Chapter 172: Falling into the Sea
Louis stood beneath the firmament, his entire body bathed in lightning, his wings spread high, his golden hair flying.
As the lightning flashed, it illuminated his flawless white wings, creating a massive shadow that enveloped both Kaido and the Golden Lion.
In that instant, a blow approaching the speed of light illuminated the dim sky. It arrived in a flash, striking both of them and piercing straight through them.
CRACK!
With a flash of lightning that tore through the darkness, a terrifying roar erupted, creating visible ripples in the atmosphere.
With one blow, the unprepared Kaido and Shiki were charred black, faint arcs of electricity coiling and crackling around them as they coughed up mouthfuls of blood.
Shiki's body convulsed continuously. He plummeted from the high sky, crashing onto one of his still-descending islands.
On the other side, after a brief moment of stiffness, Kaido of the Beasts quickly regained consciousness. The immense Haki in his body, as vast as the ocean, surged, instantly expelling the residual arcs of electricity from his body.
Then, Kaido gritted his teeth and looked up, glaring at Louis, who was once again accumulating lightning from the thunderclouds in the sky.
"That really hurt..." Kaido subconsciously touched his waist, where his abdomen had been pierced by the lightning, and the charred wound. He grimaced. He realized that this blow, which combined Conqueror's Haki and lightning, just like the wound on his neck before, would also leave a permanent scar.
This made Kaido both happy and angry. Happy, because he had once again met someone who could leave a permanent scar on him. And angry, because he felt that the possibility of him using force to coerce Louis and Yelena to serve him had become completely impossible.
While Kaido was gritting his teeth, Louis, high in the sky, had once again accumulated a powerful electric current and swung down again.
Kaido slowly exhaled a hot breath. A scarlet light flashed in his bloodshot eyes, and a wild smile appeared on his increasingly bestial face. Then, he leaped up from the flame cloud he was standing on, his entire body almost turning into a streak of light as he shot into the sky.
He sometimes dodged the terrifying lightning strikes, and sometimes swung his Hassaikai, wreathed in advanced Armament Haki, to blast away the unavoidable lightning.
He ascended rapidly, flying through the sky with a terrifying whistle, and appeared directly in front of Louis. Under Louis's alert gaze, Kaido gripped the Hassaikai, which was wreathed in black and red arcs of electricity, with both hands and swung it out at the speed of lightning.
"Great Wyrm - Thunder Bagua!"
To this invitation for a true man's 1v1, Louis naturally had no intention of backing down.
In the howling wind, the halo above Louis's head spun rapidly, and flames surged. He vibrated the spear with one arm, and on the blade, which was already wreathed in two-colored arcs of electricity, he ignited a searingly hot sun and thrust it forward to meet the attack.
"..."
The two weapons collided without physical contact. Conqueror's Haki erupted, and black and red lightning shot through the heavens and the earth, scattering the once-again-gathering clouds and mist, and clearing a cloudless area dozens of miles wide.
A chaotic hurricane swept through, kicking up monstrous waves on the sea and spreading out in all directions.
In Dressrosa, a pale white giant, nearly nine meters tall, stood atop a mushroom-shaped rock. Her entire body radiated an extreme chill, and she met the surging tsunami head-on, freezing the sea in a radius of several nautical miles.
After doing this, Yelena, in her beast form, raised her terrifyingly chilling head and gazed up at the battlefield beneath the firmament. Her hand, with its sickle-like claws, clenched tight, and her scarlet eyes, deep-set within her skull, were filled with unwillingness.
BOOM—
A giant island fell into the sea, once again creating terrifying waves hundreds or even thousands of meters high on the already tsunami-ravaged ocean. The chaotic airflow lifted the Golden Lion, who was lying on the ground, and tossed him onto the surface of the sea, preventing him from being killed by the shockwave of the impact while he was unconscious.
Just then, the sky was filled with endless roars. Conqueror's Haki clashed, and a black and red giant web covered the heavens. One after another, Haki lightning bolts rained down from the sky, blasting terrifyingly deep pits in the sea and the shattered island.
With a sound of tearing, the charred Golden Lion's hands suddenly exerted force, gripping the two famous swords, Oto and Kogarashi, tightly. Immediately after, his blackened face moved, and he then abruptly opened his eyes. The next moment, the Golden Lion's body, which had been tossed about by the wind, stopped in mid-air as if defying gravity, and an arrogant smile appeared on his charred face.
"As I thought, fighting a top-tier powerhouse is the best rehabilitation training," the Golden Lion said, looking up at the battlefield in the sky and exhaling a turbid breath.
The next moment, the island, which had been shattered by the impact, rose rapidly. It quickly broke apart and reformed into one ferocious, clawing lion after another, which circled by the Golden Lion's side as he crossed the sky and rushed to the battlefield. At the same time, the two famous swords he held tightly at his side once again crackled with faint black and red arcs of electricity, which grew as he approached the battlefield until they completely wreathed the sharp blades.
This turn of events made the two who were constantly clashing in the sky temporarily break off. They both looked down at the arrogant figure who was making a powerful comeback.
Kaido's cavernous mouth, filled with sharp fangs, split open in a ferocious grin. "You're back? That guy Shiki."
And opposite him, Louis was not too surprised. As one of Shiki's attending physicians, Louis was well aware that his body had been healed by him and had already recovered to the peak he should have at his age. For him, who had already mastered top-tier techniques, once his body returned to its peak and he found his former state of mind, it was not difficult to re-master a technique like Conqueror's Coating. Especially in this fierce battle, it had directly accelerated this process.
Of course, if Louis had been determined to kill him quickly, with Shiki's physique, which was inferior to monsters like Kaido and Big Mom, he would not have had the chance to let his Haki return to its peak.
Soon, the Golden Lion, at the peak of his age, swung his two famous swords, which were wreathed in Conqueror's Haki, and, leading a group of lions forged from the island, forcefully inserted himself into the battlefield.
Once again, the battle devolved into a three-way brawl. Everyone was facing the moves of the other two, and everyone was targeting the other two.
The roars and aftershocks from the three-way battle spread throughout Dressrosa and the surrounding seas. The aftershocks, which were like a natural disaster, forced Yelena to hold her ground at the edge of Dressrosa, using her ability to freeze the waves one after another, turning them into a high wall of ice standing on the sea.
Near Dressrosa, spies and members from different forces, supernovas from different eras, and others had gathered. At this moment, everyone was looking up at the sky, taking in the full view of the battlefield above. The sound like the heavens falling, the unknown moves that created impacts like falling meteors, the slashes that tore through the sky and split the sea—all of it continuously battered people's understanding of reality.
At this moment, the hearts of many of the great pirates with bounties of several hundred million Berries and the supernovas who had been branded with the name of evil, who had witnessed this battle, were shattered. Those who had been proud and complacent about their own great strength finally realized their own fragility.
Many, after seeing the battle of the three, and thinking that they had wanted to contend with such existences for the great treasure, already had the thought of going back to their hometowns to farm. Although not everyone had lost their fighting spirit, it was foreseeable that in the future, the great pirates and supernovas who had witnessed this battle would be the most honest and low-key group since the beginning of the Great Pirate Era.
On a pirate ship with no insignia, Pedro and Zepo held on tightly to the ship's railing to ensure they could stand firm on the rocking vessel. "Serena... she was actually saved by such a great figure?" Pedro was not paying attention to his soaked body, but was staring dumbfounded at the battlefield in the sky.
Beside him, Zepo recalled the time he had proposed to go to Totto Land with Pedro to steal the Poneglyph, and for a moment, his face became a little unnatural.
On the other side of the sea, on a pirate ship flying the flag of the Whitebeard Pirates, many of the pirate grunts looked at the scene in the sky, their bodies trembling uncontrollably. At the bow of the ship, the eighth division commander, the fish-man Namur, had a hesitant look in his eyes.
At the very bottom of the battlefield, a tall man, about five meters tall and carrying a scythe and a chain mace, picked up a pair of binoculars and continuously searched his surroundings, as if looking for something.
Beside him, a series of shouts from his crew came.
"Captain, we found it! The young masters' flame cloud!"
"Where?" The tall man heard him and turned his head, looking in the direction his subordinate was pointing. At the edge of his vision, on a distant iceberg, a huge flame cloud was slowly moving.
"Quick, get over there!" The Warlord of the Sea, known as Hanafuda, saw this and breathed a sigh of relief, decisively giving a new order.
Soon, the sailing ship, riding the wind and waves, arrived at the edge of the glacier. Hanafuda quickly jumped onto the glacier, leading his men as they rushed to the location of the flame cloud.
However, just as Hanafuda and his men were approaching, the unexpected happened. From within the huge glacier, a giant hand, covered in sickle-like claws and bone-white fur, extended, reaching straight for the flame cloud hovering in mid-air.
Seeing this, a bad feeling flashed in Hanafuda's eyes. He decisively activated his Zoan Devil Fruit transformation, turning into a dragon-man dragging a long tail. He leaped high and also extended a clawed hand, grabbing at the hovering flame cloud.
RIIIP—
With a strange sound, the flame cloud was split in two, each half held in one of their hands.
Hanafuda looked at the half of the flame cloud in his hand, his heart growing more and more anxious. He ignored where he was and began to search through it on the spot. However, fate seemed to have played a joke on him. In the end, all he found was a wooden box that he felt was very familiar.
"..."
Hanafuda's face became ashen. He subconsciously looked at the pale giant beast that was holding the other half of the cloud.
"Give the flame cloud back!" The next moment, Hanafuda roared angrily, gripping the scythe and chain mace that were linked by a chain and charging straight up.
The hybrid-beast form of Yelena raised an eyebrow, even though she didn't know what this guy opposite her was saying. But since the other party had already made a move, she naturally had nothing more to say. She decisively lifted her war hammer and used the move she had learned from Kaido.
The next moment, the cold, heavy war hammer was swung out with a terrifying roar of thunder, colliding with the giant chain mace in the dragon-man's hand.
BOOM!
A huge shockwave spread, and Haki lightning ravaged the area, directly shattering the ice field in a radius of several hundred meters.
In the stalemate, Hanafuda looked at this familiar blow, and his expression changed. "Kaido's move?!"
Suddenly, as if he had thought of something, he subconsciously looked at the straight, jet-black oni horns next to the ferocious antlers. "You're Yamato's sister?"
Yelena heard him and raised an eyebrow, asking back, "Warlord of the Sea - Hanafuda, you're one of Kaido's men?"
Hanafuda saw this and breathed a sigh of relief. He was just about to say something, but a huge roar suddenly came from behind him.
BOOM—
The two of them subconsciously turned their gazes and saw that at the edge of the horizon, one small island after another was falling into the sea, kicking up terrifying waves. In the rain of crimson lava, a massive dragon shadow was clearly visible.
"..."
"Kaido—"
"Kaido!"
Two voices sounded one after another.
Then, Hanafuda glanced at the flame cloud behind Yelena and then led his group of subordinates to rush quickly in the direction where the Azure Dragon and the island were falling together.
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