He was already able to move with ease under the dual assault of the storm-like attacks.
The fifteenth day.
Simple evasion could no longer satisfy Ryoma. He began to integrate his own power system into his training.
"Hah!"
Facing Brogy's horizontal sweep, Ryoma moved forward instead of retreating, his right arm instantly covered in a layer of crystal-clear ice armor.
At the same time, an invisible black power flowed along his body, quickly wrapping around the ice armor and seeping into the structural gaps of the ice crystals.
Armament Haki and Ice Magic—two completely different powers—formed a brand-new composite defensive layer under his control.
Clang!
The back of Dorry's sword struck this layer of ice armor perfectly, producing a dull, heavy thud.
The Haki-covered ice armor only shook slightly. Spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the surface, but it stood firm against the blow.
"Interesting!" Brogy's eyes lit up.
Ryoma's experimentation did not stop there. Taking advantage of a gap during an evasion, he created a one-meter-long ice blade in his hand.
He infused Armament Haki into it, but instead of simply coating the surface, he used his mental strength to guide the Haki into a cycle of alternating hot and cold at a peculiar frequency inside the ice blade.
He was using Haki to create a violent temperature difference inside the ice blade.
"Go!"
Ryoma flicked his finger, and the ice blade turned into a streak of light shooting toward Brogy.
Pfft!
The ice blade hit the target precisely, and at the moment of contact, the internal structure of the ice blade collapsed instantly due to the extreme temperature difference.
Boom!
A dull explosion erupted on Brogy's body as violent cold air and Haki fragments scattered in all directions, causing secondary penetration damage.
An explosive force caused the giant's mountain-like body to sway.
On a night at the end of the month, a bonfire blazed brightly, reflecting on the faces of the three people.
At this moment, the air was filled with the aroma of roasted meat and the richness of strong liquor.
Dorry and Brogy sang the glorious battle songs belonging to giants—songs that were vigorous, magnificent, and filled with a longing for battle and trust in their companions.
Ryoma raised a bowl and clinked it heavily against theirs.
"Gabababababa! Ryoma! Your growth speed has truly opened our eyes!" Brogy drained the strong liquor in his bowl in one gulp and laughed heartily.
"That's right!"
Dorry set down his bowl, his palm slapping heavily on Ryoma's back, making him stumble.
"Wait until the day your name resounds throughout the New World!"
Brogy stood up, his massive figure casting mountain-like shadows in the firelight. He shouldered his axe and looked at Ryoma with an incredibly serious expression, making a warrior's promise.
"We two brothers will go out onto that sea and find you for another hearty battle!"