Chapter 44 – Encounter: Azure Dragon Kaido
Year 1485 of the Sea Circle Calendar.
The four seas were mostly at peace. Only the North Blue remained embroiled in increasingly brutal warfare, while the others had gradually stabilized.
With the Navy guarding the two entrances to the Grand Line, the number of pirates operating in the first half of the Grand Line had dwindled significantly.
In the New World, at some point, Edward Newgate—the "Crescent Whitebeard"—had founded his own pirate crew.
Charlotte Linlin and Kaido had parted ways. Linlin took Streusen and her children into a turbulent sea zone to build "Totto Land," and their whereabouts were currently unknown.
One day, Ross dragged Moxxi back to look after things at home, then set out alone for the Grand Line.
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"Wororororo! The Navy is as feeble as ever. Boys! It's time to celebrate!"
At the G7 Branch, Kaido had come swaggering all the way from the New World to conscript fresh recruits. He threw back his head with a monstrous laugh, brandishing an enormous spiked kanabo over his shoulder.
In the distance, pirates freed from the branch prison were running wild, plundering and slaughtering throughout the base.
Two rear admirals assigned to defend the installation lay on the ground, battered and bleeding, their eyes wide with disbelief and seething hatred.
They couldn't understand it—why would a pirate of Kaido's power stoop to bullying these small fry? With strength like his, only a Vice Admiral from headquarters had any hope of standing against him!
Especially that monstrous body—no matter what attacks struck him, he remained unscathed. Even with both of them working together, they hadn't left so much as a single scar.
In almost no time at all, the entire G7 Branch had fallen.
Boom!
Lifting a foot, Kaido brought it crashing down, ending the lives of both rear admirals in an instant.
He looked up, gaze turning toward the distant New World, and felt the stirrings of ambition rising in his chest.
Not yet. He would bide his time—gather more men—then he'd return to that land where the greatest powers vied for supremacy. Alone, he could never contend with those legendary pirates whose reputations shook the seas.
Right now, the New World was divided among rival warlords. Apart from Whitebeard and Charlotte Linlin, who were each holed up in their respective territories for the moment…
The alliance of Wang Zhi and Silver Axe was expanding madly, while "Pirate Grand Admiral" Golden Lion Shiki was growing his forces without restraint.
Pirates everywhere clamored to join under their banners, and Shiki welcomed them all. There was hardly any room left for someone like Kaido to carve out his own place.
Still—at least now he could fly. Otherwise, he really would have been forced to cower beneath that woman Linlin's skirts just to survive long enough to pursue his ambitions.
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"Boss Kaido—"
A scrawny underling in prison garb hurried over to report.
"In about half a day, Vice Admirals from G5 and the new P1 Branch will arrive with reinforcements. Should we pull back before they get here?"
Every branch had emergency alarms and naval charts detailing nearby garrisons. As a navigator, he could roughly estimate when reinforcements would show up.
P1 and P2 were the newly established bases at Reverse Mountain.
More distant bases—G4 and G3—would take about a full day to send help.
"Hmph. Let them come. If we slink away now, what will people say? That Kaido fled from the Navy? Do you know who I am? I'm Kaido—the Azure Dragon!"
Ever since eating the Mythical Zoan Fruit, Kaido's arrogance had grown without limit. Even Linlin herself had to fully unleash her Armament Haki—and spend considerable time—to push his regeneration to the breaking point.
Don't ask how he knew that. He just did.
Compared to Linlin, how strong could a few Vice Admirals really be?
And besides—he could fly. If things got tricky, he'd simply abandon these freshly recruited underlings and escape into the sky.
"Hooo—!!!"
All the pirates present were utterly stunned by Kaido's overwhelming, domineering declaration.
As expected of someone from the New World—a great pirate who dared to annihilate a Navy outpost without hesitation!
"Long live Boss Kaido! No one in the world can match him!"
"The Navy ain't worth a damn—Boss Kaido could smack them all senseless with a single swing!"
"Damn right! Following Boss Kaido, you eat meat three times a day and drink your fill every meal!"
"Meat every meal! Wine every meal!"
"Meat every meal! Wine every meal!"
"Meat every meal! Wine every meal!"
Their cheers echoed nonstop through the base. The convicts reveled wildly, some firing flintlock pistols into the sky like fireworks, the shots crackling like celebratory firecrackers overhead.
Until—
Rumble!
A bolt of lightning as thick as a water barrel crashed straight down on Kaido himself.
It was too fast—so fast he didn't even have time to react before it struck him squarely. Without Armament Haki to blunt the blow, a numbing current shot through his entire body.
All around him, the raucous pirates instantly fell silent, panic rising in their eyes as they darted about searching for the attacker.
"Damn it!"
Shaking his head clear, Kaido's eyes flared as he looked skyward—where he saw a man lounging casually on a cloud, dark thunderheads gathering all around him.
That lightning bolt just now? Nothing but an appetizer.
"No matter who you are—if you dare to ambush me, Kaido—then today you die here!"
ROAR!
Without a moment's hesitation, Kaido unleashed his power. In an instant, a hundred-meter azure dragon erupted upward, surging into the sky to confront the intruder, Ross.
Kaido's massive eye alone was nearly as tall as Ross himself. The sheer scale of his draconic form radiated an oppressive force that defied belief.
On the ground, the lowly pirates gaped, dumbstruck.
Was this truly a power a human could wield?
Such size—like a walking calamity.
High above, Ross wasted no words. He simply quickened the gathering of the storm clouds.
In the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of meters of ocean darkened to pitch black. A brewing tempest churned within the clouds, the colossal energy of it making Kaido's heart lurch.
Who is he?
How could he run into such a monster here of all places, while just out fishing for recruits to build his name?
All he'd wanted was to cause a stir and gather followers!
But—he would never back down so easily!
"I am—Kaido, the Azure Dragon!"
BOOM!!!
A massive burst of Conqueror's Haki erupted from him, purple lightning crackling across his scales. His fighting spirit surged to its peak. With a roar, he lunged open-mouthed straight at Ross.
"Kids who've never had a proper beating… always need to be taught their place."
Ross spoke almost lazily. His figure dissolved into mist, vanishing without a trace.
ROAR!
Kaido snapped his jaws shut on empty air, bellowing in fury. His eyes swept frantically around, Observation Haki surging as he tried to pinpoint Ross's location.
"Become the cloud—Thundercloud Titan!"
Unnoticed, the storm had already stretched to cover hundreds of kilometers. Ross, now part of the drifting vapor, seemed to exist everywhere at once.
His voice reverberated through the high sky, as if a thousand copies of him across countless moments all uttered the same words together.
Kaido's draconic pupils constricted sharply.
Overhead, the thunderclouds suddenly parted, revealing a colossal silhouette—a black giant over a thousand meters tall looming in the gap.
The storm clouds ringed the giant like a halo, arcs of lightning ceaselessly coalescing.
In Kaido's Observation Haki, he could feel it—every inch of his massive body was locked on, targeted.
He was caught in the eye of the storm. No escape.
"Damn it—I'm not the kind of bastard who surrenders so easily!"