Chapter 189: Morale Changes!
For a moment, time seemed to freeze.
The deafening shouts of battle and the clash of weapons on Onigashima seemed to eerily vanish the moment Kaido was sent flying.
A deathly silence.
It was a silence so profoundly unnatural and suffocating that it felt physically heavier than the thick, swirling storm clouds gathering violently above the island.
Just seconds ago, this entire coastal battlefield had been a chaotic, ear-splitting hellscape.
There had been the constant, thunderous roars of artillery fire, the sharp, agonizing screams of dying men, and the relentless, metallic screech of thousands of rusted weapons clashing against solid, eternal ice.
But now, that cacophony had been completely erased, replaced by a chilling void.
All members of the Beasts Pirates, whether they were low-level grunts desperately fighting the relentless Ice Cavalry, or the elite Tobi Roppo executives furiously besieging Rem and Ram, completely stopped their movements.
It wasn't a tactical retreat or a coordinated pause in the assault.
They stood frozen in place, their muscular bodies entirely rigid, as if the very warm blood pumping through their hardened veins had instantaneously turned to solid ice.
Weapons were halted mid-swing, war cries died painfully in dry throats, and aggressive lunges were aborted, leaving thousands of men standing like petrified statues scattered across the frost-covered earth.
On their weathered, battle-scarred faces was the exact same, horrifying expression.
It was a completely dazed, deeply hollow stupor, fundamentally mixed with extreme shock and a sense of sheer, world-shattering absurdity that their simple minds simply could not process.
Everyone's trembling, dilated pupils reflected the exact same unbelievable, reality-defying scene currently playing out before them.
On one side stood the towering, majestic blue energy demon god, its massive, ethereal armor radiating a terrifying, divine pressure that made the very air vibrate.
And on the other side, lying in the distance... was the completely shattered, smoking remains of a small rocky mountain.
It was the very same mountain which their invincible Governor-General had violently crashed into, the sheer kinetic force of his massive body causing the entire geological structure to collapse violently upon himself in a massive cloud of blinding dust.
"No... impossible..."
A heavily armed, towering pirate, who happened to be standing closest to the devastating scene of the impact, completely lost his grip on reality.
He dropped his massive, heavy-duty long sword with a loud, ringing, metallic clang that echoed painfully loud in the absolute silence.
He didn't even notice the heavy, razor-sharp steel blade nearly taking off his thick leather boots, his hands simply falling limply to his sides.
His jaw hung slack, his chest heaving irregularly as he merely muttered in a weak, high-pitched, dream-like voice.
"It's an illusion... I must be hallucinating... This has to be a terrible, twisted nightmare..."
His mind frantically tried to reject the visual information his eyes were providing him.
Governor-General Kaido was not just a captain to them; he was a literal living deity.
He was the man revered throughout the treacherous waters of the New World as a genuine god of destruction, a completely unkillable demon who could fall from the sky and only suffer a minor headache.
He was the absolute symbol of invincibility in their fanatical hearts...
Was he actually... sent flying head-on in a sheer, unadulterated test of raw physical strength?
Tossed aside and swatted through the air like a trivial baseball being casually hit away by a giant's bat!
This deeply terrifying, blasphemous thought exploded violently in the hearts of all the observing pirates simultaneously.
It ruthlessly, systematically shattered their proud ferocity, their ingrained arrogance, and their blind, religious fanaticism!
"Pfft...!"
"Crack...!"
However, a battlefield is a merciless, unforgiving grinder of human lives.
In this brief, incredibly fatal moment of collective psychological distraction, the fragile scales of the massive battlefield tipped irreversibly towards total annihilation.
The thousands of Ice Cavalry members summoned by General Esdeath were not human beings burdened by empathy, shock, or complex emotions.
They were purely mechanical constructs of eternal ice, completely tireless, utterly devoid of mercy, and absolutely fearless of death.
They paid absolutely no heed to the enemy's sudden psychological state, their dropping of weapons, or their deep, existential crises.
They merely, faithfully, and mechanically carried out their master's sole, cruel command: to relentlessly, efficiently slaughter all living things currently standing before them.
A massive, muscular pirate, who had just been holding his own and parrying evenly matched with a towering Ice Knight, experienced a momentary lapse in his focus as he stared at the collapsed mountain.
Because of that split-second, fatal delay, his physical reaction time was a single beat too slow to bring his shield back up.
His thick, hairy chest, protected by layered leather armor, was instantly and brutally pierced.
The wickedly cold, jagged, translucent knight's spear tore through his flesh, completely shattering his ribs and piercing his heart with a sickening crunch.
Hot, steaming, crimson blood violently gushed out from his chest and mouth, instantly painting the pristine, sparkling frost beneath him a sickening shade of red.
The last flickering light in his rapidly widening eyes was one of endless, chilling despair as the freezing energy violently invaded his organs, stopping his heartbeat entirely.
Such gruesome, terrifying scenes of one-sided slaughter began to unfold simultaneously in every single corner of the chaotic battlefield.
First, there was one agonizing, high-pitched scream that tore through the eerie silence.
Then, almost instantaneously, it cascaded into a horrific, deafening barrage of overlapping screams, wails, and the sickening sound of flesh being torn apart!
The supposedly fearless, seemingly unstoppable momentum of the mighty Beasts Pirates evaporated into thin air in a matter of seconds.
The massive, heavily fortified battle line, which had barely been maintained through sheer numbers and brute force, collapsed completely and utterly in the blink of an eye!
Men turned their backs to the enemy, dropping their weapons as their survival instincts completely overrode their loyalty.
They scrambled over each other, screaming in absolute terror, totally exposing their defenseless backs to the emotionless, advancing wall of glacial death.
"Damn it! All of you, snap out of it immediately!"
Who's-Who, one of the elite Tobi Roppo, felt a cold chill of genuine panic run down his spine as he witnessed the entire army disintegrating around him.
He was currently locked in fierce, incredibly deadly combat with the blue-haired demon maid, Rem.
After desperately using his advanced Rokushiki techniques, specifically "Soru" and "Kami-e," to barely dodge a highly tricky, bone-crushing chain-mace attack that shattered the ground where he had just stood, he saw the tactical situation rapidly deteriorating.
He couldn't help but roar at his fleeing, cowardly subordinates with furious, bloodshot eyes completely hidden behind his crimson, horned mask.
"Governor-General Kaido absolutely cannot be defeated by the likes of them! Get back in formation, you cowards!"
His voice was laced with a desperate mixture of commanding authority and rising, uncontainable anxiety.
"He is the 'Strongest Creature in the World'! A single blow means absolutely nothing to him!"
"That's right! Don't you dare falter, you pathetic worms!" Black Maria shrieked in sharp, heavily agitated agreement from the other side of the intense skirmish.
She violently swung her massive, flaming polearm, the Wanyudo, creating a massive arc of scorching fire in a desperate attempt to create some breathing room.
She was being relentlessly pressured by the pink-haired maid, Ram, whose mastery over wind magic was proving to be a nightmare for her.
Invisible, razor-sharp blades of highly compressed air, the terrifying "El Fura" spell, were constantly shredding her carefully laid, sticky spider webs into useless ribbons.
"Show them the true, terrifying spirit of the glorious Beasts Pirates!" Black Maria projected her alluring yet venomous voice across the chaotic harbor.
Her usually beautiful, composed face was now heavily twisted in a desperate, deeply ugly sneer of frustration.
"The Governor-General is simply just enjoying the fight! He loves to test the strength of his prey!"
She panted heavily, barely deflecting another barrage of wind blades that threatened to slice her enormous, arachnid lower body.
"Are you all completely useless, pathetic trash going to die out here before he's even had his fill of battle?!"
The Tobi Roppo officers were practically frantic with desperation; they were fighting a deeply uphill, suffocating battle on two entirely different fronts.
They had to simultaneously contend with Rem and Ram's incredibly coordinated, seemingly telepathic joint attacks that left almost zero blind spots for them to exploit.
The sheer physical, demonic strength of Rem's heavy iron morningstar combined flawlessly with the long-range, invisible slicing power of Ram's wind magic.
While fighting for their very lives against these two monstrous maids, the officers were also desperately trying to manually rally the completely broken, shattered morale of the entire, collapsing army.
However, their commanding, threatening roars had very little actual, practical effect on the terrified masses of grunts.
Once the deeply insidious seed of absolute, primal fear is successfully sown in a human heart, it cannot be easily eradicated by just a few angry slogans or empty threats of execution.
The low-ranking pirates, the Waiters, Pleasures, and even the artificially enhanced Gifters, heard their powerful officers' desperate shouts.
Deep down, their pirate pride genuinely wanted them to regain their composure, turn around, and bravely fight back against the icy horde.
But their gaze involuntarily, almost magnetically, drifted away from the immediate danger and towards the distant, completely desolate ruins.
They stared at the terrifying, mountain-sized giant blue titan standing triumphantly, its twin blades gleaming with a ghostly, lethal light.
Their bodies remained entirely stiff, sluggish, and heavy with overwhelming, paralyzing dread that bypassed all logical reasoning.
It's over... even the great, unkillable Governor-General Kaido fell... we are all going to die here...
This dark, deeply pessimistic thought echoed loudly in the minds of thousands.
Just as this deeply suffocating, completely desperate atmosphere was about to completely engulf the entire pirate crew, triggering a total, irreversible mass rout and ending the war...
"Rumble..."
A deep, low-frequency vibration suddenly shook the very bedrock of the island.
The massive pile of ruins, piled high with countless, multi-ton giant rocks and shattered boulders, suddenly trembled violently!
It wasn't a minor settling of debris; it was a rhythmic, powerful heave, as if a sleeping volcano was forcefully preparing to erupt from deep within the earth.
"That's right! Look over there! Look!"
A frantic, bleeding Beast Pirate executive, seeing this miraculous, terrifying scene unfold, clung to it like a drowning man grabbing onto a final, fragile straw.
He pointed his blood-stained saber towards the trembling mountain of rocks, roaring with all his remaining might, his vocal cords tearing from the effort.
"Watch closely, you worthless cowards! The Governor-General is about to emerge!"
His voice cracked with a mixture of fanatical joy and lingering terror.
"Eliminate all the enemies in front of you immediately! Prove your worth before he sees your cowardice!"
Like a switch being flipped in a dark room, everyone's attention, from the lowest, weakest Pleasure to the highest, most elite officer, was instantly drawn away from the slaughter!
Their eyes locked onto the shifting, grinding rubble with bated breath.
"Boom...!!!"
With a tremendous, earth-shattering roar that temporarily deafened the nearby combatants and sent a massive shockwave of displaced air rippling outwards, the entire mountain of giant rocks was blasted completely open from within!
Massive boulders, weighing dozens of tons each, were violently launched into the air like mere pebbles, raining down on the surrounding landscape.
It was shattered by an absolutely unstoppable, terrifyingly raw physical force that defied all human comprehension!
A burly, towering, monstrous figure slowly and deliberately rose from the exact center of the swirling, thick cloud of pulverized stone and suffocating dust.
As the dust began to clear, the true extent of the damage—and Kaido's resilience—was laid completely bare for all to witness.
His upper garments, which had previously adorned his massive frame, were completely and utterly torn to shreds, reduced to mere burning rags clinging to his waist.
This revealed his impossibly thick, deeply tanned, heavily scarred musculature that looked as though it were carved from hardened, divine iron.
He had several wounds of varying depths scattered across his massive torso and muscular arms, a bloody, visceral testament to the sheer, terrifying cutting power of the Susanoo's previous strike.
Dark, steaming, incredibly hot blood even flowed heavily down his rugged, fierce face.
It dripped steadily from a jagged, nasty wound on his forehead, flowing past his eyes and sliding down his thick, muscular neck, sizzling slightly as it hit the cold air.
However, the physical injuries, as horrific as they would be to a normal man, weren't the main point of focus.
The point that truly struck everyone to their absolute core, sending a brand new shiver down their spines, was his facial expression.
There was absolutely no trace of anger at being struck down.
There was no visible wince of pain from the bleeding gashes.
And there was most certainly not even a single, microscopic hint of fear, panic, or discomposure in his demeanor.
Instead, Kaido's face slowly, deliberately stretched into a wide, impossibly terrifying smile.
It was a smile that was infinitely more savage, deeply manic, and profoundly excited than ever before.
He slowly extended his long, rough tongue, casually and deliberately licking away the hot, metallic-tasting blood that had reached the corner of his wide mouth.
In his molten golden eyes, a roaring, unquenchable, completely insane flame called "exhilaration" burned infinitely brighter than the midday sun!
He had finally found someone capable of bringing him pain. He had finally found a war worth fighting.
"Worororororo..."
A deeply suppressed, incredibly manic, rumbling laugh bubbled up from deep within his massive chest.
It started low, but quickly escalated in volume and intensity, echoing powerfully throughout the entire, silent, frozen scene.
"Now this... this is much more like it..." Kaido roared, flexing his massive arms, his muscles bulging as his wounds already began to slowly knit themselves back together under the power of his Awakened Zoan fruit.
"This is a proper, bloody fight!"
Seeing this horrifying yet undeniably awe-inspiring display of pure, unadulterated, monstrous vitality, the thousands of members of the Beasts Pirates went completely, utterly insane.
The psychological shift was instantaneous and violently extreme.
One moment they were plunged deep into a dark, icy abyss of total despair, entirely convinced that their lives were completely forfeit.
And the very next moment, they were forcefully injected with the most potent, mind-altering stimulant known to mankind: the absolute fanaticism of serving an invincible god!
Their Governor-General, their absolute, unquestioned boss, after directly enduring such a world-destroying, mountain-shattering attack head-on, not only didn't fall and die,
but instead... he had actually become even more excited for the impending slaughter?
This was the terrifying, completely unkillable man they had chosen to follow!
This was Kaido, the undisputed King of the Beasts, one of the legendary Four Emperors who rightfully reigned supreme over the treacherous, unforgiving seas of the New World!
"Woah woah woah woah woah...!!!"
"Governor-General Kaido! Governor-General Kaido!!"
"The Governor-General is truly invincible! He cannot be killed! Don't hold back! Kill them all!!!"
Fanatical, overlapping shouts, sounding exactly like a massive, unstoppable mountain tsunami crashing violently against the shore, once again violently resounded across the entirety of Onigashima!
All the pirates' morale, after experiencing a violently extreme, emotional rollercoaster ride from heaven to hell and then rocketing straight back from hell to heaven,
did not drop or falter in the slightest.
Instead, it soared rapidly to an unprecedented, terrifyingly high peak of absolute bloodlust!
With heavily reddened, completely bloodshot eyes that bulged with sheer madness, they fiercely brandished their rusted and bloody weapons.
With reddened eyes, they brandished their weapons, as if pumped with adrenaline, launching an even more frenzied charge towards the ice knightss before them!
"Hmph, the toughness of this body is almost on par with that Hashirama fellow... But, this is better for pleasing me!"
As Madara's words fell, the Susanoo once again raised its massive arm.
Amidst flying debris, Kaido had just propped himself up when a violent slash tore through the air and arrived!
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