The purple light at Ginyu's fingertip grew brighter and brighter. Destructive energy was rapidly compressing into a tiny point.
Kaido lay at the edge of the boiling magma, panting heavily. His Yonko physique, which he had once been so proud of, was now covered in bone-deep fissures.
Governor-General of the Beasts Pirates. The Strongest Creature on Land, Sea, and Air. In the face of an absolute numerical value of one hundred and twenty thousand, these titles seemed like a cruel joke.
But the word "surrender" had never existed in Kaido's vocabulary. He swallowed the bloody metallic taste in his throat, crushing his last intact molar.
The image of the silver-haired youth from the Foosha Village tavern flashed through his mind. He had barely even scratched the surface of the power Manager Blake had so casually bestowed upon him. He hadn't even crossed the threshold of the Myriad Heavens that made his soul tremble.
How could he fall here? How could he lose to a cosmic circus troupe that didn't even understand Conqueror's Haki?
An incredibly violent surge of vitality suddenly erupted from deep within Kaido's battered body. It was the SSS-rank reward he had earned by challenging a god with a mortal body in the Pokémon dungeon: The Demon Dragon Body.
This physique, fused with the genetics of a top-tier Pokémon, finally bared its true fangs as he hovered on the brink of death.
Embracing death to find life. The ruined flesh writhed and reconstructed itself at a visible rate. The azure dragon scales peeled away in large chunks, replaced by much darker, heavier, pitch-black armor. Between the seams of the black scales flowed high-temperature veins resembling molten lava.
Kaido's massive body violently twisted and convulsed in the crater. Through the agony, he let out a roar that shook the heavens.
This roar was no longer just the scream of a wild beast. It carried the high-dimensional pressure of a true dragon.
The sickly green clouds in the sky began to churn violently. Namek's thin atmosphere seemed to respond to a powerful summons as gale-force winds rose from the ground. Rayquaza's Atmospheric Authority had been fully activated. Kaido wasn't absorbing the planet's energy; he was commanding its atmosphere.
Just as the purple beam of light shot from Ginyu's finger, a pitch-black tornado erupted directly from the crater. The berserk wind pressure forcefully knocked the earth-piercing energy ray off its trajectory. The purple pillar narrowly missed Kaido's scalp, slicing a distant mountain range cleanly in two.
Suspended in mid-air, Ginyu was blown back over a dozen meters by the sudden hurricane. He stabilized himself, his expression turning grim as he stared into the pit. "A dying struggle. Whatever tricks you play, the numerical gap is insurmountable."
Standing on a distant ruin, Jeice held a spare scouter. He had intended to verify if the native's life signs had flatlined. But the moment he placed the device over his left eye, the red numbers began to jump wildly.
Thirty thousand. Fifty thousand. Eighty thousand. One hundred thousand.
The color completely drained from Jeice's red face. He clutched his head with both hands, his voice cracking. "Captain! This monster's battle power... it just broke a hundred thousand! And it's still climbing!"
Burter stood beside him, his vaunted speed failing to muster even the courage to run. "One hundred thousand? How is that possible! He was just at thirty thousand!"
Hearing his subordinate's shout, Ginyu didn't turn around, his eyes locked onto the pitch-black crater.
From the center of the storm, a brand-new monster slowly ascended. Kaido had completely shed his previous half-human, half-dragon form. He now looked more like a world-ending demon dragon straight out of ancient myth.
He towered at a staggering ten meters. Pitch-black magma scales covered his entire body. Two even longer, more powerful dragon whiskers whipped wildly in the wind. But the most terrifying aspect was the aura surrounding him. The black-red Conqueror's Haki and the dark gold natural energy perfectly intertwined, forming a visible, substantial armor.
Kaido cracked his neck, the popping bones sounding like muffled thunder rolling across the sky. He looked down at his newly regrown, razor-sharp claws, feeling the terrifying power threatening to burst from his body.
"Uworororo! Now this is power. This is the power that'll let me stand tall in front of the Manager."
Kaido raised his head, his slitted, dark gold pupils locking onto Ginyu in the sky. "Purple dwarf. That punch you threw earlier felt pretty good, didn't it? Now it's my turn."
Before his words faded, the air beneath Kaido's feet shrieked in explosive failure. His massive body vanished from its spot. It wasn't an afterimage born of speed; it was pure strength shattering the spatial medium.
Ginyu's heart leapt into his throat. His combat-honed instincts forced him to cross his arms in front of his chest, unleashing the full aura of his 120,000 battle power.
But in the very next second, a pitch-black dragon claw tore through his white aura and slammed heavily against his arms.
Bam! A visible ring of white shockwaves exploded in mid-air. Ginyu felt as if he had been hit head-on by a meteor traveling at top speed. The bones in his arms ground together with a sickening crunch.
He was blasted toward the ground like a cannonball.
Boom! Namek's hard green rock was gouged into a deep trench several kilometers long. Ginyu tumbled dozens of times before finally skidding to a halt at the end of the ravine. His black Battle Armor was torn to shreds, and purple blood seeped from his skin.
"Bastard!" Ginyu rose from the rubble, his expression unbelievably ugly. He was the strongest warrior under Lord Frieza. How could he be swatted away by a native from some backwater planet?! "I'll blast you into cosmic dust!"
Ginyu rapidly traced circles with his hands in front of him, drawing upon all the ki in his body. A purple energy ball ten times larger than the last materialized above his head. The destructive fluctuation distorted the surrounding space.
"Die!" Ginyu thrust both hands forward, sending the massive energy sphere crashing toward Kaido with overwhelming momentum.
Kaido watched the incoming purple sun. He didn't dodge. He had no desire to dodge.
He took a deep breath, his chest expanding to an exaggerated degree. Between his pitch-black scales, the magma-like veins glowed to their absolute limit. The atmosphere for tens of thousands of meters around was forcefully drained as dark gold light gathered deep within his throat.
"Bolo Breath: Heavenly Dragon Roar!"
A dark gold pillar of light, over a hundred meters in diameter, erupted from Kaido's mouth. This was no longer mere fire. It was a destructive breath combining his Demon Dragon Body, Rayquaza's Atmospheric Authority, and top-tier Conqueror's Haki.
The dark gold pillar and the purple energy ball clashed violently in mid-air. There was no deafening explosion—the sheer intensity of the energy collision had vacuumed away the surrounding air, stripping sound of its medium.
Only a blinding sphere of light rapidly expanded between heaven and earth. At the edge of the expanding light, Namek's surface was effortlessly smoothed over like tofu. Several towering rocky peaks were instantly vaporized without a trace.
Jeice and Burter fled frantically into the distance, lacking the courage to even look back. A clash of this magnitude would reduce them to ash if it so much as grazed them.
Stalemate. A brutally intense stalemate.
Ginyu gritted his teeth, veins bulging on his arms. He squeezed every last drop of ki from his body. The full foundation of his 120,000 battle power was on full display. The purple energy ball held the dark gold pillar at bay, even beginning to inch forward.
Kaido let out a wild roar in mid-air. He could feel the power draining rapidly from his body, but instead of inducing fear, it only further ignited his primal ferocity.
"Get the hell back!"
Kaido clenched both fists tightly. Black-red Conqueror's Haki lightning surged wildly down his arms and into the beam. A terrifying streak of pitch-black abruptly entered the dark gold breath.
The power of the World Breaker. It was a rudimentary application he had figured out after witnessing Garp's void-shattering Law-Grade Haki. Though it wasn't yet at the level of Law, it was enough to break this deadlocked equilibrium.
The dark gold pillar abruptly expanded, tearing through the purple energy ball with overwhelming, destructive force.
Ginyu's eyes widened in horror as he watched his ultimate move be forcibly ripped apart. The dark gold torrent swallowed him entirely.
When the light faded, a bottomless canyon was left scarred into the surface of Namek.
----
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