"Huh? Why did he run?"

Kuzan watched as the phoenix, wreathed in blue flames, flapped its wings and flew into the distance, momentarily disoriented by the wind.

One moment, the opponent was still gathering strength, preparing to attack. The next moment, he just ran away.

Moreover, Marco has the Phoenix Devil Fruit, giving him the ability to fly, which is much faster than Kuzan running on two legs or using Geppo.

However, the main reason was that Kuzan had absolutely no idea that the other party would turn and leave. This maneuver had the flavor of a 'feint,' catching Kuzan off guard.

"Huh? Where did Whitebeard go?"

Kuzan stopped and scanned the battlefield, finding that the space in front of Kenji was empty.

The Haki arcs still raging within the battlefield, along with the earth shattered into pieces, spoke of the intensity of the battle that had just occurred.

"Could it be that Kenji-san's side... is already finished?" Kuzan's face showed suspicion.

Then, he put away his Geppo and dropped from mid-air, landing with a solid thud on the ground.

There were no techniques for softening the impact, it was just a hard smash.

After landing, Kuzan scanned the battlefield repeatedly, confirming Whitebeard's presence over and over.

Not long ago, Whitebeard was kicked away by Kenji, and by now, he had already flown very far.

With Kuzan's Observation Haki level, sensing targets within and around the battlefield was acceptable, but asking him to sense targets further away was a bit difficult.

Of course, if strength isn't enough, intelligence can make up for it.

Kuzan couldn't sense Whitebeard's presence, but he could make reasonable inferences based on the current facts.

Actually, there wasn't much to infer. The outcome of the battle was almost glaringly obvious.

The battlefield was in ruins, indicating a major battle had taken place.

And now, only Kenji was left on the battlefield, so where did his opponent, Whitebeard, go? He wouldn't have gotten hungry and decided to eat his fill before coming back to fight, would he?

So, Kuzan pondered for a moment and deduced most of the facts.

"It seems Kenji-san won."

Kuzan looked at the calm and composed Kenji in the distance, nodding inwardly, yet feeling a bit annoyed.

"What a pity, I didn't get to watch their battle closely... That was a battle between the world's top powerhouses..."

When the battle restarted not long ago, Kuzan had taken the lead in confronting Marco.

Initially, he fought with ease, using his Armament Haki and Observation Haki to suppress Marco.

However, what he never expected was how absurd the opponent's Phoenix Devil Fruit ability truly was.

Every time he struck and injured the opponent, the wound would quickly heal as the Revival Blue Flame burned.

Eventually, Marco simply kept his entire body continuously burning with blue flames, rendering Kuzan's attacks almost ineffective.

One second, he had just used his Armament Haki-infused fist to crack Marco's skin, but the next second he withdrew his fist, the cracked skin healed on its own.

The speed at which Kuzan's attacks dealt damage couldn't even keep up with the speed of the opponent's blue flame healing, his recovery ability was simply cheating.

Upon discovering this situation, Kuzan quickly changed his strategy, intending to use a war of attrition to exhaust his opponent.

Because Kuzan had heard that most Devil Fruit abilities consume the user's stamina, he figured that this Mythical Zoan Phoenix Devil Fruit should be no exception.

Who knew that after he continuously attacked for a period, Marco was still full of vigor and bouncing around, while Kuzan himself was quite tired.

Clearly, Marco's Phoenix Devil Fruit ability had a bonus in healing, while Kuzan's attacks genuinely required a lot of effort.

Especially when facing an enemy like Marco, causing him real damage required even greater effort.

After all, Marco wasn't foolish enough to stand still and let himself be beaten. He would resist, and Kuzan's attacks first had to break through his defenses.

After all that, Kuzan actually turned the tables. He himself became the one getting beaten.

There was no other way. The opponent's terrifying recovery ability was simply cheating.

The other party even dared to fight head-on without defending at all. But could Kuzan dare to do that? Absolutely not!

Kuzan didn't have that terrifying recovery ability. If he went on the offensive as a defensive strategy, by the end of it, Marco the Phoenix would most likely be fine, perhaps not even injured, and only he would be severely wounded.

And facing such immense pressure head-on, Kuzan naturally had no time for anything else. At first, he could still spare a glance at the battle between Kenji and Whitebeard.

Later, he almost had to concentrate all his energy just to deal with Marco in front of him.

What's more, as the battle between Kenji and Whitebeard intensified, the entire battlefield was filled with endless arcs and violent shockwaves.

Let alone Kuzan, who was in a state of battle and could only spare glances to watch, even if one focused intently on watching, it would be difficult to clearly see what was happening on the battlefield.

In contrast, Marco was clearly fighting with ease and was able to detect Whitebeard being sent flying.

It wasn't until Marco actively took flight to pursue Whitebeard that Kuzan seemed to 'wake up from a dream,' finally realizing that the situation on the battlefield had become very different.

However, no matter how much he thought about it, he only felt it was a great pity that he couldn't closely observe the battle of the top powerhouses.

"I'll just have to wait for the next opportunity... Damn it, why did the battle end so quickly?!" Kuzan scratched his head, both annoyed and puzzled.

"Two powerhouses standing at the world's peak fighting, yet their battle ended faster than mine?"

"Are these two really not faking it?"

Kuzan even began to suspect, but his doubts were quickly answered.

He lifted his foot to walk towards Kenji, but before he had taken a few steps, his foot 'clunked' and he tripped, almost falling.

Kuzan frowned and looked down, only to find a dark, shadowy figure stuck in a crack in the ground.

Kuzan examined it carefully for a while before recognizing that this person was none other than the Prince of Wano Country, Oden.

"Huh, it's only been a short while, how did you end up underground?"

Kuzan was startled. The Oden in front of him was so dirty that even his own family might not recognize him.

Then, when Kuzan released his Observation Haki and sensed him, he was even more shocked.

"Well, you're more seriously injured than I am... Weren't you just watching the battle? How did you get so many injuries?"

Kuzan was both shocked and somewhat amused.

Goodness, there's actually someone in this world who gets seriously injured just by watching a battle.

He himself had been continuously fighting Marco over there and hadn't sustained many injuries.

The desperate struggle of the combatants was not as brilliant as a sudden idea from a spectator.

"Speaking of which, you should have been watching Kenji-san and Whitebeard's battle just now, right? Hiss..."

Kuzan quickly thought of something else and gasped.

"That battle between the two... didn't even spare the spectators?"

"What exactly happened? Why don't you say something?"