Thud, thud, thud—
Outside the room where Kaido sat, Karl knocked first, and then Yamato pushed the door open.
As they stepped in, a seven-meter-tall giant of a man came into view, drinking on a specially made chair.
"Senior Kaido..."
Walking up to him, Karl introduced himself with great politeness. "A pleasure to meet you. My name is Karl."
"Glug, glug..."
Kaido drank in great gulps. He looked drunk on the surface, yet his eyes were sizing Karl up.
"Hey..."
Seeing Kaido say nothing, Yamato frowned, about to call him the usual "old geezer."
At that moment, Karl turned his head and shot Yamato a look, his tone brooking no argument. "Yamato, stand aside and don't speak."
"Al... alright!"
Feeling the captain's authority for the first time, Yamato nodded obediently, then shouldered his kanabō and stood to the side, glaring at Kaido.
Bang!
But the sight of Karl scolding his son made Kaido slam his gourd against the arm of the chair.
A tangible aura burst from him and swept the room in an instant.
His tigerish eyes locked on Yamato, Kaido rumbled, "Yamato, what's the meaning of this?"
Disrespect to me, your father, and yet so obedient to an outsider.
If not for his aura being unchanged, Kaido would have thought some new Mimicry Fruit user had turned into his son.
"Heh-heh..."
Yamato grinned smugly and showed his pale, slender wrists to Kaido. "I've decided to go to sea and adventure with Karl, so the cuffs that bound me—I took them off."
"Bastard, you cannot go to sea!" Kaido roared.
Yamato roared back, "They stole over ten years of my freedom. No matter what, this time I'm going!"
"In that case, defeat me!"
As always, Kaido rose with Hassaikai in hand and growled, "If you can defeat me, I won't interfere with any decision you make!"
"Fine, who's afraid of who!"
Yamato hefted the club as well, clearly forgetting the agreement with Karl.
"Yamato..."
Karl's voice brought him back to his senses.
Seeing Karl's helpless look, Yamato stuck his tongue out. "Sorry, sorry... I forgot again!"
Watching Yamato apologize to Karl, Kaido finally gave Karl a serious look.
"So you're the Dragon Knight, kid..."
Though somewhat tipsy, he kept his wits.
One glance and Kaido knew who Karl was. A gust of liquor-laced white breath left his lips as he spoke like distant thunder. "You're the one who's bewitched my idiot son to leave with you?"
"Yes, Senior Kaido..."
Sensing the volcano of killing intent about to erupt from Kaido, Karl's own presence surged to meet it. He lifted his chin, smiled, and said, "From this moment, Yamato is my crewmate."
"Raimei Hakke!"
Almost as Karl's words fell.
Kaido swung Hassaikai, wreathed in red lightning, at extreme speed toward Karl.
The club, bigger than Karl, swelled rapidly in his view.
Karl, who had been watching Kaido with his unique-tier perception, had long since finished charging via Life Return.
As the club was about to smash him like a baseball, Karl clenched his right fist, sheathing it in flowing golden Armament, and hurled his strongest normal-state punch at the descending club.
BOOOOM—!
With this punch—the first full-power blow after his second evolution that did not borrow the Rumble-Rumble Fruit—Karl unleashed emission-grade Armament at full force.
A strike that, if amplified by the fruit, would shatter a colossal mountain in one hit.
Thus—
When fist and club collided, a deafening detonation spread across most of Onigashima.
A vast, transparent-white air cannon roared off Karl's fist.
It locked into a test of strength against the colossal club.
Krak-krak-krak—
Savage shockwaves exploded from air cannon and club, sweeping the room.
Like the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's quakes, like the tangible destruction of Conqueror's Haki.
Where the gale passed, everything was not only flung away but cracked apart.
A web of fissures crawled over the floor, ceiling, and walls.
"..."
The deadlock didn't last long. Barely half a minute in, Karl's face shifted.
His feet began to slide back on the floor, as if pressed by an irresistible force, carving skids—just as when facing Yamato's Conqueror's coating.
The air cannon ahead felt as though it had slammed into Carina's Barrier Fruit.
As Karl's feet slid, the terrible shockwave rebounded.
Because of that rebound, the body that could have matched Kaido suddenly fell behind; Kaido's club knocked Karl back over ten meters.
Sparks flared under his heels as he skidded out the door and slammed into the corridor wall.
Boom!
With a thunderous crash, the wall behind Karl blew outward, a gaping hole punched clear to the outside by the rebounding air cannon.
"Hahaha... too strong!"
Buried under the expelled air cannon, Karl was unharmed—and laughed in excitement.
Just one exchange showed him the size of the gap to the true summit of the world.
There was no doubt that, after his second evolution, Karl's physique surpassed those two sovereigns, Whitebeard and Shanks.
But compared to Charlotte Linlin, the iron balloon, and Kaido, who seemed undying, there was still a sizable gap, just as Karl had said.
At full power in his normal state, he could withstand Raimei Hakke, yet his body would still be blasted back some distance.
If the opponent used Conqueror's coating and Karl had not learned it, that one swing—even with Karl's steel body—would have caused serious harm.
But such a small gap meant little to Karl.
For Kaido's Raimei Hakke had told him this:
Once he completed the third evolution, his physicality would be the strongest in the world, bar none.
Then, on the contrary, he would pull ahead of Kaido and Charlotte Linlin by a small margin—or a large one.
...
Even without the third evolution, Karl did not fear Kaido.
Beyond his endlessly evolving monster physique, he had trump cards.
The little white dragon's light attribute and the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, peak three-color Haki, the Six Powers' ultimate art and Life Return, King's Fist, and the greatest trump— the Mysterious Spear.
These were enough to bridge the gap between him and Kaido.
Especially with elementization and preemptive elementization, even if he could not win, he could retreat intact.
As if to prove it, blue-white current flashed over Karl's body.
BOOOOM—!
Unleashing Life Return again, Karl fused in the Rumble-Rumble Fruit and fired a Six Kings Gun akin to Raimei Hakke, sheathed in crackling blue-white lightning, at Kaido.
The electric shockwave formed a transparent-white air cannon and roared for Kaido.
Kaido again answered with Raimei Hakke, trying to bat the cylindrical air cannon back like a ball.
On contact, the same island-shaking blast as before split the sky again.
Rrrrumble—
This time, Kaido didn't knock it back.
But his club shattered the air cannon in one blow.
The shockwave's gale demolished half the building in that direction.
Broken eaves and walls crashed down, burying the trio and the Beasts Pirates who had hurried this way at the sound.
"Peh, peh..."
Thick dust billowed up into a mushroom cloud.
From the rubble, Yamato poked his head out, face smeared gray, and stared ahead.
Karl and Kaido stood outside the debris as if untouched, their vastly different heights looming and fading in the dust as they faced off.
Swoosh—
The next instant, Karl vanished with Lightning Blink.
"So fast!"
Yamato gaped and rushed to cast out Observation Haki to follow the duel.
Karl turned into blue-white current, threaded the field, and in a blink hung in midair, fist wrapped in emission-grade Armament, and smashed for Kaido's face.
A blow packed with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's power, the Six Kings Gun, and Armament's internal destruction.
If that punch landed on Kaido's face.
Like Luffy after becoming the Fifth Emperor, it would definitely carve pain and scars onto a body ranked top three in defense worldwide.
Clang—BOOM!
But though huge, Kaido wasn't the least bit slow.
Like Karl, he had the three Hakis at their extreme, and had done so years earlier.
He had already read Karl's movement.
Facing a punch that could hurt him, Kaido—rarely among his enemies—did not just take it.
He lifted Hassaikai, sheathing it in Armament that could one-shot a New World monster, and easily blocked Karl's fist.
With a ringing metallic crash—
The energy in Karl's fist—Rumble-Rumble, Armament, and the essence of the Six Powers—again became a massive air cannon.
Kaido, focused only on the Armament that could hurt him, clearly forgot Karl's fist had a second strike.
Under the titanic shockwave, Kaido, too, was driven back two or three meters.
It was only a few meters, but Yamato, seeing it, couldn't help gaping. "The old geezer actually got pushed back!"
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