The moment King realized Kaido had arrived, he immediately pinned one of the Rens down.
No matter what, they had to reclaim the source of the raw materials for the SMILE fruits!
"Why are you trying to hold me back? It's not like I was planning to run."
Ren No. 1 smashed a punch downward, and the violent burst of energy blasted out a pool of magma.
The terrifying force sent King crashing deep underground, to an unknown depth.
"Kaido…"
Ren No. 1 lifted his head and looked toward Kaido in the sky, battle intent igniting in his eyes.
Just as he had told Doflamingo before, once schemes and tricks reached a certain point, they stopped being all that useful.
In the end, this world still belonged to the strong.
He could not remain some shadowy hand moving pieces from behind the curtain forever. Sooner or later, he would have to step onto center stage himself.
"What a pity. At our current level, the Potara Earrings have already lost their effect.
Otherwise, this would have been a good chance to see whether we could defeat a Yonko."
Ren No. 2 appeared at that moment, also staring at Kaido in the sky.
The gathering of two "suns" drew Kaido's attention as well.
"What the hell are those?"
Kaido's drunken dragon head tilted to one side, irritation rising in his heart.
The alcohol was wearing off, and that put him in a bad mood.
So he opened his jaws wide.
Who cared what they were? First, he would blast them with a mouthful and sort it out later!
Blast Breath!
Without the slightest warning, a straight torrent of crimson flames pierced through the sky.
A white radiance suddenly flared across the rocky walls of Dressrosa as Ren No. 1 and Ren No. 2 joined forces to counterattack.
Daytime: Scorching Light x2!
Two "suns" blazed from the earth and collided head-on with the crimson beam, erupting into a mushroom cloud.
The rocks around the point of impact—tens of thousands of tons of them—instantly turned into molten lava!
Then—
one of the "suns" was forced down beneath the ground by the savagely violent flaming beam!
So this is the Blast Breath that can vaporize an entire mountain… It's far more terrifying than Nojiko's Blast Breath.
Ren No. 2 transformed into a mass of light, slipped around it, then shot upward along the path of the Blast Breath itself.
The air became his "ground."
Three white rings exploded outward, and in the next instant, he shot forth like a meteor!
"Hm?"
Kaido let out a puzzled sound as his vision was flooded with light.
Then a heavy punch slammed into his enormous dragon head.
Boom—!
The deafening roar was like a missile detonating, releasing blazing light and heat.
The giant dragon flying through the sky was smashed downward by several hundred meters.
His vertical pupils spun in circles, and he actually wore a slightly dazed expression.
But—
that was all.
Kaido's azure dragon tail unfurled and instantly coiled around the pure white meteor that was trying to continue the assault.
Then he whipped it violently toward the ground!
Boom—!
Ren No. 2, who had been hurled down, crashed straight into Ren No. 1, who had just flown back up. The two "suns" once again plummeted into the earth.
"You're annoying to look at. Better disappear first."
Kaido opened his mouth and fired another Blast Breath. The crimson pillar swallowed that entire region and punched straight through Dressrosa's rocky wall.
Tens of thousands of tons of seawater mixed with vast streams of magma, and thick white mist instantly swallowed up the field of view.
"Hey."
Kaido paid it no attention. Instead, he turned to look at the pink dragon within Dressrosa.
Interest filled his face, and even his eyes turned heated.
"I don't know what's going on, but you're a Zoan user too, aren't you? Want to join my crew?"
"I refuse!"
Nojiko guided the surviving civilians down to the ground with her Flame Clouds and stared warily at the azure dragon.
So this was Kaido?
Her transformed appearance was nearly identical to his. After all, she was based on the original.
But the pressure he gave off was on an entirely different level.
The hurricane and tidal wave he had stirred up earlier were things she simply could not do yet.
And on top of that, he had actually gained the upper hand against Ren in that state?
At that moment, a shout rang out.
"Mr. Kaido!"
The battered and miserable King flew up out of the abyss below and arrived before Kaido in the sky.
Somewhat anxious, he said, "Recruitment can wait! I'll handle her for you! You should deal with what's happening here first!"
"Hm? King? How did you end up looking this miserable?"
Kaido frowned and, with a thought, swept up a destructive wind to cover him. "You've even exposed your true appearance. Don't you hate looking like that the most?
And where are the others? Why are you the only one here?
Come to think of it, what exactly happened at Joker's place?"
"The others are all dead. Those two 'suns' just now were Fiend God Ren!
He attacked Doflamingo's territory. The entire Donquixote Family may well become history.
He seems to be able to create clones, and one of them isn't afraid of the sea."
King reported honestly, "And he's strong. If I don't go all out, even I might be killed by him.
Most importantly, he's connected to the cutoff in the supply of artificial Devil Fruits."
"Oh? Joker himself—"
"He may already be dead."
King said it flatly.
After all, that second sun had come from inside Dressrosa.
King did not believe that pink-haired bird had any ability to deal with even one of them.
Kaido swept his gaze across the land and indeed did not see Doflamingo anywhere.
No one knew what Doflamingo's situation was now.
"Worororo! So that's how it is? No wonder he hasn't shown up.
What a pity about Joker. Though if you got beaten to death, it'd only be because you were too weak."
Kaido turned his dragon head and shifted all his interest back to the place he had just attacked.
Dressrosa's rocky wall had collapsed from the recent battle.
The two Blast Breaths had all but destroyed one corner of the kingdom's landmass. Where seawater and magma met—
there was now a chasm stretching hundreds of meters, with no telling how deep it went.
And beneath that—
Ren No. 1 and Ren No. 2 looked at each other.
"As expected, the gap is still huge. That punch just made Kaido dazed for a moment. It didn't cause any real damage at all."
Ren No. 1 summarized seriously, "Kaido's defense is absolutely top-tier even among the Yonko.
Advanced Armament Haki, the azure dragon's scales, and perhaps even Conqueror's Haki coating… even in this state, I still can't inflict true damage on him."
"He is a Yonko, after all. A big move without enough practical testing is still incomplete."
Ren No. 2 corrected one point. "At the end of the day, the appearance of the plasma cannon was beyond our expectations.
It did make Meteor Burst far stronger than we originally predicted—probably above Gear Fourth Luffy's level.
But the side effects it brought are also enormous.
The power leakage is far too severe. Pure energy just lacks efficiency in use.
You could even say that if it weren't for Meteor Burst, it would never have been usable as an energy source at all."
At this point,
the two Rens both nodded in agreement as they touched their glowing bodies.
"Without Nami's help, just enduring this energy alone is already pushing past my limit.
Even the Indestructible Vajra Glazed Body can't change the terrifying strain this puts on me."
The two Rens continued exchanging observations.
"The body is suffering continuous damage. Even the meridian network has been affected.
Though after the battle, I should be able to recover through the HP-bar setting.
But not now. The energy inside me is getting harder and harder to control. At the end, I might turn into a bomb outright."
"If I want to control every trace of energy and fully concentrate it… I'm afraid that's not something I can do right now."
"Against King, this might be an overwhelming advantage. But against Kaido, it's still a little lacking."
Ren No. 1 said seriously, "I think we should consider retreating.
The battle at Dressrosa has already achieved its objectives. Tesoro was defeated, the gamble was won.
Doflamingo is dead, and the Donquixote Family has almost completely collapsed. There's no need to keep fighting."
"But if we just withdraw like this, wouldn't we be missing our best chance?"
Ren No. 2 licked his lips, crimson battle intent surging in his eyes. "Anyway, we still have the HP-bar setting, the Space-Time: The Creator card as backup, and the forgotten hourglass as a final trump card.
So why not use this place to see where our limit really is?"
"So you thought of it too… figures, since we're the same person."
Ren No. 1 suddenly reached out and released the energy within his body toward Ren No. 2.
The Indestructible Vajra Glazed Body naturally could not bear the energy of a second Ren.
Under the control of his Thunder and Flame Mastery, that power was directly compressed into a circulating mass of high-density energy.
At the same time,
a savage blood-red demonic phantom emerged behind Ren No. 2, and Haki wrapped itself around the phantom.
Then it extended a gigantic claw and seized the high-density energy mass!
Boom—!
The abyss shuddered for an instant, and the heat released turned the entire crater into a pool of magma.
But within that magma, a new existence began to take shape.
Using the savage blood-red demonic phantom as a foundation, and the injected high-density energy and Haki as materials—
the Blood Demon body was filled in, changing from an intangible state into a solid physical form!
This should work.
Ren No. 1 turned into a sphere of light and moved aside, his eyes flickering with thought.
This was a test—a temporary method devised in response to a flaw.
In his current normal state, his strength was roughly at the three-stat A-tier level, meaning around Doflamingo's level.
But that was purely in terms of physical stats. Once his other traits were added in, his combat power exceeded that benchmark.
Just as after taking control of the thunderclouds covering hundreds of kilometers, Ren had utterly suppressed Doflamingo in battle.
Or like when he broke through King's defenses with the Thunderflame Greatblade.
In essence, it was the combined use of traits plus three-dimensional attributes that dramatically increased his combat power.
In that state, Ren's battle level should have been around A++.
If he had not revealed his trump cards, then with only the combat power he had at that time, he and King could have fought until the heavens went dark and the earth turned black without necessarily deciding a victor.
After all, King was extremely tough, but Ren was hardly fragile either.
Then, after revealing his trump card and using his ultimate move—Meteor Burst—
the gap between both sides widened even further, because Ren in that state had gained enormous "power."
Meteor Burst had originally drawn from thunderstorm weather, but later its source was changed to the Judgment's plasma cannon.
Because thunderstorm weather was only strong in terms of scale. In terms of energy level, however, the plasma cannon's power far surpassed the lightning inside thunderclouds.
The difference was like ordinary electricity and nuclear power.
In that state, Ren's actual combat power should have entered the S-tier.
Because of the instability of the energy inside him, he could not maintain precise output.
But even so, he had clearly stepped into the realm occupied by the world's supreme fighters—Yonko, Admirals, and others at the very top.