A deathly silence settled over the snowfield.
The wind stopped. Even the falling snow seemed to freeze in midair.
Kaido's face, twisted by rage, was now written over with disbelief.
He lowered his head and stared at the kanabo that had never once failed him, pinned to the ground by a single, lazy looking foot, completely unable to move.
His gaze slowly followed that leg upward and landed on a face that looked half bored, half amused.
This face.
This face.
Kaido's pupils shrank to needle points. A humiliation buried deep in his soul, an outrage that had slumbered for decades, erupted like a long dormant volcano.
Kneeling on the ground, Moria's empty eyes finally regained a hint of focus.
"You…" Kaido forced the hoarse word out of his throat, the cords of muscle across his body trembling from sheer exertion.
Kael acted like he had not heard him. He drew his foot back and idly dug a finger in his ear.
"Still the same. All these years and you have not improved at all."
He finally spoke, his tone as casual as greeting a neighbor on the street.
Yet that lazy voice made Kaido's whole body jolt, as if someone had smashed an invisible hammer into his chest.
It is him.
It really is him.
The man who had pinned him to the ground like a dead dog at God Valley and carved a brand of humiliation into his back.
"Kael Grylls!!!"
The roar that tore out of Kaido's chest was thick with hatred and fury. It exploded across the snowfield as a physical shockwave.
With that roar, a terrifying aura surged into the sky.
Black and red lightning burst from his body, rampaging frantically in every direction.
Conqueror's Haki.
The pressure that belongs to a Yonko of the sea.
However, that overwhelming burst of Haki, enough to make ordinary powerhouses' livers and gall bladders tremble, slammed into something three feet in front of Kael's body and went no further, like it had crashed into an invisible wall.
"Oh? You finally remembered how to breathe?"
Kael chuckled and then let a deeper, far more domineering will slowly seep out of his body.
There was no deafening sound, no berserk lightning crackling across the sky.
Only a ring of black and gold light spread outward from where he stood.
Where that halo passed, time seemed to be stripped away.
The Moria Pirates who were still screaming. The Beasts Pirates' grunts who were still charging and yelling. All sound and motion stopped in the same instant.
Then, like puppets whose strings had been cut and bones pulled out, eyes rolling back, they fell in sheets across the snow, losing consciousness completely.
On the entire snowfield, aside from a handful of core figures, not a single body was left standing.
"Urgh…"
Queen the Plague's massive body swayed. He felt like a thousand red hot steel needles were stabbing straight into his brain. His legs buckled and he dropped to one knee, one huge mechanical arm propping him up so he would not topple over.
The strongest of the All Stars, King the Wildfire, snapped his black wings wide and let flames roar around him, trying to resist the pressure.
The black gold halo merely brushed over him.
His flames vanished in an instant. His body plummeted out of the air and crashed to his knees so hard the frozen ground cracked, leaving two deep pits.
The All Stars.
Under nothing but the pressure of Kael's will, they were already on their knees.
On the entire battlefield, the only one still barely remaining on his feet was Kaido.
"Wororororo…"
Kaido's legs had sunk deep into the frozen earth. Every bone in his body creaked like it was about to snap. His black and red Haki was being crushed beneath that black gold domain.
He did not feel fear. He laughed instead, wild and exultant.
"This is it. This is the feeling. Kael!"
"The shame of God Valley… I will return it all to you today!"
He ripped his cracked kanabo out of the ground, cords of muscle swelling to their absolute limit, and once more brought it crashing down toward Kael's skull.
"If you are weak, then train more. You are annoying, you know that? How many times are you going to recycle the same lines."
Kael sighed. His body blurred and left a fading afterimage where he had just been standing.
Boom.
The kanabo hit nothing but snow, yet still carved out a crater tens of meters wide, sending dirt and ice geysering into the air.
"Too slow. Way too slow."
Kael's voice came from behind Kaido, carrying a teasing lilt.
"Bastard!"
Kaido spun, sweeping the kanabo in a horizontal arc. The weapon shrieked as it ripped the air apart, flattening hundreds of meters of gravestones in a single sweep.
The area behind him was just as empty as before.
"Your strength has gone up a lot. Pity your aim is still this bad."
Kael's figure reappeared off Kaido's left side, both hands tucked back into his coat pockets, posture relaxed as ever.
"Raaaaaaah!"
Kaido finally snapped. He abandoned any semblance of technique and simply trusted a beast's instinct, swinging his kanabo in a mad storm.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
For a while, all of Ringo trembled.
The earth roared. The explosions never stopped. Deep, bottomless chasms tore across the snowfield, as if someone were trying to rip the land apart.
Yet no matter how frenzied or dense Kaido's attacks became, that black coated figure evaded them every time with the smallest of movements and the lightest of steps.
He was like a master matador in the ring. Every dodge was easy, relaxed, and saturated with ridicule toward the rampaging bull in front of him.
Moria was completely stunned.
He stayed kneeling where he was, his mind a blank.
The "Strongest Creature" Kaido, who had been pressing him down and fighting him to a standstill, now looked like an angry three year old throwing a tantrum, unable to even graze the hem of the other man's coat.
What… what level of battle is this supposed to be?
"Stand still!"
Another heavy blow smashed into empty air. Kaido panted harshly, eyes bloodshot.
"Wororororo… good. This is very good."
He suddenly stopped swinging and raised the kanabo high overhead. An even more ferocious wave of Conqueror's Haki wrapped around it, black and red lightning screaming like living things.
"If I cannot hit you, then I will destroy you along with the land beneath your feet!"
"Gundari: Ragnarok!"
This time, the blow locked down every inch of space around Kael. There was nowhere to run.
"Finally something that looks like a proper move."
Kael at last pulled his hands out of his pockets.
He extended his right hand and a simple, ancient looking naginata appeared in his grip out of thin air.
The black gold Conqueror's Haki that had been flooding the area now gathered completely along the blade's edge.
"All right. I will play with you for a bit."
He swung the naginata casually, meeting the world shattering strike head on.
Clang.
This time, it was no clear little ring.
It was an earth rending boom that seemed to tear the sky itself and shred the eardrums of everyone who heard it.
Black gold and black red, two utterly different Conqueror's Hakis collided at full force. For a heartbeat, it was as if all color was drained out of the world.
A visible ring shaped shockwave exploded outward from the two of them, rampaging in all directions.
The earth howled.
Thick layers of snow evaporated in an instant. The hard frozen ground was peeled away in slabs. The entire mountain chain shook violently.
Moria, along with the patch of ground under him, was uprooted and hurled skyward, tumbling end over end before he slammed back down with a bone jarring crash.
The residual force hit the All Stars even harder. All three were blown away like rag dolls, blood spraying from their mouths as they crashed and skidded, completely disordered.
Wind, snow, and dust swallowed everything.
Gradually, the world calmed and the cloud of debris began to thin.
When the view cleared, Kael was still standing exactly where he had been.
He held the naginata in one hand. His black coat snapped in the wind. He did not have so much as a scratch on him.
Opposite him, Kaido's towering human form had vanished.
In its place, a colossal shape filled the sky.
A blue scaled dragon coiled through the air, its body stretching for hundreds of meters, draped across the heavens like a living mountain. Its scales gleamed with metallic luster.
A pair of horns jutted like spears from its head. Its golden pupils blazed like twin suns as it lowered its head, staring down at the tiny figure on the ground.
An endless tide of draconic pressure rolled across the sky.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
If you're itching to see what happens next, check out the advanced chapters on my Patron!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"