Lucien's nose and mouth were flooded with fresh blood.
He suddenly grabbed Kaido's dragon claw and twisted it with brutal force.
A sickening crack echoed.
Kaido roared in pain as his entire hand bent at an impossible angle. His massive body spun wildly in mid-air before Lucien drove a merciless kick into his torso, sending him flying.
Kaido blasted through everything in his path, mountains collapsing like paper as a terrifying gully carved itself straight to the horizon.
Lucien followed instantly, his amethyst eyes cold and vicious. He appeared in front of Kaido in a flash and kicked him again.
The ground beneath them caved in. Kaido was sent flying in the opposite direction, blood scattering through the air in invisible ripples.
In mid-air, Lucien kept kicking him back and forth like a toy.
Kaido's face twisted with fury. This humiliating treatment drove him mad. His right hand, which had been twisted out of shape, snapped back into place as he counterattacked.
The next second, Kaido caught Lucien's right leg.
Sharp claws pierced deep into Lucien's flesh.
A chunk of meat tore free.
Lucien grunted, blood spraying.
"Crack…"
Several ribs shattered. Kaido slammed his knee into Lucien's torso, and Lucien spat out a massive mouthful of blood.
Before Lucien could even breathe, Kaido appeared above him, lightning raging around his weapon.
"Thunder Bagua!"
Boom!
Half of Lucien's body was blown apart. He smashed into the ground like a meteor, the impact releasing a deafening sonic boom.
A massive mushroom cloud erupted, churning the sea. A bottomless abyss formed at the center of the impact.
Kaido's dragon tail thrashed violently, blood dripping from shattered scales.
"Who the hell is this guy?!" King shouted in disbelief as he watched through binoculars.
"He injured the Captain this badly…"
"If this keeps going, Onigashima won't survive!"
Even the All-Stars felt fear. A battle at this level was beyond what a single island could endure.
"He's still alive!"
Black Maria gasped.
From the endless black abyss, a figure slowly began to rise.
"That healing speed is insane!"
"Is this a joke?"
Half of Lucien's body was wrapped in glowing, multicolored threads. Wherever they spread, flesh regenerated, bones knitted, organs reformed.
It was monstrous.
Kaido roared and transformed again into his colossal azure dragon form, clouds and mist spiraling around him.
Lightning split the sky.
Blood and dragon scales rained down.
The sea trembled continuously as if the world itself was being beaten into submission.
Kaido rose high into the sky, his enormous dragon body drenched in blood, his tail half torn off.
He stared down at Lucien's mangled figure below.
Energy compressed violently in his throat.
On the ground, half of Lucien's face was still regenerating. His hands glowed with intense blue light, veins bulging as power surged.
"Go to hell!" Kaido roared.
A beam of pure destruction erupted from his mouth.
"Boro Breath!"
The sky burned.
Lucien's hair stood on end as the blue energy in his hands detonated forward.
The two attacks collided.
For a split second, everything went silent.
Then the world exploded.
A blinding white light swallowed heaven and earth. Sound ceased to exist. Space itself warped.
Onigashima was torn apart.
A pitch-black mushroom cloud surged upward, surrounded by five violent shock halos. Everything within the center was erased. A thousand-meter tsunami exploded outward, and a massive sinkhole formed, still collapsing inward under lingering destructive force.
"Damn it…"
King and the others crawled out from the ruined terrain.
Even though they had expected destruction, seeing Onigashima almost erased still made their hearts sink.
This was their base.
And it was nearly gone.
"I almost died…" one of the All-Stars muttered, coughing blood.
"Where's the Captain?"
"That blast was insane."
"Let's go."
They rushed toward the center.
In the mud, Lucien's shattered body was embedded deep in the crater. He looked like a corpse pulled apart and stitched together wrong.
But he was still regenerating.
Slowly.
Painfully.
At the bottom of the abyss, molten rock flowed beneath the sea.
Kaido lay on a reef in human form.
His left arm was nothing but bone, barely connected by torn veins. Half of his torso was exposed, organs visible, flesh burned away.
He was healing.
But far slower than Lucien.
"It seems you still can't kill me."
Lucien dragged himself up from the mud, steam rising from his body as glowing threads continued to stitch him back together.
Kaido bled from his nose and mouth, unable to speak.
His aura had dropped to rock bottom.
Lucien wanted to reach the brink of death.
But Kaido just could not push him there.
It annoyed him.
Then Lucien turned his head.
Several powerful auras were approaching rapidly.
The first was a pterosaur burning with dark flames.
King arrived in a sonic boom and kicked straight at Lucien's head.
Lucien blocked with a crystallized arm, but the force still sent him flying. He slammed into the abyss wall, coughing blood.
He was weak now.
So weak that even King's kick nearly crushed him.
And yet, Lucien smiled.
This was what he wanted.
The edge of death.
Queen, Jack, Ulti, Page One, and the others arrived, standing above him.
"Wow, the Captain looks like shit," Ulti laughed.
King stared at Lucien coldly. "Who are you?"
"One who can injure Kaido-sama like this and stay unknown."
Lucien bared his blood-soaked teeth.
"Savior."
"Savior?" Black Maria repeated.
Then she burst out laughing.
"Sorry, I couldn't help it."
"Never heard of you," Queen said, puffing his cigar.
"You haven't yet," Lucien replied, his body igniting with weak white flames. "But you will."
"You're still trying to fight?" Ulti mocked.
Lucien's amethyst eyes were full of contempt.
"Just you trash?"
"Courting death," Page One growled, charging first.
What followed was not a battle.
It was a massacre.
Lucien was kicked, smashed, and thrown like a broken doll. King sent him flying again and again, slamming him into rock, into magma, into the sea.
Yet even like this, Lucien nearly took down Ulti, Black Maria, Jack, and Page One.
King was struck by Lucien's Great Might Heavenly Dragon, a hundred-meter energy strike that made him vomit blood, though it failed to cripple him.
Lucien had been almost completely drained by Kaido.
The fact that he could still injure them at all was already absurd.
He did not even activate his battle theme.
Gravity amplification had already been disabled near the end of his fight with Kaido.
And yet, even as his body was torn apart again and again, Lucien laughed.
Blood spilled everywhere.
His grin only grew wider.
===
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