If there were no SSSSS-tier beings in the seas, then Kaido would undoubtedly be the strongest.
Creed burned to test just how broken that SSSS+ "Dragon Power (Undying)" really was.
The probing phase ended. He was ready to go all out.
"Creed, kid—show me your real stuff. Keep pulling your punches and I'll finish this in two moves."
Kaido clearly disliked Creed's restraint.
"Dark."
Creed surged in, blades singing—Kyokuaku no Ichi Ken (Utter Evil One Sword) and Shizen no Ichi Ken (Ultimate Good One Sword), illusion and reality woven together.
"This sword work looks flashy. Not like Shanks'… hm?!"
Kaido had meant to swat the crossing arcs aside with both talons, but the spiritual shock of the "Ultimate Good One Sword" jarred his mind for a blink. Bad—!
"Ch-ch-ch-chang!"
Snow-bright blades; a mountain-deep chill. In a breath, Creed sheathed the dragon in ice—hundreds of meters of black frost dropping like a continent.
"Boom!"
The glacier hammered the dead island, throwing up a world of dust.
Onlookers in the distance clapped hands over their mouths.
"No way—did Kaido get frozen?! Am I seeing things?"
"So fast? Creed's taking the upper hand against Kaido?!"
"The new wave topples the old—looks like a new emperor is rising!"
"Don't sell Creed short. Anyone who rampaged through Mary Geoise and beat a Marine admiral and the Three Disasters won't be that far off from Kaido!"
Up on the rooftop, the Three Disasters stared, stunned.
Queen swallowed hard. "If I'm remembering right, face-to-face, one-on-one—Boss hasn't eaten a hit like that since Whitebeard."
Jack blurted, "That bastard Creed must've used some trick to catch Boss—"
King cut him off. "I lost to that very move."
"Ah?!" Queen and Jack gaped. Creed's twin-sword flourish hadn't had the earth-rending grandeur of Shanks' slashes… and yet—
"It hits the soul," King said with a sigh. "Like Charlotte Linlin's Soul-Soul Fruit, like that cursed song."
The explanation left them blinking—and forced them to see Creed with new eyes.
Redfield watched with arms folded, eyes bright as coals. Fights of this caliber—his blood sang for them. He'd crossed blades with Whitebeard, with the Pirate King Roger—what heady years those were.
"Soon enough, days like that will return—harder and far more interesting."
Light flashed in his gaze.
To topple the Celestial Dragons was a challenge far beyond squabbling for the seas—and the risk was greater by orders of magnitude.
On the barren island—
"Boom!"
A fist-force like a black pillar tore at the sky, rimmed in abyssal sheen, as if to rip heaven itself.
Kaido blasted the prison of ice and strode out in human form—towering, savage. Black hair spilled over his shoulders; a cross-shaped scar burned on his right abdomen; dragon-scale tattoos crawled his left arm. In his hand—an immense, black iron kanabō.
"Didn't expect anyone besides Charlotte Linlin to hit my soul. Creed… you've surprised me."
His cold stare found where Creed had slipped to.
Zzzap—
Lightning stitched and Creed flashed back into being where Kaido's gaze pinned. That punch had been shockingly fast and vicious—he'd nearly failed to slip it. More shocking still was the club in Kaido's fist.
If he wasn't mistaken, that kanabō was condensed Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki)—and not ordinary, but a reinforced, high-grade armament.
SSSS-tier Armament Haki… forged into a weapon?!
And such a terrifying quantity at that.
So, at high mastery, Armament didn't just empower strikes, didn't just project shockwaves and unseen barriers—it could be condensed into brutal, world-breaking arms.
Seeing that, Creed's hunger for the Armament he was extracting only burned hotter.
"Ten hours… can I last that long? Do I stall him—talk life philosophy with a drunk dragon for a while…?"
The thought skittered through his mind.
"Creed, kid—take this!"
Kaido hefted the giant kanabō; thunder bellowed, lightning geysered, and the club came down like a continent.
Kaido's signature—Raimei Hakke (Thunder Bagua)!
The air itself rippled, concentric rings shimmering like a pond struck by a stone.
"Good!"
Creed didn't retreat or dodge—he chose to take it head-on.
Behind him a vast wheel rose—six alien vistas turned within it, exhaling a primeval breath. As it revolved, light and darkness exchanged in heartbeat beats; howls from the depths of hell chewed at nerves and eardrums alike.
"Ch-ch-ch-chang!"
"Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!"
Within a thousand meters, rock spires powdered under the flensing spray of sword-qi.
The great wheel shrank in an eyeblink and dropped onto the tip of Creed's Rinne blade.
"Hummm—"
It lit the whole sword; countless twin wheels spun along the blade's length until the steel seemed to swell, pouring out a six-hued radiance that drenched the island.
Musō Rinne!
Only one percent of its true might—but its pressure was no less than Kaido's Thunder Bagua.
The sword completed—he met the blow.
"BOOM!!!"
Like a thousand shells detonating at once. The island convulsed and began to crumble; a seven-colored glare turned half the sky to day. Razor sword-qi, black Armament blades, and bulleting gravel scythed outward. An unlucky ship too near shattered in an instant—crew and timbers alike erased before they could even scream.
"Boom!"
The leftover violence heaved up waves more than ten meters high, ripples surging outward like a tsunami. Even far-off Gran Tesoro rocked—ten thousand meters of golden hull rolling, tens of thousands aboard crying out in terror, fearing the world's largest ship would flip like a toy.
Terror rose with reverence.
Whether Creed or Kaido—their power had already brushed the realm of gods.
High above—
Morgans dripped sweat, heart thundering. Had he reacted a heartbeat slower—or lacked wings—he'd have been pulped by the aftershock.
"This headline is too thrilling," he muttered through his beak.
Right—who won?
Every gaze speared the ruined island, hungry to learn who stood after that clash.
(End of Chapter)
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