The New World, within the seas of Totto Land.
White Salt Island was vast, yet completely uninhabited. The land was barren and desolate. The salinity here was far too extre, making it impossible for vegetation to grow. There was no true freshwater to speak of, and naturally, it was unfit for human settlent.
That said, the island's naturally ford white salt was of exceptional quality. Not long ago, Totto Land had included it in its next phase of developnt, planning to turn it into a large-scale salt production base.
Of course, that plan had yet to be put into motion.
For now, this island had beco the chosen battlefield for Kaidou and Charlotte Linlin.
A violent shockwave spread across the island, rolling up clouds of dust. Even the air itself carried a sharp, briny taste.
With a dull boom, flas and lightning collided, triggering a violent explosion.
Black smoke surged outward. In the next instant, a massive warhamr spun wildly through the air, tumbling more than a dozen tis before slamming heavily into the ground. It sank deep into the earth and finally ca to a stop.
Monts later, Ortoren's figure burst backward out of the black smoke.
The mont his feet touched the ground, arcs of lightning spilled from the corners of his eyes. Imdiately after, two indigo-colored laser beams shot from his gaze, stabbing straight into the dark haze.
The twin lasers seed to be blocked by sothing within the smoke. As a result, a continuous stream of lightning energy spilled outward from the black fog, surging in all directions.
Then, a smooth, pale arm erged first from the smoke. Ortoren's lasers were striking directly against it.
What was shocking was that, despite enduring such high-intensity laser fire head-on, the arm showed no real damage at all. Only the area being continuously struck had turned slightly red, like the faint mark left after rubbing skin a few tis. It was completely harmless.
It was Charlotte Linlin.
Charlotte Linlin stepped out of the smoke, one hand gripping Napoleon in its Emperor Sword form, the other raised in front of her body. A cruel, twisted grin hung on her face as she sneered,
"This little bit of lightning won't hurt in the slightest. Didn't you say you wanted to show so filial devotion? Then put so real effort into it, Ortoren!!!"
The instant her words fell, a razor-sharp wind pressure slash burst out from the smoke behind her, rushing straight toward Ortoren's position.
The attack was terrifyingly powerful. Wherever it passed, the ground was sliced cleanly apart, as effortlessly as a hot knife cutting through butter.
It was Kaidou's Kaifu.
Yet faced with such a fearso strike, Ortoren didn't move at all. A smile lingered at the corner of his mouth, and he showed no intention of dodging.
When the wind pressure reached him, he casually raised a hand and slapped it aside.
With a sharp crack, Kaidou's Kaifu shattered right in front of his face.
The fragnted gales swept past Ortoren and detonated against the ground behind him, blasting up shattered stone with their remaining force.
But when those violent winds struck Ortoren himself, they accomplished absolutely nothing.
"If you want sincerity, you'll have to make feel so pressure first," Ortoren laughed arrogantly. "Not enough. Far from enough. You two… don't tell you're just playing house with ?"
From the mont they set foot on the island until now, less than half an hour had passed. Since this wasn't a fight to the death, the pace of the battle between the three was relatively restrained, lacking true ferocity.
For this entire half hour, it had been nothing more than probing and warming up.
No one had shown their real strength yet.
With a casual sweep of a massive hand, a powerful gust of wind surged out, blowing away the surrounding black smoke. At the sa ti, Kaidou's towering, domineering figure erged from within the dissipating haze.
At this mont, Kaidou still hadn't even activated his abilities and remained in his human form. Even so, on the Hassaikai in his hand, two barbs that he had tempered with Haki for many years had already bent and collapsed inward.
This was the result of his earlier clash of weapons with Ortoren. Ortoren's warhamr had forced Kaidou's barbs out of shape.
"The warm-up should be about over…" Kaidou muttered calmly.
As his words faded, his imposing, Haki-laden figure began to change. Patches of blue-green scales rapidly spread out from beneath his skin, enveloping his entire body in the blink of an eye.
At the sa ti, a thick dragon tail grew from his tailbone, his fingers transford into sharp claws, and the pressure radiating from his body surged even higher.
"No matter how many tis I see it, this form is still unbelievably impressive…" Ortoren said, a trace of admiration flashing through his eyes.
As the user of the Goro Goro no Mi, Ortoren could be said to stand at the very peak among Devil Fruit users.
Even so, he had to admit that Kaidou's Mythical Zoan, the Azure Dragon form, was monstrously powerful.
It was more than worthy of being called an "invincible" ability.
While Ortoren was still marveling at Kaidou's power, Kaidou had already completed his transformation into his beast-man form. A ferocious glint flashed through his eyes as he drove his feet into the ground. The solid earth instantly exploded into dust and flying rubble, so of which pelted Charlotte Linlin nearby, drawing a look of irritation from her.
Almost the mont he exerted himself, Kaidou's massive, muscular body shot forward at a speed completely out of proportion to his size, appearing right in front of Ortoren.
The Hassaikai in his hand, wrapped tightly in Haki, ca crashing straight down toward Ortoren's head.
"Kosanze Ragnaraku!!!"
As the roar rang out, purple lightning surged along the Hassaikai.
Kaidou's speed was frighteningly fast, but Ortoren had no trouble keeping up. Completely unhurried, he grabbed the warhamr embedded in the ground beside him and yanked it free. His feet slid as he stepped back half a pace, twisting his waist halfway around. The muscles of his abdon rolled like crashing waves as a terrifying force surged up from his lower body, gathering like a tsunami in his arms before being unleashed through the swing of the hamr.
Boom!
Thunder exploded. As a Logia user of the Goro Goro no Mi, Ortoren didn't give a second thought to Kaidou's lightning. What kind of level was that supposed to be? Daring to clash with him?
Of course, Kaidou had never intended to defeat Ortoren with lightning alone. After entering his beast-man form, his already overwhelming physical strength had been pushed even further. That surging, brute force was the real killing move he intended to use.
Yet when the Hassaikai collided with Ortoren's warhamr, Kaidou once again felt that imnse pressure he had experienced just minutes earlier.
Even in beast-man form, even while drawing on such trendous power, Ortoren's utterly unreasonable strength remained unmoved, standing firm like an unshakable mountain.
Still, Kaidou was at least able to hold Ortoren in a deadlock for a mont—and that was enough.
As Kaidou and Ortoren struggled against each other, Charlotte Linlin arrived at the point of their clash.
The Emperor Sword in her hand burned with raging flas. Seizing the instant when Ortoren had no opening to spare, she reversed her grip and slashed straight toward his waist. As Ortoren's own mother, she showed absolutely no restraint, as if she wanted to cut him cleanly in half with this single strike.
"Tekkai·Black Gold!" Ortoren shouted, making no move to evade.
As his voice fell, Charlotte Linlin's Emperor Sword slamd heavily into his waist. In an instant, violent flas completely swallowed his figure.
Even so, Charlotte Linlin showed no hint of satisfaction. Her expression instead darkened. With her free hand, eerie green soul energy coiled around her fist as she punched straight toward Ortoren, who was still engulfed in flas.
At that exact mont, the Hassaikai was knocked free from Kaidou's hand, and its restraint on Ortoren vanished instantly.
At the sa ti, lightning erupted outward from within, blasting the flas apart and revealing Ortoren's completely unhard body. His warhamr and the Hassaikai were both sent spinning into the air.
This also ant that Ortoren had freed one of his hands.
In a flash, Ortoren let out a furious shout.
"Elbow Bolt!!!"
Facing Charlotte Linlin's punch, infused with overwhelming soul power, he drove an elbow straight into it.
Dark soul energy and blinding lightning exploded violently between them. With just this single exchange, the clash between two monsters born with godlike strength shattered the ground for a hundred ters around them and forced it to sink more than two ters deep.
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