WarGreymon remained silent. It raised a hand and fired a Gaia Force, then also leaped into the sky, following behind the energy blast to charge at Kaido... Three hours later.
"Huff... huff... Damn you, Vegapunk!!"
Kaido panted heavily. His entire body was covered in scorch marks and bloodstains, and there was even a faint scent of cooked meat. He let out an angry roar.
The originally grey space was now pitted and scarred. In some places, lava-like liquid was even flowing, while others had turned into black glass.
He tore off a piece of charred flesh from his own body, threw it into his mouth, and chewed a few times. At the same time, Kaido's muscles contracted, suppressing his blood vessels and wounds to prevent more blood from flowing out.
There was no food in this space. WarGreymon was made entirely of steel, and Kaido certainly couldn't bite into that, so he could only gnaw on his own flesh.
As for the WarGreymon that had been fighting Kaido, it had now turned into a pile of scraps on the ground. Being dismantled to this extent meant that even memory metal couldn't restore it.
Fortunately, WarGreymon's intelligent program had long been uploaded to the quantum brain. Having its physical body smashed to pieces was meaningless; Vegapunk could manufacture another one in minutes.
The miniature nuclear fusion reactor, acting as the power center, hadn't been destroyed either. Possessing Observation Haki at a level that could predict the future, Kaido could fully sense the terrifying energy inside that reactor.
Even with Kaido's full-power defense at his peak, being caught in an explosion from that thing would probably take away nearly half his life, let alone in his current state. Naturally, he didn't dare destroy it.
Although Kaido had ultimately won this battle, Vegapunk's losses were actually minimal—one might even say non-existent. Kaido, on the other hand, was not only heavily injured but his stamina was also completely depleted.
A peak Kaido wouldn't have been so heavily injured defeating WarGreymon, but for a Kaido who had been starving for so long, being able to win was already impressive. Naturally, one couldn't ask more of him.
However, after roaring twice, Kaido also felt a faint sense of being at his wit's end. By using Life Return to preserve his stamina, he might have lasted half a year in the grey space, but after this fight with WarGreymon, with his stamina exhausted and his body heavily injured, he had no hope of lasting even another three to five days!
For a moment, even a hero and hegemon like Kaido felt a tinge of despair... "A very exciting battle. Your old man really did have an ace up his sleeve. It's a good thing you didn't go in!"
Having watched how Kaido tore WarGreymon apart with his bare hands, Vegapunk spoke to Yamato beside him while thinking about the next improvement plan for WarGreymon.
"How much longer is the old man going to be locked up? I see he's almost at his limit. Why don't you let me go in, knock him out, and bring him out!"
Initially, when she saw Kaido go berserk and tear WarGreymon to pieces, Yamato was a little scared. But now, seeing Kaido looking heavily injured, Yamato couldn't help but be eager to try.
The day to defeat her old man and finally become the master of her own fate was today!
Vegapunk gave Yamato a subtle look. It seemed that even without eating the Dog-Dog Fruit, this person still had the personality of a purebred husky... However, Kaido really was at the end of his rope now. Even if Yamato went over, there probably wouldn't be any issues. Although she seemed to have a 'husky' personality, Yamato, when in good condition and without the restriction of sea stone handcuffs, could actually hold her own against Kaido for a while.
Since that was the case, Vegapunk would naturally satisfy his subordinate's request. Given Yamato's personality, she wouldn't kill Kaido anyway; at most, she'd give him a concussion... A battered and exhausted Yamato dragged the prostrate Kaido out of the prison at last.
Even if Kaido only had one breath left, he still possessed powerful peak explosive power, much like Whitebeard during the Paramount War—he just couldn't sustain it.
Yamato, who had rushed in excitedly wanting to beat up an injured person, clearly suffered quite a bit. However, after one round of outbursts, Kaido obviously couldn't hold on anymore, which was how he was knocked unconscious and dragged out by Yamato.
Looking at the bloodstains dragged across the ground, it was clear Yamato hadn't held back at all. Kaido was truly and completely unconscious, or perhaps 'in shock' would be a better description.
"Very good. Send this guy to Laboratory No. 15! He's a very important experimental subject."
"By the way, before that, give him a shot of concentrated seastone factor radiation agent. That'll keep him from escaping!"
The effect of the concentrated seastone factor radiation agent was hundreds of times stronger than ordinary Sea Stone. To date, any Devil Fruit User experimental subject under Vegapunk would lose all their strength if they were even slightly exposed to it.
Even if Kaido was a bit harder to deal with, a direct injection would be enough to collapse all his resistance.
Finally, he had the perfect material for his Clones. Although he'd had Kaido's body materials before, those materials had an expiration date, and if he cloned from a body that had already been cloned, the quality would drop significantly.
Now things were better; he didn't have to worry about high-grade materials anymore. In the future, while the Iron Legion would serve as cannon fodder, high-level soldiers could be replaced by these Kaido Clones.
Even without any Haki or training, a Kaido Clone would at least have combat power close to a Marine Vice Admiral.
One must remember that even if Kaido wasn't as freakish as Charlotte Linlin, he was still a monster who became the strongest warrior of the Vodka Kingdom at the age of ten. His baseline was right there; he wouldn't be too bad no matter what.
In the following months, Vegapunk began to integrate the Beasts Pirates he had annexed.
He re-optimized and integrated his robot combat programs and used the cloned Kaido flesh and blood to fill the three great Dragon Beasts. This allowed the three Dragon Beasts to gain the ability to independently refine Chakra and even use Armament Haki, further increasing their ultimate combat power.
He rounded up the Artificial Devil Fruit Users under Kaido and made arrangements for each of them. Some were incorporated into the Umbrella Corporation, some were used to fill Wano Country, and others were scattered outside to act as pirates as peripheral forces.
Among the high-ranking members of the Beasts Pirates, those willing to surrender were kept as enforcers and directly controlled with Kotoamatsukami. Those unwilling were treated purely as experimental subjects. Anyone who could survive under Kaido had a decent physical strength and counted as an excellent experimental subject.
The Sea Stone veins had also been mostly mined by Vegapunk. Machine mining was much faster than manual labor. If the Sea Stone mine in Wano Country hadn't been so staggeringly large, it probably would have been mined clean by now.
With the current Sea Stone reserves, manufacturing various Sea Stone weapons and arming a mechanical army of a million was not a problem. He could also produce more products like Devil Fruit interference devices and concentrated seastone factor radiation agents, completely achieving Vegapunk's strategic goals.
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