"So you can be cut down after all."
His voice was not loud.
It even sounded a little lazy, like a murmur from someone who had just woken up.
But that murmur instantly stirred the battlefield that had been buried under Kaido's pressure.
Morgans's arm shook violently around the Camera Den Den Mushi, and the lens jolted.
Behind his glasses, his eyes widened as if he had just witnessed something impossible.
What had he just heard?
Facing the strongest creature ruling over this sea, that madman's first words were a calm, almost casual statement dripping with contempt.
This was headline news powerful enough to shock even the World Government.
High above, those enormous eyes suddenly narrowed. The fury burning inside them was replaced by a deeper, colder anger.
"Wororororo..."
Kaido's laugh changed. It was no longer arrogant and wild, but carried the heartfelt killing intent of a monster who had been provoked by an insect.
He did not bother wasting another word.
His answer was action!
Rumble—!
The azure dragon opened a mouth large enough to swallow a warship.
Endless scorching energy gathered in his throat, igniting the air and making it scream.
A pillar of light so dense it almost seemed solid blasted out, carrying heat terrifying enough to turn the coastline to glass.
Blast Breath!
In Zaraki's vision, the entire world was instantly dyed blinding white.
The heat was so intense it made his skin sting like needles even before it touched him.
But Zaraki had chosen the beach for exactly this reason.
Just before that pillar of light could swallow him, his figure vanished in a dark-gold flash.
The Blast Breath tore past the spot where he had stood and screamed across the empty water beyond the reefs, boiling a long trench through the sea and filling the coastline with steam.
The city behind him remained untouched.
In the next moment—
"Over here, big guy."
Zaraki's voice sounded directly above and to the side of Kaido's enormous dragon head.
Kaido's eye, larger than a house, rolled with difficulty until it finally caught the tiny figure that had closed in on him.
Zaraki had kicked off a chunk of shattered reef hurled upward by the blast pressure. For one heartbeat, that broken stone became his foothold.
Every muscle in his body tightened with perfect rhythm.
His arms raised high, and Nozarashi reflected a cold gleam under the afterglow of the Blast Breath.
There was no extra technique or flashy move.
Only one pure, primal slash, carrying all his strength, all his will, and the belief that he could cut through everything.
"Fall—!"
With a low roar, the massive Zanpakutō carved a rough arc through the air, tearing through the atmosphere as it came crashing down toward the point where Kaido's savage horn met his skull.
"Roar!"
Kaido let out an angry bellow, and his reaction was unbelievably fast.
Facing that unavoidable slash, he whipped his head around and drove his azure horn, coated in Armament Haki, straight into the descending blade.
Clang—!
A deafening clash of metal exploded into a visible white shockwave that spread outward in a ring.
The air beneath Zaraki's feet was crushed into a turbulent depression, and the broken reef under him shattered to powder.
In the distance, Morgans let out a strange cry.
He had hidden behind a reinforced News Coo relay crate half-buried in the rocks, but even then, he and the Camera Den Den Mushi were hurled backward like leaves in a storm, tumbling across the sand before crashing into another reef.
Zaraki felt a tremendous force rebound through the blade.
The impact tore through his arms, and the webbing between his fingers split open instantly, blood pouring down Nozarashi's hilt.
The sword itself held.
But Zaraki could feel it drinking harder, greedier, as if the collision had only made it hungrier.
That power felt as if he had swung with everything he had at an indestructible mountain. It was brutal, overbearing, and completely unreasonable.
Kaido's counterattack came immediately.
His enormous dragon tail swept across with a howl that tore the air apart. Where the tail passed, the pressure twisted into invisible wind blades sharper than steel.
"Dragon Twister: Demolition Gust."
Zaraki's pupils narrowed.
He used the rebound to retreat at high speed, but the wind blades chased him like shadows, sealing every route of escape.
Slash.
Several blades of wind grazed past him, carving deep wounds across his body. Blood instantly stained his torn clothes red.
Zaraki dropped toward the beach, boots skidding across broken stone.
"Tch. Harder than I thought."
There was no discouragement on his face. If anything, the battle intent in his eyes burned even brighter.
He did not change weapons.
He tightened both hands around Nozarashi, then used Thunder Breathing's footwork to vanish beneath Kaido's enormous dragon belly.
The blade in his hand turned into a dark-gold storm, slashing at the exact same scale again and again.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!
A rapid burst of crisp impacts rang out, countless sparks jumping across the azure dragon scales.
But the defense of the creature known as the strongest in the world was astonishing.
Even repeated cuts from Nozarashi only carved shallow marks across those scales.
"Thunder Breathing, First Form: Thunderclap and Flash."
After one failed approach, Zaraki changed rhythm instantly.
He took a deep breath, lowering his body into a stance for an iai slash.
Dark-gold Reiatsu sparked around him in arcs that looked like lightning.
His target was the base of Kaido's horn, where the first shallow wound from Nozarashi was still bleeding.
The first slash had not cut deeply, but it had marked the scale.
This time, Zaraki aimed at that same point, using speed and penetration rather than raw power.
Boom!
His figure became a dark-gold flash, crossing hundreds of meters in an instant.
Pssht—!
This time, there was no crisp sound of being blocked.
There was only the dull, wet sound of a blade sinking into flesh.
"ROOOAAARRR—!"
Kaido let out a roar that shook the coastline, filled with pain and disbelief.
That dark-gold flash had finally torn a deeper wound through his dragon scales, sending blood gushing out.
The violent pain made Kaido's enormous body stiffen in midair, and the power maintaining his flight faltered for a moment.
Rumble, rumble, rumble—!
The azure dragon, that colossal strongest creature who had blotted out the sky, fell from the heavens in a trail of smoke and blood, crashing hard into Dressrosa's shattered beach.
The earth shook and cracked violently.
A wall of seawater rose from the impact, but the jagged offshore reefs broke most of it into spray before it could reach the inland ruins.
Gion's orders rang out from the evacuation line, and Smoker's smoke spread wide to shield the civilians from the worst of the scattered spray and dust.
For a moment, the whole world seemed to fall silent.
"H-He did it! Beautifully done!"
That silence was broken by a high-pitched scream.
Morgans crawled out of the sand, not caring how miserable he looked.
With all his strength, he aimed the Camera Den Den Mushi straight at the smoke-filled crater and screamed to the viewers connected through his relay network.
"Did you see that?! Viewers across the New World! Kaido of the Beasts, one of the Four Emperors! He was cut down from the sky by War Demon Zaraki, the Marine monster who killed Jack and Doflamingo! This is a historic moment, one that could overturn the era itself!"
At the same time, a black figure wrapped in flames slowly descended from the sky and landed at the edge of the massive impact crater.
King the Wildfire folded his wings and looked down from above at Zaraki, who stood on the distant beach with Nozarashi in hand.
Behind his mask, his eyes were cold enough to hold no warmth at all.
"Does a meaningless little wound make you that excited, Marine?"
King's voice was not loud, but it clearly reached Zaraki's ears.
The moment his words fell, a massive rumble shook the smoke-filled crater.
"Worororororo..."
A chilling laugh filled with excitement and pleasure rose from the bottom of the pit.
Then that savage azure dragon head slowly rose from the deep crater again.
Those huge eyes locked onto Zaraki, and there was no longer a trace of contempt in them.
What remained was an intense possessiveness, like he had found a peerless treasure.
The wound cut open by Thunder Breathing had not vanished cleanly.
Dark-gold Reiatsu still clung to the torn flesh, biting deeper like the teeth of a beast.
But Kaido's Haki pressed down over it with brutal force, crushing the foreign pressure inch by inch.
The bleeding slowed as his muscles clamped around the cut and his scales ground back over the wound.
The bloodstain remained.
But the wound no longer mattered.
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