Up on the deck of the White Dragon, the crew had witnessed the entire apocalyptic explosion.
"Is... is Bardock going to be okay?" Robin asked, her voice trembling slightly. The younger crew members looked equally tense.
"Relax. The Boss will be fine," Daz Bonez stated, his absolute confidence in their captain unwavering.
"Let's just fly over and check," Enel grumbled. The massive, chaotic electrical discharge had temporarily scrambled his Mantra, making it impossible to precisely sense the aftermath of the battle. He steered the golden ship back toward the rapidly dissipating thunderclouds.
Before they got too close, a figure shot out of the smoke. It was Bardock, riding his Flying Nimbus.
He looked rough. The radiant golden aura that usually surrounded his Monkey King form was completely extinguished, and his fiery golden eyes were dull with sheer exhaustion. At this moment, he looked less like a divine deity and more like an ordinary, oversized monkey.
"That was way too close. I almost roasted myself!" Bardock gasped, leaping onto the deck and immediately reverting to his human form. He let out a massive sigh of relief. "Let's get out of here. Aokiji is perfectly fine, too."
"What?!" Sai gasped in shock. "An attack of that magnitude couldn't even scratch that ice guy?!"
Enel's face darkened considerably. Raigo was his absolute strongest offensive technique. Even if he fully transformed into his Thunder God state, he couldn't output more raw destructive power than that. To think it hadn't even harmed the Marine... was the gap in their power truly that massive?
"It was the terrain," Bardock panted, instantly pinpointing the issue.
"The terrain?" the others echoed in confusion.
Robin's eyes suddenly lit up in realization. "Of course! We are hovering directly over the open ocean. The moment Enel's Raigo made contact with the sea, the vast majority of the electrical current instantly grounded and dispersed through the saltwater. The actual concentrated impact was massively reduced."
Hearing this logical explanation, Enel's bruised ego recovered slightly.
"Exactly," Bardock nodded. "Right before the Raigo hit, Kuzan was still relentlessly pressing his attack. He likely factored in the ocean's conductivity from the very start. I was completely cornered, so I forcefully dove straight through the descending black cloud to shake him off. Kuzan didn't follow me in. At the very last second, I saw him dissolve into freezing air and dive deep beneath the ice layer on the ocean's surface just before the blast detonated."
Bardock shuddered at the memory. Just aggressively grazing the outer edges of the thundercloud had almost entirely drained his remaining stamina. Enel's ultimate attack was truly a weapon of mass destruction.
Exhausted from fighting an Admiral-level opponent and forcefully maintaining his Magic Immunity, Bardock ordered the Automata to bring out their food reserves. He activated Life Return (Seimei Kikan) and began violently stuffing his face to rapidly replenish his calories.
Meanwhile, Enel steered the White Dragon higher into the sky, rapidly flying away from the battlefield.
Not long after, a massive iceberg breached the boiling, electrocuted surface of the ocean—the frozen remnants of the clash. Kuzan slowly stepped out of the ice block.
When Bardock had dived into the thundercloud, Kuzan had sensed the violently unstable energy and strategically chosen not to pursue. By hiding beneath the ocean's surface and heavily layering his Armament Haki with his Devil Fruit powers, he had successfully tanked the residual shockwave completely unharmed.
"Arara... as expected of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit," Kuzan sighed, dusting off his coat. "In terms of sheer, apocalyptic destructive power, the only Logia that can truly rival it is Sakazuki's Mag-Mag Fruit."
He looked up at the empty sky. "Well, what do I do now? Nico Robin managed to slip away..."
Kuzan scratched his head helplessly. Although he had intentionally planned to let Robin escape eventually, he had fully intended to beat the crew up a bit first to teach them a lesson and gauge their true strength. Instead, he had exerted a significant amount of effort and failed to land a single lasting scratch on any of them. Bardock's incredibly reckless escape method had completely caught him off guard.
'Mr. Garp is going to laugh his ass off when he hears about this,' Kuzan thought miserably.
High above on the White Dragon, Enel's Mantra had already locked back onto Kuzan's aura. It remained as vast and powerful as ever, proving that the Vice Admiral's stamina reserves were monstrously deep.
"Ah, that hits the spot," Bardock sighed. Having fully utilized his Life Return to digest the massive meal, his stamina was mostly restored. He patted his stomach and lay flat on the deck, enjoying a much-needed rest.
"Wait," Enel suddenly frowned, his eyes snapping toward the horizon. "A massive entity just entered my Mantra range. It's flying straight toward us."
Enel's face tightened. In his entire life, he had never felt a life signature this terrifyingly dense. The sheer vitality radiating from this newcomer was even more overwhelmingly oppressive than the Ice Marine they had just fought!
"Change course immediately! Try to evade them!" Bardock ordered, instantly sitting up and channeling his remaining energy. His mind raced, rapidly calculating who this could possibly be. 'There are only a handful of top-tier fighters in the world who can fly. A crippled Golden Lion Shiki? No, if it's one of the others... I'm going to seriously question my luck.'
"It's too late," Enel gritted his teeth, steering the ship sharply. "They've already locked onto us. Even after I changed course, it adjusted its trajectory to intercept!"
"Damn it," Bardock cursed. "Turn around! Fly back toward Kuzan's airspace, but don't drop altitude just yet!"
A few moments later, the mysterious entity finally breached the cloud layer, revealing itself to the crew.
It was a colossal, terrifyingly majestic Azure Dragon. Its massive, serpentine body wove through the sky, aggressively stepping on floating Flame Clouds as it charged relentlessly toward the White Dragon.
"A-AHHH! W-What is that thing?! It's terrifying!" Chopper shrieked, desperately trying to hide behind the mast (but hiding his face while leaving his entire body completely exposed to the dragon).
Chopper didn't know who the Azure Dragon was, but the rest of the crew certainly did.
Kaido of the Beasts.
One of the absolute supreme overlords of the New World.
Robin and Perona felt the air violently rush out of their lungs; the sheer, suffocating pressure radiating from the Yonko made it difficult to even breathe. Daz Bonez and Sai gripped their weapons, cold sweat dripping down their faces.
Enel, however, showed absolutely zero fear. In fact, he looked incredibly excited, electricity crackling wildly around his fists. He was itching for a fight.
Kaido had been drawn to the area by the deafening roar of the Raigo.
A few days ago, when the news of the Golden City first broke across the world, Kaido had been completely blackout drunk. Roaring that he was going to claim the mountain of gold to fund his weapon factories, he had recklessly transformed into a dragon and flown straight out of Onigashima.
This was a fairly common occurrence; the Beast Pirates' executives were completely used to it. Since no one could actually stop him anyway, they figured it was better to let him fly off and wreak havoc somewhere else rather than throw a drunken tantrum on Onigashima and accidentally crush half his own crew into meat paste.
Once Kaido sobered up mid-flight, he hadn't turned back. He genuinely knew the ancient legends of Shandora. Since the Golden City had originally existed on Jaya, he decided to fly to the first half of the Grand Line to investigate. If he stumbled upon the lucky adventurers, he would violently kidnap them and steal all their gold, massively boosting his war funds. If he didn't find them, he'd just casually destroy a few Navy bases to pass the time.
As Kaido flew near Water 7, the apocalyptic explosion of Enel's Raigo caught his attention. Figuring he had nothing better to do, he flew over to check it out.
"Urororororo!" Kaido's booming, monstrous laugh shook the very clouds as he recognized the golden ship from the newspaper. "Looks like today is my lucky day! Hand over the gold and surrender peacefully, you pathetic brats!"
"Ignore him! Dive! Land the ship right now!" Bardock yelled frantically. "I can't believe we literally just risked our lives to run away, only to willingly run straight back to the Vice Admiral for protection!"
The White Dragon plummeted from the sky, aggressively splashing down onto the ocean surface right next to the massive iceberg.
Down below, Kuzan had literally just hung up his Den Den Mushi.
Vice Admiral Tsuru had officially confirmed that Kaido of the Beasts had breached the Water 7 sector. Because facing a chaotic, suicidal Yonko alone was a massive logistical nightmare, Tsuru had already dispatched Admiral candidate Borsalino (Kizaru) as rapid reinforcements. Kuzan alone wasn't guaranteed to successfully drive this madman away.
TS : finally 100 chapter, wdyt about this novel? should keep or drop?
i will update 2 chapter/day
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