Thud, thud, thud—
Outside the room where Kaido sat, Karl knocked first, and then Yamato pushed the door open.
As they stepped in, a seven-ter-tall giant of a man ca into view, drinking on a specially made chair.
"Senior Kaido..."
Walking up to him, Karl introduced himself with great politeness. "A pleasure to et you. My na is Karl."
"Glug, glug..."
Kaido drank in great gulps. He looked drunk on the surface, yet his eyes were sizing Karl up.
"Hey..."
Seeing Kaido say nothing, Yamato frowned, about to call him the usual "old geezer."
At that mont, Karl turned his head and shot Yamato a look, his tone brooking no argunt. "Yamato, stand aside and don’t speak."
"Al... alright!"
Feeling the captain’s authority for the first ti, Yamato nodded obediently, then shouldered his kanabō and stood to the side, glaring at Kaido.
Bang!
But the sight of Karl scolding his son made Kaido slam his gourd against the arm of the chair.
A tangible aura burst from him and swept the room in an instant.
His tigerish eyes locked on Yamato, Kaido rumbled, "Yamato, what’s the aning of this?"
Disrespect to , your father, and yet so obedient to an outsider.
If not for his aura being unchanged, Kaido would have thought so new Mimicry Fruit user had turned into his son.
"Heh-heh..."
Yamato grinned smugly and showed his pale, slender wrists to Kaido. "I’ve decided to go to sea and adventure with Karl, so the cuffs that bound —I took them off."
"Bastard, you cannot go to sea!" Kaido roared.
Yamato roared back, "They stole over ten years of my freedom. No matter what, this ti I’m going!"
"In that case, defeat !"
As always, Kaido rose with Hassaikai in hand and growled, "If you can defeat , I won’t interfere with any decision you make!"
"Fine, who’s afraid of who!"
Yamato hefted the club as well, clearly forgetting the agreent with Karl.
"Yamato..."
Karl’s voice brought him back to his senses.
Seeing Karl’s helpless look, Yamato stuck his tongue out. "Sorry, sorry... I forgot again!"
Watching Yamato apologize to Karl, Kaido finally gave Karl a serious look.
"So you’re the Dragon Knight, kid..."
Though sowhat tipsy, he kept his wits.
One glance and Kaido knew who Karl was. A gust of liquor-laced white breath left his lips as he spoke like distant thunder. "You’re the one who’s bewitched my idiot son to leave with you?"
"Yes, Senior Kaido..."
Sensing the volcano of killing intent about to erupt from Kaido, Karl’s own presence surged to et it. He lifted his chin, smiled, and said, "From this mont, Yamato is my crewmate."
"Raii Hakke!"
Almost as Karl’s words fell.
Kaido swung Hassaikai, wreathed in red lightning, at extre speed toward Karl.
The club, bigger than Karl, swelled rapidly in his view.
Karl, who had been watching Kaido with his unique-tier perception, had long since finished charging via Life Return.
As the club was about to smash him like a baseball, Karl clenched his right fist, sheathing it in flowing golden Armant, and hurled his strongest normal-state punch at the descending club.
BOOOOM—!
With this punch—the first full-power blow after his second evolution that did not borrow the Rumble-Rumble Fruit—Karl unleashed emission-grade Armant at full force.
A strike that, if amplified by the fruit, would shatter a colossal mountain in one hit.
Thus—
When fist and club collided, a deafening detonation spread across most of Onigashima.
A vast, transparent-white air cannon roared off Karl’s fist.
It locked into a test of strength against the colossal club.
Krak-krak-krak—
Savage shockwaves exploded from air cannon and club, sweeping the room.
Like the Tremor-Tremor Fruit’s quakes, like the tangible destruction of Conqueror’s Haki.
Where the gale passed, everything was not only flung away but cracked apart.
A web of fissures crawled over the floor, ceiling, and walls.
"..."
The deadlock didn’t last long. Barely half a minute in, Karl’s face shifted.
His feet began to slide back on the floor, as if pressed by an irresistible force, carving skids—just as when facing Yamato’s Conqueror’s coating.
The air cannon ahead felt as though it had slamd into Carina’s Barrier Fruit.
As Karl’s feet slid, the terrible shockwave rebounded.
Because of that rebound, the body that could have matched Kaido suddenly fell behind; Kaido’s club knocked Karl back over ten ters.
Sparks flared under his heels as he skidded out the door and slamd into the corridor wall.
Boom!
With a thunderous crash, the wall behind Karl blew outward, a gaping hole punched clear to the outside by the rebounding air cannon.
"Hahaha... too strong!"
Buried under the expelled air cannon, Karl was unhard—and laughed in excitent.
Just one exchange showed him the size of the gap to the true summit of the world.
There was no doubt that, after his second evolution, Karl’s physique surpassed those two sovereigns, Whitebeard and Shanks.
But compared to Charlotte Linlin, the iron balloon, and Kaido, who seed undying, there was still a sizable gap, just as Karl had said.
At full power in his normal state, he could withstand Raii Hakke, yet his body would still be blasted back so distance.
If the opponent used Conqueror’s coating and Karl had not learned it, that one swing—even with Karl’s steel body—would have caused serious harm.
But such a small gap ant little to Karl.
For Kaido’s Raii Hakke had told him this:
Once he completed the third evolution, his physicality would be the strongest in the world, bar none.
Then, on the contrary, he would pull ahead of Kaido and Charlotte Linlin by a small margin—or a large one.
...
Even without the third evolution, Karl did not fear Kaido.
Beyond his endlessly evolving monster physique, he had trump cards.
The little white dragon’s light attribute and the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, peak three-color Haki, the Six Powers’ ultimate art and Life Return, King’s Fist, and the greatest trump— the Mysterious Spear.
These were enough to bridge the gap between him and Kaido.
Especially with elentization and preemptive elentization, even if he could not win, he could retreat intact.
As if to prove it, blue-white current flashed over Karl’s body.
BOOOOM—!
Unleashing Life Return again, Karl fused in the Rumble-Rumble Fruit and fired a Six Kings Gun akin to Raii Hakke, sheathed in crackling blue-white lightning, at Kaido.
The electric shockwave ford a transparent-white air cannon and roared for Kaido.
Kaido again answered with Raii Hakke, trying to bat the cylindrical air cannon back like a ball.
On contact, the sa island-shaking blast as before split the sky again.
Rrrrumble—
This ti, Kaido didn’t knock it back.
But his club shattered the air cannon in one blow.
The shockwave’s gale demolished half the building in that direction.
Broken eaves and walls crashed down, burying the trio and the Beasts Pirates who had hurried this way at the sound.
"Peh, peh..."
Thick dust billowed up into a mushroom cloud.
From the rubble, Yamato poked his head out, face sared gray, and stared ahead.
Karl and Kaido stood outside the debris as if untouched, their vastly different heights looming and fading in the dust as they faced off.
Swoosh—
The next instant, Karl vanished with Lightning Blink.
"So fast!"
Yamato gaped and rushed to cast out Observation Haki to follow the duel.
Karl turned into blue-white current, threaded the field, and in a blink hung in midair, fist wrapped in emission-grade Armant, and smashed for Kaido’s face.
A blow packed with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit’s power, the Six Kings Gun, and Armant’s internal destruction.
If that punch landed on Kaido’s face.
Like Luffy after becoming the Fifth Emperor, it would definitely carve pain and scars onto a body ranked top three in defense worldwide.
Clang—BOOM!
But though huge, Kaido wasn’t the least bit slow.
Like Karl, he had the three Hakis at their extre, and had done so years earlier.
He had already read Karl’s movent.
Facing a punch that could hurt him, Kaido—rarely among his enemies—did not just take it.
He lifted Hassaikai, sheathing it in Armant that could one-shot a New World monster, and easily blocked Karl’s fist.
With a ringing tallic crash—
The energy in Karl’s fist—Rumble-Rumble, Armant, and the essence of the Six Powers—again beca a massive air cannon.
Kaido, focused only on the Armant that could hurt him, clearly forgot Karl’s fist had a second strike.
Under the titanic shockwave, Kaido, too, was driven back two or three ters.
It was only a few ters, but Yamato, seeing it, couldn’t help gaping. "The old geezer actually got pushed back!"
Read Advanced Chapters on : patreon/Kaizo247
~ Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~ Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]
Reviews
All reviews (0)