Chapter 10: Thunder Bagua.[1]
"Wororororo! Good! That's what I'm talking about!"
Seeing Carlo appear out of nowhere, the battle-crazed Kaido was not alarmed—he was delighted.
Without another word, he pulled back the spiked club that had been braced against Carlo's fist and, with a backhand swing, smashed the half-corpse Carlo had thrown at him.
Samro's mangled remains were sent flying back like a baseball.
Carlo was midair with nothing to push off of, yet his foot suddenly stepped onto empty air as if it were solid.
Boom!
The air beneath his foot exploded, bursting into a white shockwave that kicked back with violent recoil, launching his body upward like a cannonball by more than ten meters and letting him dodge the returning corpse.
"Hm? That's… a Marine technique?" Kaido let out a surprised sound, and a sharp killing intent suddenly flared in his eyes.
"Brat, are you a Marine?!"
Carlo did not answer. He simply raised his right leg high over his head in midair, then chopped down.
Whoosh!
As his right leg came down like a battle axe, a ribbon-like white flying slash burst from his leg and cleaved down from dozens of meters up, aiming straight for Kaido's head below.
"Tempest Kick: Battle Axe!"
The sharp slash screamed in, but Kaido's massive body moved with speed and reaction time that did not match his size. He merely shifted slightly to the side and avoided it.
The crescent-like white slash skimmed past his body and cut into the ground beside him.
The hard road paved with massive bluestone blocks was as fragile as tofu before a blade, splitting open into a narrow fissure more than ten meters long, so deep the bottom could not be seen.
After dodging Carlo's strike, the killing intent in Kaido's eyes grew thicker.
He seemed to recall something unpleasant from the past.
The excitement he had shown at seeing Carlo gradually turned into violent bloodlust.
Staring up at Carlo in midair as he raised his foot again, Kaido roared.
"Tempest Kick? The Six Powers?!"
"Damn brat! You really are a Marine?!"
"You talk too much!"
"Kaido!!"
The muscles in Carlo's long legs tightened under his beach shorts like bowstrings being drawn farther and farther. In an instant, he kicked dozens of sharp flying slashes downward.
The slashes covered the sky like a rainstorm, blanketing Kaido's huge body with no blind spots.
"Tempest Kick: Barrage!"
"Marines… Marines!" Kaido's teeth ground with a cracking sound as he suddenly bellowed.
"The thing I hate most in this life is Marines!!"
Within Carlo's storm of Tempest Kick slashes, Kaido did not dodge at all—he let dozens of slashes land on him.
The next moment, a scene that made Carlo's pupils constrict appeared.
Amid the slashes pouring down like a violent storm, Kaido stood there as his entire body's muscles bulged as if exploding, shining with a dark luster like forged steel.
Those thick tendons swelling in huge knots looked like coiled pythons tangled together.
Or like bundles of tightly wound steel rebar.
The flying slashes Carlo kicked out—slashing power strong enough to cut steel with ease—could only barely break Kaido's skin, carving shallow blood marks.
Then, utterly useless, they were rebounded by the swelling muscles beneath his skin.
Staring at Kaido's muscles, tougher than steel, Carlo licked his lips without thinking.
His eyes shone.
So this was the tough body of the creature that would one day be called the strongest and indestructible.
Even though Kaido was three years younger than him right now.
Fifteen-year-old Kaido already possessed such a terrifying body.
This kind of physique could not be achieved by training alone.
This was Kaido's racial talent as a special oni.
Along with his bloodline.
A monstrous constitution.
That physique stat had to be at least ten points higher than Carlo's, over seventy.
Maybe even higher.
At that moment, Carlo almost felt like he was about to drool.
"So badly want it."
In the instant Carlo's focus slipped—
Kaido, after taking Carlo's full barrage head-on, made his entire body's muscles surge again. His eyes turned blood-red as he locked onto Carlo, clenched his spiked club, bent his thick legs, and leapt!
Boom!
The moment he jumped, the ground beneath him exploded into a crater dozens of meters wide.
Half the street inside Loki Port shook violently, and buildings collapsed one after another.
Kaido's huge body shot up like a rocket, leaping dozens of meters in an instant.
The spiked club in his hands tore through the air with a shriek like wailing ghosts.
And because it was moving too fast, silver-white electric arcs even burst from the sharp spikes.
"This move… could it be?" Carlo's pupils shrank sharply.
"Marine brat! I'm going to butcher you!!"
"Thunder Bagua!!"
Kaido roared, shouting his classic technique in a voice that was still a bit young.
Crack crack crack!
Silver-white arcs wrapped around the heavy black club as it came smashing in like a black-and-white nightmare, aiming straight for Carlo's chest.
A sense of danger so fierce it made every hair on Carlo's body stand on end surged over him.
It made him instinctively want to dodge.
His body was warning him, trying to flee on instinct.
But at the critical moment, Carlo forced that instinct down.
His Moonwalk step that had moved aside snapped back in, and under Kaido's startled gaze, he turned defense into offense, grinning viciously as he charged straight into the club head-on.
"A real man never dodges a frontal assault!"
"Let me taste the power of that swing!!"
"Armament Haki: Vajra Body!!"
Carlo clenched both fists, and the shirt on his upper body burst apart instantly.
Muscles covered in savage scars swelled like violently erupting magma.
A glass-like black luster surged up from beneath his skin and rapidly spread, wrapping his entire upper body.
In an instant, he looked like a black vajra guardian.
The blackened forehead slammed into Kaido's club head-on.
Clang!
A deafening explosion of metal against metal erupted.
The air in midair seemed to burst apart, and at the moment of impact, roaring storms were kicked up.
Their collision only held for an instant.
Carlo, ramming his head into the club, was smashed away by Kaido's roar, flipping head-down and feet-up like a cannonball as he whistled diagonally down from the sky.
Boom boom boom boom boom!
Building after building was pierced through by Carlo's body.
It was like an earthquake had struck Loki Port.
Streets and ground kept splitting apart.
Carlo flew more than a hundred meters, crashing through five or six buildings before the ground finally stopped him, slamming him into a crater more than ten meters wide.
Inside the collapsed pit, Carlo lay on his back, mouth wide open, chest heaving violently, face covered in blood.
His eyes had lost focus.
The world before him was pitch-black.
His head was still shaking violently.
His ears rang.
His head hurt like it was about to explode.
Carlo had been a bit too confident.
He had almost been knocked unconscious by Kaido's single strike.
The power of that swing was—
too brutal!
Kaido did not even seem to have used Haki.
It was pure physical strength.
Even after taking it head-on with Armament Haki defense, Carlo still felt like he had a concussion.
But Carlo's mouth curled upward uncontrollably, spreading into a grin.
He let out a loud, satisfied laugh.
The laughter pierced through the churning dust, echoed over the shattered Loki Port, and reached Kaido's ears as he strode over with his club in hand and a dark expression.
"Hahaha! Kahahahaha! Kahahahahaha!"
"So good!"
"That hit was insane!"
Why was Carlo so happy?
Because—
Ding!
"Physique +1!"