"Rise!!"
With Kaido's furious roar, Onigashima suddenly 'came to life' like a waking beast! The ground shook violently, the ocean churned, and everyone on the battlefield had to stop and steady themselves. More than a few people started cursing.
"What the hell is happening now?!"
Can't we just fight in peace for once?
"Hey, hey, hey! Is Onigashima sinking?!"
"No! It's rising! We're floating in midair...!"
As the island trembled, Onigashima was ripped from the ocean itself, rising higher and higher, carried by swirling clouds. And the one responsible for it all was—
"Oooororororo! Listen up, you lot!!"
Kaido's commanding voice echoed across the floating island. Now that Charlotte Linlin had left with her daughter, he declared:
"The battlefield is set! No one leaves until I fall!"
"Forget reason! Forget strategy! Forget hope! Just fight with everything you have!!"
"Today, if we Beasts Pirates don't rip out our enemies' throats, then let Onigashima become our grave!! Fight! Roar! Because we are—PIRATES!!"
Hah, no wonder he's one of the Four Emperors.
The all-around knight who had just arrived glanced up at Kaido as he made his Haki-fueled declaration. It was clear—now that the BIG MOM Pirates had withdrawn, Kaido immediately lifted Onigashima. Part of it was to prevent CP0 from interfering, but the other reason was:
"Ohhh! Boss Kaido!!"
"Hahaha! A battle where we don't have to think about anything—I love it!"
"Let's show these fools what it means to be 'Beasts'! I'm going in—Awoooo!!"
As Kaido's words spread across the battlefield, the Beasts Pirates—who had been demoralized after the BIG MOM Pirates left—suddenly got fired up again, like they had been injected with pure adrenaline.
Roman raised an eyebrow.
A battle with no way out.
After two years of planning, the Beasts Pirates—who should have been dominating the Straw Hat Crew—were now being overwhelmed instead. Kaido had to resort to tactics and speeches just to get his forces to fight to the death.
"Good. Now this is how a battle should be."
Boom!
The towering all-around knight landed beside Luffy and the others. Roman, fresh from his fight with BIG MOM, cracked his knuckles, while Nami, perched on his shoulder, sighed in exasperation.
"What's so good about this...?"
"Heh, if Kaido has to personally boost morale, that means he already acknowledges us as worthy opponents."
Nearby, Ace—shirtless—spoke up. Dark markings spread from his chest down his limbs, the complete opposite of Luffy's Gear Fourth form. The two years he had spent as a captain had made him more composed and strategic, less reckless than before.
"If they're going all-in, then we'll take down Kaido fair and square!"
Roman nodded.
Strategy was part of battle, but in the end, strength decided the victor.
"Yeah. We take him down, and I move forward."
Luffy pressed down on his straw hat.
Charging in unprepared wasn't bravery—it was just throwing your life away.
Now, standing against Kaido were Luffy, Roman, Ace, and Yamato.
There was no way they would lose—
"Bring it on, brats!"
"Indestructible Heat Breath!!"
Kaido, in his massive blue dragon form, opened his mouth and unleashed a blinding blast of flames. The overwhelming heat roared forward like a tidal wave, sweeping toward the group.
Kaido's heat breath was powerful enough to wipe out an entire mountain in one shot. Now, with nothing holding him back, it seemed capable of burning the land to ashes and scorching the sky itself!
Unlike Ace, who had developed a variety of techniques with the Flame-Flame Fruit, Kaido abandoned all finesse. His attack was pure destruction and speed—nothing else.
"Freezing Fang!"
Yamato quickly countered with a blast of icy breath, but compared to Kaido's full power…
"Let's go—!"
But Yamato wasn't fighting alone.
A towering armored knight rushed in front of her, slashing his sword upward through her freezing breath. The blade, infused with compressed Haki and swirling winds, merged with the ice to form an incredibly powerful frozen vortex!
At the same time, Nami expertly controlled the freezing breath, guiding it around Kaido's flames. Roman, wielding a massive sword covered in dual-layered Haki, held back the attack.
Instead of canceling each other out, the "Freezing Fang" and "Indestructible Heat Breath" intertwined under Nami's control, spiraling into a raging storm that was hurled right back!
This single sword strike combined Roman's Haki-infused swordsmanship, Yamato's icy breath, and even part of Kaido's own flames—instantly forming a massive whirlwind of fire and ice, spinning back toward him.
"Combined Technique—Song of Ice and Fire!"
?
Yamato: Forced to cooperate…
The raging tornado of ice and fire trapped Kaido within it, the clash of Haki unleashing a furious whirlwind of power! Inside the storm, Kaido was tossed around like a fish caught in a whirlpool.
And at that moment—
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Two figures shot up from opposite sides, striking in the exact instant when the storm's force had weakened:
"Gomu Gomu no Lion Gun!"
"Skyquake—Black Shatter!"
Two fists, coated in Armament Haki and wrapped in Conqueror's Haki, struck the massive dragon at the same time!
A deafening roar exploded in all directions, the shockwaves blasting outward in rings. Luffy and Ace were sent flying from the impact!
But mixed into Kaido's roar—was a hint of pain.
"That's insane…"
Roman tried using his Observation Haki to find Kaido's weak spot, but in his vision, Kaido's entire body glowed like an endless sun, radiating blinding heat and energy.
There was nothing to see through.
This wasn't some special ability—it was the pure result of Kaido's overwhelming Haki, constantly burning at full power.
For anyone weaker, their Haki would be like a small flame next to the blazing sun—instantly swallowed up. Even the most bizarre Devil Fruit powers wouldn't matter if they couldn't break through this wall of Haki defense.
"Yeah… If Devil Fruits with absolute rules could win that easily, this world would be broken."
But in reality, none of the true powerhouses of the sea had "rule-breaking" Devil Fruit abilities.
"Tempest!!"
With Kaido's furious roar, massive tornadoes twisted down from the sky, rumbling like thunder and carrying a wailing chorus of countless voices.
Tearing through the clouds.
Tearing through the sky.
Tearing through everything in their path—
BOOM BOOM BOOM!!
They crashed… onto Kaido's own head.
???
Shaking his enormous head, Kaido turned his gaze toward Nami, who sat on the armored knight's shoulder. Her dress gleamed with gem-like decorations, elegant and extravagant.
"Brat! You think you can control the wind better than me?!"
Kaido's massive dragon body coiled in the air, twisting and spiraling.
Instead of manipulating large-scale natural disasters—something that could be disrupted and stolen by that girl—Kaido chose a different approach.
He compressed the "wind" around himself, concentrating its force directly onto his body.
Then—
"Dragon Twister—Wind Destruction!!"
Countless invisible wind blades erupted from Kaido, swirling rapidly into a massive, razor-sharp storm.
Within seconds, the compressed winds formed a gigantic, bone-white vortex of slicing force!
And as Kaido suddenly relaxed his muscles—
The storm exploded outward, sending the lethal blades roaring in all directions!
Boom boom boom boom boom boom!!!!!!
A massive shockwave erupted around Kaido, sending towering waves of dirt and debris flying dozens of meters high! Everything in its path—whether it was the massive skull of Onigashima, chunks of rock and earth, or even metal from the buildings—was shredded by countless slashes, as if cut apart by a master swordsman's flying blades.
When the storm of wind blades finally settled, the battlefield—spanning several hundred meters—had been sliced down by more than ten meters, turning into a massive, crisscrossed basin of deep cracks.
"It's not over yet—"
After pushing away a few pesky fighters, Kaido's dragon form reared up and let out a deafening roar toward the sky.
With his insanely powerful lungs—so tough that even metal seemed weak in comparison—Kaido compressed the air inside him to the extreme. Then, in a violent explosion, the super-compressed air burst from his mouth, forming visible shockwaves that rippled outward layer by layer! At the same time, his Conqueror's Haki surged through the blast, creating a true dragon's roar!
"Death Zone Thunderclap!!"
The devastating soundwave, infused with Conqueror's Haki, exploded like a wrathful cry from the heavens. Within a thousand meters of the battlefield, any fighter caught in the open—without a building to shield them—was immediately struck down. Their eyes rolled back, their bodies collapsed to the ground, and it was unclear whether they had merely fainted or died on the spot.
Similar scenes played out all across the battlefield. Even those who were a bit farther away felt their hearts pounding, their breathing growing heavy, their vision blurring, and a wave of nausea washing over them. Their reactions became sluggish, as if their very nerves had been dulled. Only swordsmen of a certain caliber and elite warriors who had been granted artificial Devil Fruit enhancements could remain steady.
Even the distant land of Wano, far beneath Onigashima, was affected. The monstrous roar sent towering tsunamis crashing onto the shores, swallowing up fishing villages and tearing apart countless buildings. The raging winds from the shockwave left the landscape in ruins, turning everything upside down.
The stronger fighters, however, reacted very differently. Instead of fear, the terrifying dragon's roar only confirmed one thing for them.
"Boss Kaido is still fighting! Let's go!"
Loyal to the end, Jack immediately seized the moment to rally their forces. With a roar, he swung his massive scythe down toward a dazed samurai, still reeling from the shock of Kaido's attack.
*Clang!!*
A pitch-black shoe stopped the blade mid-swing. Sanji, fresh from his battle with Cracker, materialized in midair.
But—
"Damn it, something feels off..."
What? Using a shoe to block a blade—what's there to complain about?
Of course, Sanji wasn't talking about that. He was talking about his own body.
In past battles, whenever he got hurt, he would be back in the kitchen cooking for everyone the very next day. Meanwhile, his crewmates would still be bandaged up, and no one ever thought much of it.
Roman had once joked that Sanji had the weakest constitution among them, but after learning *Seimei Kikan*, he hadn't paid much attention to it. But now that he thought about it… wasn't his recovery ability the strongest in the Straw Hat Crew? He never even used bandages. No matter how badly he got beaten, his hair was always perfectly styled the next moment...
"Damn it… could this be because of that 'Lineage Factor' modification...?"
"I don't want to become a monster!"
Covering his leg in black Haki, Sanji delivered a powerful kick that sent the towering Jack stumbling backward. Jack immediately retaliated, slashing his scythe at Sanji's leg—but sparks flew on impact!
It was just like the exoskeleton of the Vinsmoke family...
"He just took Jack's attack head-on—"
"What the hell?! He's a monster!!"
"Even while carrying the weight of Wano on my back, even while holding up Onigashima with my Flame Clouds—
I, Kaido, am still the strongest in the world!"
"—Linlin, help me!!"
(End of Chapter)
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