Bang! Bang! Bang!
Fists like blazing meteors crashed down in a relentless storm, crimson afterimages streaking through the air as purple-blue lightning crackled around them. The barrage swallowed Kaido whole.
Under Darren's full-force assault, the air temperature spiked, heat rolling off the battlefield in suffocating waves. Steam rose in thick, coiling plumes.
"Damn it!" Kaido snarled, pupils shrinking.
He'd been ready for a fierce fight—but the power Darren was unleashing far exceeded anything he'd imagined.
Even so…
A wild grin slowly split Kaido's face, his expression growing more and more feral.
Hands wrapped in black-green dragon scales tightened around the kanabo. Instead of retreating, he charged straight into the storm of punches, Hassaikai sweeping out in a roaring arc. Iron shadows multiplied, the club's afterimages weaving together into a wall of blows that blanketed the sky.
"Kundali: Dragon's Ascending Army!"
Purple-black kanabo shadows layered over one another, sealing off every angle before him. There wasn't a gap to squeeze through.
Fist met iron in a deafening chain of collisions.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Each impact exploded with violent shockwaves, the ground heaving and buckling like a storm-tossed sea.
But bit by bit, Kaido sensed something was wrong.
He could no longer keep up with Darren's speed.
Bang!
A crimson fist slammed into his jaw, ripping open a bloody gash.
Bang!
Another punch drove into his abdomen, hurling his massive frame back several meters.
As his defense crumbled, Darren only grew more frenzied. He stopped bothering to evade, letting the kanabo smash into his body as if pain didn't exist, answering each strike with an even more brutal punch of his own. His momentum surged higher and higher, like a tide about to break its banks.
Kaido's eyes widened. Before he could reset his stance, a torrential downpour of fist shadows swallowed him whole.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Under the relentless barrage, Kaido reeled backward step by step. Each punch shattered dragon scales and blasted blood into the air in a crimson mist.
Then Darren's final blow landed.
The impact sent Kaido flying like a launched cannonball, his enormous body tearing across the island for kilometers. He smashed through buildings and cliffs alike before finally crashing into the distant mountains, carving a colossal dragon-shaped gouge through the range.
Rumble…
The force of the collision shattered the mountain from within. The peak, hundreds of meters high, began to collapse inward. The shock rippled across the entire island, and a towering column of dust rose into the sky.
King stood rooted in place.
Behind his black mask, his handsome face might as well have turned to stone. It was as if his soul had been knocked clean out of his body.
He stared at the figure wreathed in steam on the scorched earth, at the beads of blood seeping from his pores and evaporating in an instant, at the lightning that crawled over his body like living chains of power—and swallowed hard. His hands were shaking.
A coldness unlike anything he'd ever felt before surged up from the soles of his feet and crawled all the way to the back of his skull.
Too strong.
Hopelessly, absurdly strong.
King had never believed that, aside from Kaido himself, a human could truly reach such a monstrous level.
Queen stood beside him, jaw slack, eyes bulging.
"Th-th-that…"
"He's basically a beast in human skin…"
He shivered all over.
For the first time, Queen fully pictured it: if Boss Kaido hadn't shown up when he did, what would have happened to him under Darren's fists? His own flesh and bones wouldn't have lasted more than a couple of punches.
"Now you understand why I said we absolutely can't let Darren enter that state, right?" Dragon said quietly, his voice as shaken as their expressions.
The scene in front of them was too overwhelming. No matter how many times one saw it, it would still steal the breath from your lungs.
Dragon exhaled and forced a wry smile.
"He's ridiculous. In that state, Darren… aside from Whitebeard and Roger, there's no one on this sea who can stop him."
King and Queen fell silent.
If, before today, they'd stubbornly clung to the belief that "Boss Kaido is invincible," that conviction now wavered—hard.
"Kaido!!"
A hoarse roar ripped through the air, shredded the silence, and tore their thoughts to pieces.
Through the rolling dust, the black-haired youth stepped forward, electricity crackling across his body, steam pouring off him like smoke from a furnace. He leaned slightly forward, his posture coiled and predatory, like a silver wolf emerging from the dark. His hands, wrapped in dark crimson lightning, curved into domineering dragon claws.
As he breathed, hot white steam surged from his nostrils, twisting upward like a twin-headed white dragon.
"Is that all you've got?"
The corner of his bloodied mouth lifted into a cold, contemptuous smirk.
"Don't you dare slack off. I'm not done yet… If you don't drag yourself back out here, I'll send this whole damn Onigashima to the bottom of the sea."
The world fell silent.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Rumble…
From the shattered mountains in the distance came a low, resonant tremor that swelled into an earth-shaking roar.
A colossal shadow rose from the broken peaks, its long body coiling as it climbed. It tore through the cloud bank and blotted out the sky in one sweeping motion.
An ancient, suffocating aura—one that only a true apex predator could possess—swept across the heavens with each massive movement. The air itself seemed to groan under the weight of its presence, and the winds howled in answer.
Dark clouds churned overhead.
Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled.
Daylight itself seemed to dim.
Then, out of the roiling sea of clouds, a head the size of a mountain slowly emerged and lowered, its gaze locking onto the small figure below.
The Azure Dragon's massive body was covered in wounds, some torn open and charred black, others still oozing fresh blood.
But its aura only climbed higher and higher.
"Little brat Darren…"
Kaido, now in his Azure Dragon form, glared down at him, baring his bloody fangs as his voice thundered across the island.
"You want the title of 'Strongest Creature'? Fine. That title… is yours!"
Even Kaido had to admit it.
Right now, in this terrifying Magnetic Field Rotation state, Darren's raw physical might had surpassed his own.
The student had overtaken the teacher.
But—
"But this damned Onigashima…"
Kaido's eyes bulged, bloodshot veins spiderwebbing through his vertical pupils.
Tch!
Explosive crimson flames erupted across the Azure Dragon's enormous body, an inferno so intense it seemed like it could burn away the very sky.
His titanic frame, coiled amidst the clouds and flame, dyed the whole horizon a violent red.
"It must not sink!!"
To be continued...