Hearing Kaido's furious roar, Linlin was stunned.
The two immediately soared over the Giant King's Capital, Odin City, heading straight for the mountain.
Below, the giants who looked up at the sky instantly bristled with anger.
"They're heading for the Sacred Mountain! We can't let them run wild in Odin City, especially not the Sacred Mountain—nothing must happen to it!"
"Right! Knock them down!"
The enraged giants grabbed whatever they could find at their feet and hurled it skyward.
Those who couldn't find anything nearby smashed down nearby houses, tearing out huge stones and launching them like cannonballs at Kaido and Linlin.
Most of the projectiles missed, but a few struck Kaido and Linlin.
The strength of the giants was indeed formidable.
Though the distance was over a hundred meters, the boulders hurled at Kaido struck with such force that his massive serpentine body writhed uncontrollably.
The massive rocks collided with Kaido and Linlin, shattering into dust upon impact.
Though they didn't inflict much damage on Kaido, they stoked his fury to new heights!
"You oversized ants! Know your damn limits! Boro Breath!"
Kaido opened his enormous, ferocious dragon maw, unleashing scorching crimson pillars of fire that rained down, instantly turning Odin City into a blazing inferno.
The giants' rage was instantly extinguished by this apocalyptic disaster, and they fled in terror, wailing for their parents.
Some unlucky giants, caught in the wrong positions, were instantly drenched in the terrifying high-temperature flames, reduced to charred lumps of flesh on the spot.
Linlin snorted coldly. "These giants may seem powerful, but they're just a bunch of weaklings. They're good at bullying the weak, but when faced with someone stronger, they don't have much backbone."
After Kaido spewed several massive fire pillars, turning half of Odin City into a sea of flames, no more giants dared to stand in their way.
Before long, Kaido and Linlin smoothly descended onto the summit of the Sacred Mountain.
Kaido reverted to his human form, and the moment his feet touched the ground, he frantically began searching for his wife's grave.
Yet, no matter how hard he looked, scanning every tombstone around, he couldn't find Filina's resting place.
BOOM!
Kaido seemed to have all his strength drained in an instant, collapsing to the ground.
His face twisted with bewilderment and uncontrollable grief.
Plop. Plop.
Large tears fell from his eyes, smashing against the ground and shattering into pieces.
Linlin frowned, casting a sidelong glance at Kaido before silently leaping off the Sacred Mountain and landing with a thunderous crash in the streets of Odin City.
The streets were still engulfed in raging flames, with some giants on fire screaming as they fled for their lives.
Wherever Linlin passed, wisps of fire were plucked from the air and absorbed into Prometheus, the small fireball perched on her shoulder.
An elderly giant with a long beard, his back ablaze, shrieked in agony as he barreled through several collapsing houses, rushing past Linlin.
Suddenly, Linlin stretched out a massive hand, seizing the sprinting giant.
Her feet anchored like nails to the ground, and with a sharp tug, the giant let out a startled cry as his enormous body was yanked backward, crashing into the street and leaving a massive crater.
"Waaah! Spare me, spare me, Charlotte Linlin!" The old giant had noticed Linlin earlier and had tried to flee, never expecting her to suddenly target him.
He was so terrified he nearly soiled himself.
"Mamamama, you know me? That's perfect. Tell me—do you know where the grave of a female giant named Filina is on your Sacred Mountain? Hmm, she should have been brought here by Kaido twenty-eight years ago. Why is her grave missing now?"
A gentle, "kindly" smile spread across Linlin's face as she questioned him.
The old giant's fear of Linlin was so overwhelming that he even forgot about the flames still licking at his body.
Without any hesitation, he stammered,
"Are you talking about that woman with dwarfism from twenty-eight years ago? Her grave was thrown into the Forbidden Land of the Dead because the giant royalty of Odin City said that if she were buried on the Sacred Mountain, it would affect the newborns of Elbaf. And that dragon... back then, it caused a huge uproar in Odin City and angered many people."
Linlin frowned. "The Forbidden Land of the Dead? What kind of place is that?"
"It's a canyon where the corpses of some criminals among the giants are discarded after death. No one wants to go to that place filled with the resentment of wandering souls, so it's called the Forbidden Land."
As the old giant finished speaking in fear, he saw a pitch-black fist slam down heavily onto the ground right in front of him.
BOOM!
The entire street shook violently as a massive fissure cracked open, spreading far into the distance.
Buildings tilted and collapsed, crushing fleeing giants who were left bloodied and battered.
"A bunch of damn oversized insects!"
A terrifying aura erupted from Linlin's body, and the old giant, standing mere inches away, was instantly knocked unconscious by the shockwave.
She shot into the air and landed behind Kaido.
"Kaido! Stop crying! Filina's grave was thrown into some damned criminal canyon by those cursed giants!"
Kaido's mournful sobbing abruptly ceased as he numbly stood up and turned to look at Linlin.
"Criminal canyon?"
Linlin's face darkened as she nodded.
"They considered Filina a criminal of the giant race. Her existence would supposedly affect the newborns of the giants, so they couldn't allow her to be buried on the Sacred Mountain..."
"A criminal?"
Kaido's massive frame trembled uncontrollably, his eyes turning bloodshot.
A dreadful killing intent and boundless rage, accompanied by his pitch-black Conqueror's Haki, exploded outward like a colossal dark energy dome, relentlessly assaulting the entire giant royal city!
"Filina... was NOT a criminal!!"
Kaido roared to the heavens, stomping so hard that the ground of the Sacred Mountain shattered, causing dozens of nearby graves to collapse and crumble.
"ROAR!!"
Kaido transformed once more into his azure dragon form, opening his maw to unleash a scorching Heat Breath directly at the Sacred Mountain.
"If that's how it is, then I'll destroy this so-called Sacred Mountain and erase the damned ancestral glory of the giants!"
The crimson pillar of flames descended like divine retribution, crashing down toward the heart of the Sacred Mountain.
BOOM!
The deafening explosion brought a fleeting sense of satisfaction to Kaido—until he focused on the scene before him and froze in shock.
Just as the massive Heat Breath was about to strike the center of the Sacred Mountain, an enormous arm burst forth from the platform, its fingers spread wide to catch the fiery pillar with ease.
The ancient, pillar-like limb was sheathed in an unfathomably dense Armament Haki, forming an invisible colossal armor that deflected the torrent of flames, sending them spiraling back into the sky!
CRACK! CRACK!
The earth split apart as a barefoot giant, covered in dirt and sporting a wild mane of unkempt hair, slowly crawled out from the depths of the Sacred Mountain.
He rubbed his bleary eyes and looked up at Kaido hovering in the sky.
Standing fifteen meters tall, his body was riddled with horrific scars—the largest of which stretched horizontally across his chest, nearly cleaving him in two.
Despite his rugged, thick-browed appearance, the giant's face bore the unmistakable youthfulness of a warrior in his prime.
The bulging, terrifying muscles made him resemble a titanic giant from ancient myths and legends.
Hum!!
A terrifying wave of Conqueror's Haki erupted from this giant's body, stirring a monstrous storm within the royal city.
In an instant, it extinguished all the raging flames!