A deathly silence fell over the snowfield. The wind stopped blowing, and the falling snow seemed to freeze in mid-air.
Kaido's face, which had been twisted with rage just a moment ago, was now a mask of pure disbelief. He stared down at his invincible spiked club, held effortlessly in place by a single foot, unable to move an inch. His gaze traveled up from the foot to the man's leg, and finally to a face that wore a lazy, almost playful expression.
That face…
That face!
Kaido's pupils shrank to pinpricks. A memory he had buried deep in his soul—a memory of pure rage and humiliation—erupted like a dormant volcano.
Kneeling on the ground, Gecko Moria's hollow eyes slowly regained a sliver of focus. He watched, utterly baffled by the scene unfolding before him.
"You…" Kaido managed to squeeze a single, hoarse word from his throat. The knotted muscles all over his body trembled violently, not from the cold, but from sheer strain and fury.
Kyle didn't seem to notice. He casually removed his foot from the club and used a finger to idly clean his ear.
"You're still the same, huh?" Kyle finally spoke, his tone as flat and casual as if he were greeting an old neighbor. "It's been all these years, and you've made no progress at all."
That calm, dismissive voice struck Kaido like an invisible hammer.
It's him! It's really him! The man from God Valley. The man who had pinned him to the ground like a dog and carved a mark of eternal humiliation onto his back.
"AARON KYLE!"
A roar filled with decades of hatred and venom exploded from Kaido's chest. The sound was so powerful it became a tangible shockwave, blasting snow and ice in every direction. An equally terrifying aura erupted from his body, soaring into the sky as black and red lightning crackled violently around him.
This was the Conqueror's Haki of a future Emperor of the Sea. It was an oppressive force capable of making even powerful warriors tremble in fear. Yet, as this wave of intimidating energy washed over the battlefield, it seemed to hit an invisible wall just a few feet from Kyle, unable to advance any further.
"Oh? Conqueror's Haki?" Kyle chuckled softly. Then, an even deeper, more dominant will began to radiate from him. There was no thunderous roar, no rampant display of lightning. There was only a black-gold halo of energy that spread out from him, rapidly expanding across the snowfield.
Wherever the halo passed, it felt as if time itself was being stripped away.
The last few wailing members of Moria's crew, the charging minions of the Beasts Pirates—everyone fell silent. Their movements stopped instantly. Then, like puppets with their strings cut, their eyes rolled back into their heads and they collapsed in droves, completely unconscious.
Soon, besides the main combatants, no one else on the entire field was left standing.
"Ugh… Ah…"
"Queen the Plague," with his massive body, swayed on his feet. He felt as if ten thousand red-hot needles were piercing his brain. His legs gave out, and he fell to one knee, barely propping himself up with his huge mechanical arm to keep from collapsing completely.
"King the Inferno," the strongest of the Three Disasters, spread his black wings and ignited them with brilliant flames, attempting to resist the overwhelming pressure. But as the black-gold halo swept over him, his flames were instantly extinguished. He plummeted from the sky and slammed into the ground, his knees creating two deep craters on impact.
The legendary Three Disasters were forced to their knees by the man's aura alone.
The only one who could still stand against it was Kaido himself.
"Ugh… Worororo!" Kaido's legs were buried deep in the frozen earth, his entire skeleton groaning under the immense pressure. His own black-and-red Haki was being completely suppressed by the black-gold domain. But instead of fear, a mad, exhilarated laugh began to bubble up from his chest.
"This is it! This is the feeling, Kyle!" he bellowed, his voice filled with a strange mix of rage and joy. "The humiliation I suffered at God Valley! Today, right here, I'm going to pay you back for all of it!"
With a tremendous roar, Kaido ripped his cracked club from the snow. His arm muscles bulged to their absolute limit as he swung it down at Kyle's head once more.
"If you're weak, you should just practice more," Kyle sighed, sounding bored. "Aren't you tired of saying the same things over and over?" His figure flickered, leaving behind an afterimage.
BOOM!
The spiked club missed, slamming into the spot where Kyle had been standing. The attack carved a massive crater tens of meters wide into the ground, sending dirt and shattered ice flying everywhere.
"Too slow," Kyle's teasing voice echoed from behind Kaido. "Way too slow."
"You bastard!" Kaido spun around and swung his club horizontally. The weapon shrieked as it tore through the air, leveling a hundred meters of land behind him. But again, it hit nothing.
"Your strength has improved a little," Kyle's figure reappeared to Kaido's left, his hands still casually in his pockets. "But your aim is still as terrible as ever."
"ROOOOAR!" Kaido completely lost control. He abandoned all strategy and technique, relying purely on his beast-like instincts to wildly swing his club again and again.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The entire region of Ringo began to shake. The sound of explosions echoed across the mountains as deep, bottomless ravines were torn into the snowfield, threatening to rip the very land apart.
But no matter how violent or fast Kaido's attacks became, the man in the black coat always managed to evade them with the slightest of movements. He was like a master bullfighter, gracefully dodging every charge with an effortless ease that was a merciless mockery of his opponent's power.
Moria watched, completely dumbfounded. He remained kneeling in the snow, his mind a total blank. The monstrous "Beast" Kaido, the man who had fought him to a standstill, now looked like a three-year-old throwing a tantrum, completely unable to even touch his opponent's clothes.
What… what level of battle is this?
"Stop… DODGING!" Kaido roared, panting heavily as another powerful blow missed its mark. His eyes were completely bloodshot. "Worororo… Good! Very good!"
Suddenly, Kaido stopped his assault. He raised his spiked club high, and an even more ferocious Conqueror's Haki coiled around it, the black-red lightning flashing menacingly.
"If I can't hit you, then I'll just destroy you and this entire land together!" he screamed. "Descent of the Three Worlds: Inferno!"
This time, the attack locked onto all the space around Kyle, making it impossible to dodge.
"Finally, a decent move," Kyle said, at last taking his hands out of his pockets.
He extended his right hand, and an ornate, antique-looking naginata materialized out of thin air. As the weapon appeared, his black-gold Conqueror's Haki flowed from his body and converged entirely onto its blade.
"Alright," Kyle said with a slight smirk. "I'll play with you for a bit." He casually swung the naginata to meet Kaido's world-destroying strike.
CLANG!
The sound was not a crisp impact, but an earth-shattering roar that felt like it was tearing the sky apart and shattering eardrums.
Black-gold and black-red. Two different types of supreme Conqueror's Haki clashed with unimaginable violence. For an instant, it seemed as if all the color in the world had been drained away. A visible, circular shockwave exploded outward from the point of impact, spreading wildly in all directions.
The ground itself seemed to wail in agony. The thick layers of snow were instantly vaporized, and the hard, frozen earth was peeled back layer by layer. The entire mountain range shook violently. Moria and the ground beneath him were thrown into the air, tumbling a dozen times before crashing down hard. The Three Disasters were sent flying backward by the aftershock, spitting up blood.
Wind, snow, and dust obscured everything.
When the chaos gradually settled and the dust cleared, Kyle was still standing in the same spot. He held his naginata calmly, his trench coat flapping in the wind, completely unharmed.
Across from him, Kaido's massive body was gone.
In its place was a colossal creature that blotted out the sky. A gigantic azure dragon, its body stretching for hundreds of meters, coiled in mid-air. Its scales shimmered with a metallic luster, its prominent horns pointed to the heavens, and its golden pupils shone like two small suns, staring down at the tiny figure on the ground below.
The endless, overwhelming might of a true dragon now enveloped the entire sky.
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