Chapter 83: Nineteen Minutes of Divinity

The impact shattered the world.

When the colossal, building-sized jade guillotine supercharged by Kaido’s own converted energy, my Fa-Jin, and flowing Advanced Armament slammed into the Emperor, the kinetic discharge was apocalyptic.

A blinding dome of green and black Haki expanded outward, instantly vaporizing the remaining Marine barracks.

The bedrock of the island groaned, and with an earsplitting crack, Marine Outpost G-7 literally split in half.

A massive, jagged canyon tore through the center of the island, ocean water violently rushing in to fill the newly formed chasm.

The shockwave displaced the sea for miles, sending a localized tsunami crashing against the distant coral reefs.

I landed heavily on the edge of the newly formed cliff, The Jade Wings dissolving back into twin daggers.

My breath came in measured, heavy draws.

The converted energy I had absorbed from his attack was entirely spent.

Down in the massive crater, the dust slowly began to clear.

Kaido was embedded deep into the shattered stone.

A massive, bleeding gash ran diagonally across his chest and shoulder.

For a normal man, it was a fatal wound.

For Kaido, it was a wake-up call.

The Emperor slowly pushed himself up from the rubble.

The air around him grew impossibly heavy, the gravity itself seeming to warp under the sheer, suffocating density of his Conqueror’s Haki.

He looked down at his bleeding chest, then looked up at me.

“WORORORORO!”

Kaido threw his head back and laughed, a maniacal, bloodthirsty sound that shook the very air.

His eyes glowed with absolute, unhinged joy.

“An island splitter!” Kaido roared, his muscles bulging as black lightning violently cascaded off his body.

“It’s been a long time since someone made me bleed!

Don’t you dare die on me now, Warlord!”

With that Kaido vanished, moving at a speed that completely defied his massive, hulking hybrid frame.

My Advanced Observation flared violently.

I barely brought my blades up in time as his spiked kanabo, Hassaikai, crashed into my guard.

The force of the blow threw me backward, my boots carving deep trenches into the stone.

He was on me again in a microsecond, unleashing a relentless, overwhelming barrage of strikes.

I dodged, parried, and used the Nega-Rings’ teleportation to blink out of his lethal arcs, but the reality of the situation set in immediately.

My baseline power, even enhanced by the Kree relics, wasn’t enough to sustain a prolonged deathmatch against the Strongest Creature in the World.

Not without the island completely sinking beneath us.

Thunder Bagua!

I teleported ten meters backward, the shockwave of his club shattering the cliff face where I had just been standing.

As Kaido prepared to leap again, I reached into the leather pouch at my hip.

My fingers closed around the cold glass vial of Compound V.

I popped the cork with my thumb.

Without hesitating, I downed the glowing blue liquid.

Kaido leaped into the air, bringing his club down for a skull-crushing execution strike.

Just as the serum hit my bloodstream.

My biology instantly, violently rejected the permanent mutation aspect of the chemical, but it weaponized the raw kinetic overdrive.

The effect was akin to throwing a lit match into a powder keg.

My physical strength, my internal Fa-Jin reserves, and my Haki output exponentially multiplied by five times.

The green aura surrounding my body violently shifted, erupting into a blinding, chaotic emerald-gold.

Kaido brought the club down.

I didn’t teleport.

I didn’t dodge.

I raised my left hand, the Nega-Band humming with unprecedented power, my fingers coated in dense, pitch-black Armament Haki.

CLANG.

The shockwave leveled everything within a half-mile radius, but I didn’t move an inch.

I stood perfectly still, my bare hand clamped securely around the spiked iron of Kaido’s kanabo.

The absolute shock on Kaido’s face was palpable.

I had just physically out-muscled the Strongest Creature in the World.

“My turn,” I said.

I pulled the club forward, throwing Kaido off balance.

In my right hand, The Jade Wings shifted fluidly.

The dagger expanded, molding into a massive, heavy-headed war hammer.

I coated it in Advanced Armament Internal Destruction and drove it directly into Kaido’s ribs.

The Emperor coughed blood, but he didn’t fly back.

Instead, Kaido planted his feet, his eyes burning with absolute battle-lust.

He grabbed the handle of my jade hammer, pulling me in closer, and headbutted me with enough force to shatter a mountain range.

My vision swam, blood pouring from my forehead, but the multiplied Fa-Jin instantly accelerated my cellular regeneration.

I roared, pulling my Conqueror’s Haki outward, wrapping the supreme king’s aura directly around my weapons alongside my Armament.

Thick trails of black and gold lightning violently arced off the jade.

For the next ten minutes, no one dominated the fight, it was an apocalyptic, world-breaking slugfest.

We matched each other blow for blow.

Kaido unleashed his wind scythes and Boro Breath point-blank, I countered by shifting The Jade Wings into massive, Conqueror-coated shields that shattered under the sheer pressure.

Kaido’s tail whipped around, completely caving in my chest.

I coughed up blood, using Soru to slip beneath his guard while the serum knit my crushed ribs back together in seconds, driving a pair of shapeshifted, Haki-infused jade gauntlets directly into his jaw in a devastating, rapid-fire Shigan barrage.

The island tore itself apart beneath our feet.

We threw each other through the floating ruins, Kaido’s kanabo and my shapeshifting arsenal clashing with such terrifying force that the sky permanently split above us.

He was a monster of unparalleled endurance, and I was a temporary god of limitless kinetic regeneration.

Suddenly, a massive, concentrated beam of green-white energy arced across the battlefield.

Albion!

The heavy artillery blast slammed directly into the side of Kaido’s face.

The sheer, overwhelming kinetic force of the shot lifted the massive Emperor entirely off his feet.

It violently flung him across the bisected island, sending Kaido crashing through a mountain of rubble on the far coast in an explosion of dust and debris.

I looked toward the harbor.

Standing atop a ruined watchtower was Gammamon, but he had digivolved.

He was now WezenGammamon, a massive, green, centaur-like triceratops heavily outfitted with high-caliber artillery cannons.

It was our pre-arranged signal.

The Verdant Abyss crew had wiped out the Beast pirates, and the civilian evacuation ships were safely out to sea.

Before I could capitalize on Kaido being sent flying, a massive shadow fell over the island.

Descending from the storm clouds was a terrifying, leather-winged Pteranodon wreathed in flames.

It shifted mid-air, transforming into a towering man clad in a black, spiked leather suit with massive black wings and a fire burning on his back.

King the Conflagration.

“Kaido-san!” King yelled, his voice echoing across the battlefield as he searched the rubble for his captain.

“We need to end this!

I intercepted Marine communications Admiral Aokiji is closing in fast!

He’ll be here any minute!

We cannot afford to fight a Warlord and an Admiral today!”

King folded his wings, dive-bombing toward me at blinding speeds, his sword drawn to intervene and buy Kaido time.

“Target locked!” WezenGammamon roared from the tower.

The heavy cannons on the Digimon’s back whirred to life.

WezenGammamon unleashed a relentless, deafening barrage of anti-air artillery fire.

The heavy kinetic rounds tore through the sky, completely filling the airspace.

King was forced to aggressively break off his dive to dodge.

A massive Haki-laced round clipped King’s wing, drawing blood and sending the Lunarian spinning off course.

WezenGammamon kept the heavy fire pouring on, completely pinning the commander down and blocking him from joining the fray.

I watched the sky, quickly running my options.

Aokiji was almost here.

My nineteen-minute timer was rapidly ticking down.

The civilians were safe, and Kaido’s pirate fleet was broken.

If I killed the Emperor right now, I would be entirely exhausted, leaving us vulnerable, and I would just be doing the Gorosei a massive favor by clearing their biggest obstacle.

“Time to leave the mess for the Marines,” I muttered.

From the far coast, the rubble erupted.

Kaido exploded into the sky, absolutely furious and covered in his own blood.

His kanabo dripped with terrifying amounts of Conqueror’s Haki as he charged me for one final, devastating clash.

I channeled my remaining multiplied power entirely into The Jade Wings.

The weapon split, expanding into two colossal, gigantic greatswords of pure, solid green kinetic energy.

I forced my aura outward, coating both massive blades entirely in the black-and-gold lightning of my boosted Conqueror’s Haki.

I met Kaido in the center of the sky.

Our weapons clashed.

The atmosphere violently ruptured.

With a final, explosive surge of Fa-Jin, I swung the dual greatswords in a perfectly crossed, horizontal-and-vertical motion.

The blades tore completely through his indestructible scales.

I left a massive, permanent, X-shaped scar burning deep across Kaido’s chest.

Using the explosive recoil of the strike, I didn’t stay to watch him fall.

I kicked the empty air, using Geppo to launch myself backward skyward, seamlessly chaining the moonwalk with rapid-fire taps of my Nega-Ring.

I teleported ten meters, stepped on the air, teleported again, blinking across the sky in jagged flashes of golden light until I landed next to WezenGammamon.

I grabbed the heavy Digimon by his armor, fired off one last massive Geppo leap, and triggered the ring a final time, blinking directly onto the Adam Wood deck of the hovering Titan’s Glory.

“Get us out of here!” I yelled to Law, dismissing the 5x multiplier just as the nineteen minutes expired, a wave of immense, bone-deep fatigue crashing over me.

The Sky-Rift Roc shrieked, beating its massive wings.

The battleship rocketed away from the bisected island at supersonic speeds, disappearing into the horizon before King could recover his bearings.

Down below, amidst the burning, ruined island, Kaido did not pursue.

He stood alone in the center of the crater.

He dropped his club, raising a massive hand to trace the bleeding, X-shaped scar permanently etched into his flesh.

Instead of rage, a wide, terrifying grin spread across the Emperor’s face.

He threw his head back, laughing rapturously, roaring my name to the heavens, utterly thrilled that a true predator had finally stepped into his waters.

A few moments later, the burning island suddenly grew deathly quiet.

The blazing fires began to aggressively extinguish.

A chilling, bone-deep frost crept up the shoreline, freezing the ocean waves solid as Admiral Aokiji stepped onto the ruined docks.

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Curtis Branscum, Vince, Eric