Gurgle...
Suspended in mid-air, a pool of blood began to spread from Alucard's body, becoming thick like sludge.
"Hm?"
This sight made Kaido pause. Even when facing Whitebeard's earth-shaking attacks, he had never retreated a step, but Alucard's actions made him instinctively feel a sense of danger. He chose to stop and observe instead of blindly attacking.
The blood sludge slowly separated from Alucard's body, remaining connected only by faint, fine threads of blood. The separated sludge gradually expanded until it reached the size of a man.
"The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame."
Alucard recited the liberation command for his ultimate technique. At that moment, deep inside the castle's inner sanctum, a slight crack appeared in the coffin lid engraved with the same words, revealing a single eye inside.
Gurgle... BOOM!!
The mass of blood sludge, manipulated by Alucard's blood threads, burst open like a popped balloon the instant the coffin lid in the inner sanctum cracked open. The being that emerged caused even Kaido to gasp in surprise.
"Sh... Shanks!" Kaido shouted the person's name.
Red hair, a cloak, shorts, sandals, and a slender katana—the figure was identical to Shanks' appearance before his death two years ago. However, unlike the expressionless, grim look of a typical corpse-soldier, the summoned Shanks had a ruddy complexion and a slight smile. If not for the layer of blood sludge connecting him to Alucard, Kaido would truly suspect that Shanks had been resurrected.
While Shanks was slightly inferior to Kaido in a one-on-one fight, Kaido dared not underestimate him. He grit his teeth and roared, "Do you think summoning a puppet can do anything to me?!"
Alucard cracked a smile. "A puppet? Ah... Indeed. But you'll see just how capable he is."
Under Alucard's control, Shanks drew his katana, the very sword he last used before his death, formerly Ivalis's personal weapon.
Shanks' sword collided with Kaido's club. The surrounding space seemed to freeze, with only waves of residual power sweeping in all directions, kicking up spray upon spray of seawater.
"This is…!"
Kaido stumbled back several steps, looking at Shanks in mid-air with disbelief.
The sword intent and the feeling emanating from the fight were identical to the man himself. What in the world was going on?!
"Still don't believe it? Then try this."
Alucard sneered. He did not move himself, merely controlling Shanks to fight.
Whoom!
A sudden sound, like a massive bell tolling, and a rock-steady pressure swept out in all directions.
Ain, Binz, and a large group of Marines, as well as a few members of the Immortal Pirates on the island, felt this immense crushing force. Their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed onto the ground.
"Conqueror's Haki? Kaido?"
Zephyr quickly managed to shield a few of his students, but with the sheer number of people collapsing, he couldn't save everyone in time.
As a master of Armament Haki, Zephyr immediately recognized it as Conqueror's Haki, but he had never seen Alucard use this, naturally making him suspect Kaido.
Ivalis grabbed a nearby subordinate who had fainted and nearly fallen, placing them by a tree. His brows furrowed behind his sunglasses. "This feeling of Conqueror's Haki... why is it so familiar?"
Feeling the overwhelming Conqueror's Haki that erupted like a flash flood, even Ivalis, who had only felt it once before, recognized it instantly: this was undoubtedly Shanks' Haki.
'Shanks definitely died by the Immortal bastard's hand, but what is this situation now? Is this his ability?' Kaido wondered internally, but the situation before him didn't allow him to dwell on it. Shanks' Conqueror's Haki had coated his katana entirely in black, and he was rushing toward Kaido with even fiercer speed than before.
Once again, the two forces collided, creating a resonance even more powerful than before.
Two seconds into the deadlock between Kaido and Shanks, Kaido's expression froze. Alucard had appeared right in front of him, a black pistol pressed against his shoulder. Kaido couldn't react in time—or rather, Shanks' sword had nullified his power, preventing him from resisting Alucard.
"Good luck."
Alucard gave a wicked smile at Kaido's face and fired the pistol.
A bullet, a special, mercury-coated Seastone explosive round customized by Dr. Vegapunk, the kind that had given Shanks a severe beating in life, shot into Kaido's head, sending his massive body reeling backward and plunging into the sea.
One Yonko facing another Yonko, plus a figure whose strength surpassed an Admiral and was close to that of a pseudo-Yonko, the difference in power was immediately obvious.
In just a few moves, Kaido was already at a disadvantage.
This was Alucard's new ultimate technique.
While it was still the River of Death, it only summoned a single individual from the river, not the entirety of it like before. Summoning the whole river carried the risk of being truly killed if his heart was ever shattered.
Although the power of this single-target move was not as monstrous as the full-power version, it reduced the risk to zero.
He could summon multiple beings, but the more he summoned, the more concentration Alucard needed to control them.
While the figures in the River of Death retained their combat habits from life, they were still merely fighting machines, and their overall strength was less than what they possessed in life.
However, for someone like the current Shanks, Alucard only needed to focus a portion of his will on him to easily restore him to the power he had in life.
If he were to summon more figures, his focus would be divided, resulting in an awkward situation where he had quantity but lacked quality.
Yet, even with just this combination, how many people in the world could withstand it?
"It's not over, Kaido. I told you I wouldn't let you off easy this time, didn't I?"
Alucard sneered. As soon as he finished speaking, the blood-connected Shanks, concentrating a control over natural forces extremely similar to that of Gol D. Roger, raised his sword high, pointing it at the clouds above.
BOOM!
A muffled clap of thunder sounded, and red lightning appeared in the clouds, beginning to concentrate on the tip of Shanks' sword. The previously clear sky rapidly became overcast, and the blood-red lightning grew more prominent.
"Sure enough, it's the Captain's!" Ivalis and the few former Red Hair Pirates crew members were stunned, their eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as they watched the scene in the sky.