The New World, within the seas of Totto Land.
White Salt Island was vast, yet completely uninhabited. The land was barren and desolate. The salinity here was far too extreme, making it impossible for vegetation to grow. There was no true freshwater to speak of, and naturally, it was unfit for human settlement.
That said, the island's naturally formed white salt was of exceptional quality. Not long ago, Totto Land had included it in its next phase of development, planning to turn it into a large-scale salt production base.
Of course, that plan had yet to be put into motion.
For now, this island had become the chosen battlefield for Kaidou and Charlotte Linlin.
A violent shockwave spread across the island, rolling up clouds of dust. Even the air itself carried a sharp, briny taste.
With a dull boom, flames and lightning collided, triggering a violent explosion.
Black smoke surged outward. In the next instant, a massive warhammer spun wildly through the air, tumbling more than a dozen times before slamming heavily into the ground. It sank deep into the earth and finally came to a stop.
Moments later, Ortoren's figure burst backward out of the black smoke.
The moment his feet touched the ground, arcs of lightning spilled from the corners of his eyes. Immediately after, two indigo-colored laser beams shot from his gaze, stabbing straight into the dark haze.
The twin lasers seemed to be blocked by something within the smoke. As a result, a continuous stream of lightning energy spilled outward from the black fog, surging in all directions.
Then, a smooth, pale arm emerged first from the smoke. Ortoren's lasers were striking directly against it.
What was shocking was that, despite enduring such high-intensity laser fire head-on, the arm showed no real damage at all. Only the area being continuously struck had turned slightly red, like the faint mark left after rubbing skin a few times. It was completely harmless.
It was Charlotte Linlin.
Charlotte Linlin stepped out of the smoke, one hand gripping Napoleon in its Emperor Sword form, the other raised in front of her body. A cruel, twisted grin hung on her face as she sneered,
"This little bit of lightning won't hurt me in the slightest. Didn't you say you wanted to show some filial devotion? Then put some real effort into it, Ortoren!!!"
The instant her words fell, a razor-sharp wind pressure slash burst out from the smoke behind her, rushing straight toward Ortoren's position.
The attack was terrifyingly powerful. Wherever it passed, the ground was sliced cleanly apart, as effortlessly as a hot knife cutting through butter.
It was Kaidou's Kaifu.
Yet faced with such a fearsome strike, Ortoren didn't move at all. A smile lingered at the corner of his mouth, and he showed no intention of dodging.
When the wind pressure reached him, he casually raised a hand and slapped it aside.
With a sharp crack, Kaidou's Kaifu shattered right in front of his face.
The fragmented gales swept past Ortoren and detonated against the ground behind him, blasting up shattered stone with their remaining force.
But when those violent winds struck Ortoren himself, they accomplished absolutely nothing.
"If you want sincerity, you'll have to make me feel some pressure first," Ortoren laughed arrogantly. "Not enough. Far from enough. You two… don't tell me you're just playing house with me?"
From the moment they set foot on the island until now, less than half an hour had passed. Since this wasn't a fight to the death, the pace of the battle between the three was relatively restrained, lacking true ferocity.
For this entire half hour, it had been nothing more than probing and warming up.
No one had shown their real strength yet.
With a casual sweep of a massive hand, a powerful gust of wind surged out, blowing away the surrounding black smoke. At the same time, Kaidou's towering, domineering figure emerged from within the dissipating haze.
At this moment, Kaidou still hadn't even activated his abilities and remained in his human form. Even so, on the Hassaikai in his hand, two barbs that he had tempered with Haki for many years had already bent and collapsed inward.
This was the result of his earlier clash of weapons with Ortoren. Ortoren's warhammer had forced Kaidou's barbs out of shape.
"The warm-up should be about over…" Kaidou muttered calmly.
As his words faded, his imposing, Haki-laden figure began to change. Patches of blue-green scales rapidly spread out from beneath his skin, enveloping his entire body in the blink of an eye.
At the same time, a thick dragon tail grew from his tailbone, his fingers transformed into sharp claws, and the pressure radiating from his body surged even higher.
"No matter how many times I see it, this form is still unbelievably impressive…" Ortoren said, a trace of admiration flashing through his eyes.
As the user of the Goro Goro no Mi, Ortoren could be said to stand at the very peak among Devil Fruit users.
Even so, he had to admit that Kaidou's Mythical Zoan, the Azure Dragon form, was monstrously powerful.
It was more than worthy of being called an "invincible" ability.
While Ortoren was still marveling at Kaidou's power, Kaidou had already completed his transformation into his beast-man form. A ferocious glint flashed through his eyes as he drove his feet into the ground. The solid earth instantly exploded into dust and flying rubble, some of which pelted Charlotte Linlin nearby, drawing a look of irritation from her.
Almost the moment he exerted himself, Kaidou's massive, muscular body shot forward at a speed completely out of proportion to his size, appearing right in front of Ortoren.
The Hassaikai in his hand, wrapped tightly in Haki, came crashing straight down toward Ortoren's head.
"Kosanze Ragnaraku!!!"
As the roar rang out, purple lightning surged along the Hassaikai.
Kaidou's speed was frighteningly fast, but Ortoren had no trouble keeping up. Completely unhurried, he grabbed the warhammer embedded in the ground beside him and yanked it free. His feet slid as he stepped back half a pace, twisting his waist halfway around. The muscles of his abdomen rolled like crashing waves as a terrifying force surged up from his lower body, gathering like a tsunami in his arms before being unleashed through the swing of the hammer.
Boom!
Thunder exploded. As a Logia user of the Goro Goro no Mi, Ortoren didn't give a second thought to Kaidou's lightning. What kind of level was that supposed to be? Daring to clash with him?
Of course, Kaidou had never intended to defeat Ortoren with lightning alone. After entering his beast-man form, his already overwhelming physical strength had been pushed even further. That surging, brute force was the real killing move he intended to use.
Yet when the Hassaikai collided with Ortoren's warhammer, Kaidou once again felt that immense pressure he had experienced just minutes earlier.
Even in beast-man form, even while drawing on such tremendous power, Ortoren's utterly unreasonable strength remained unmoved, standing firm like an unshakable mountain.
Still, Kaidou was at least able to hold Ortoren in a deadlock for a moment—and that was enough.
As Kaidou and Ortoren struggled against each other, Charlotte Linlin arrived at the point of their clash.
The Emperor Sword in her hand burned with raging flames. Seizing the instant when Ortoren had no opening to spare, she reversed her grip and slashed straight toward his waist. As Ortoren's own mother, she showed absolutely no restraint, as if she wanted to cut him cleanly in half with this single strike.
"Tekkai·Black Gold!" Ortoren shouted, making no move to evade.
As his voice fell, Charlotte Linlin's Emperor Sword slammed heavily into his waist. In an instant, violent flames completely swallowed his figure.
Even so, Charlotte Linlin showed no hint of satisfaction. Her expression instead darkened. With her free hand, eerie green soul energy coiled around her fist as she punched straight toward Ortoren, who was still engulfed in flames.
At that exact moment, the Hassaikai was knocked free from Kaidou's hand, and its restraint on Ortoren vanished instantly.
At the same time, lightning erupted outward from within, blasting the flames apart and revealing Ortoren's completely unharmed body. His warhammer and the Hassaikai were both sent spinning into the air.
This also meant that Ortoren had freed one of his hands.
In a flash, Ortoren let out a furious shout.
"Elbow Bolt!!!"
Facing Charlotte Linlin's punch, infused with overwhelming soul power, he drove an elbow straight into it.
Dark soul energy and blinding lightning exploded violently between them. With just this single exchange, the clash between two monsters born with godlike strength shattered the ground for a hundred meters around them and forced it to sink more than two meters deep.