Chapter 228: Oden's Reputation Still Has Room to Fall
"Intruders? Now that is a rare sight. Sebastian, it seems I don't have the time to entertain you right now. Wait until I deal with this mess, and I'll come back and treat you to a drink. You and Wobbegong make yourselves at home."
Hearing the news of intruders, a vicious grin actually spread across Kaido's face.
Due to its treacherous geography, Wano Country was incredibly easy to defend and virtually impossible to invade. The number of pirates who managed to enter was staggeringly low.
Even when pirates occasionally appeared, it was usually because they had suffered a shipwreck and washed ashore by pure chance.
But according to his subordinate, this group had intentionally forced their way in. Now that was interesting.
Grabbing the massive kanabo hanging at his waist, Kaido barked an order to his men and led a force of several hundred troops charging toward the Ringo region...
By the time Sebastian returned to find Wobbegong, the latter had already finished studying his research materials. Currently, he was sitting down, chatting amiably with a little girl.
The child wasn't the least bit frightened by Wobbegong's Fish-Man appearance. On the contrary, she was listening to his stories with absolute, starry-eyed fascination.
"Whose kid is this?" Sebastian asked.
"Kaido's child, Yamato. Hard to believe, right? With a giant, brutish meathead like him, you'd never expect his kid to turn out looking like this."
Hearing Wobbegong's assessment, Sebastian took a closer look at the girl. Aside from the pair of horns on her head, he genuinely couldn't see any physical resemblance to Kaido whatsoever. However, he didn't find it all that strange.
After all, the physical differences between two generations of Fish-Men could be even more drastically bizarre.
"Fair point. But what exactly are you talking to her about?"
"Telling her stories about the Boss back in the day. Kids eat this stuff up."
"You guy..." Sebastian sighed.
Today, Nereus held a paramount, legendary status throughout the entire Ryugu Kingdom. The older generation had witnessed his rise firsthand, and the youth grew up listening to his legends. His former crewmates who sailed alongside him were naturally no exception.
As for Wobbegong, being an "intellectual," and a frequently dispatched intellectual at that, much of his knowledge regarding Nereus's exploits came from Morgans's newspapers and the oral recounts of other crewmates. By the time he relayed these stories, they were heavily layered with dramatic, artistic embellishment.
Yamato's utterly enthralled expression was enough to explain everything.
Meanwhile, in the Ringo region—the northern territory of Wano Country buried in perpetual snow—a pirate crew of several dozen people was currently trekking across the frozen wasteland.
"Captain Moria, is this the country you were talking about?"
"Yeah. When I was a kid, I accidentally washed ashore here. The people here are incredibly xenophobic, but back then, they still helped me."
This was a tale from Moria's youth. Drifting to Wano Country and not dying was an act of extreme fortune in itself.
Even among those who actively targeted Wano, many perished on the journey. The young Moria possessed no ability to resist the unforgiving sea; surviving the drift and washing ashore to meet a group of people willing to take him in was nothing short of a miracle.
The young Moria lived in Wano for a period of time. The locals, acknowledging his strength, even bestowed upon him the name "Kozuki" (Light-Moon).
However, in the outer seas, Moria flipped the characters and went by the name "Gekko" (Moonlight).
"From the intel we've gathered, it seems that Kaido of the Beasts has completely taken over Wano..."
"Is that so? Then we have to kick that bastard out. I absolutely cannot let him hurt the people of Wano. Listen, this is my personal business. You guys can just—"
"What the hell are you saying, Captain Moria?!" one of his men interrupted fiercely. "Aren't we comrades?! Your business is our business!"
"Yeah! Let's show these Beast Pirates the true terror of the Gecko Pirates! Lord Moria is a Supernova with a bounty of 320 million Berries!"
Following Roger's execution, Moria officially began his grand voyage. From entering the Grand Line to reaching the New World, the journey took Moria exactly one year.
Among this generation of rookies, Moria was a genuine, undisputed "Overlord."
His equals in infamy were figures like the "Desert Crocodile" Crocodile and the "Marine Hunter" Dracule Mihawk. Throughout their voyage, Moria and his crew had sailed smoothly, never encountering any true, devastating setbacks. As a result, they were currently overflowing with absolute confidence.
Even though Moria intended to resolve this issue himself, his comrades entirely refused to back down. However, right at that moment, a booming laugh echoed from the other side of a nearby snow-covered hill.
"Urororo! Kick me out? Now that is a gutsy declaration! Well, I'm right in front of you now... what exactly are you going to do about it?!"
"Kaido? Your timing is perfect..."
Confirming the enemy's identity, Moria didn't waste his breath with banter. He simply, silently gripped the hilt of the longsword at his waist. Right now, he possessed highly impressive swordsmanship and Haki—skills he had honed during his time drifting through Wano Country all those years ago.
After years of relentless tempering, his techniques had become exceedingly masterful.
Schwing!
"Moria Style: Shadow Slash!"
Snow exploded into the air. Moria, who had been standing quite a distance away just a second ago, instantly closed the gap, arriving right in front of Kaido. Gripping his blade with both hands, he unleashed a vicious, vertical cleave aimed straight at Kaido's face.
Simultaneously, the shadow behind him writhed and morphed, transforming into a pitch-black blade-shadow that merged seamlessly with his physical sword. Like a lethal whip, the shadow lashed forward in tandem with Moria's slash.
BOOM!
Facing Moria's ferocious assault, Kaido's response was brutally unadorned. Accompanied by the deafening roar of thunder, he simply swung his massive kanabo forward.
Blade clashed against spiked club, and a thunderous shockwave erupted. While it appeared to be an even clash, this was actually an incredibly dire sign for Moria. After all, Kaido was a Zoan Devil Fruit user, and he hadn't even initiated his beast transformation yet.
Zoan users lacked the bizarre, rule-bending abilities of Paramecia users, and they couldn't unleash terraforming natural disasters like Logia users. What an ordinary Zoan user gained was pure, unadulterated physical enhancement.
As an even rarer Mythical Zoan, not only was Kaido's physical enhancement infinitely more comprehensive, but it also came with a slew of fantastical, magical abilities.
If Moria couldn't completely overpower Kaido in his base human form, then the moment Kaido entered his Hybrid Form, Moria would inevitably be crushed.
While Moria's current strength ensured he wouldn't be instantly one-shotted by Kaido, he was still no match for him. If he were, the Gecko Pirates wouldn't have ended up completely annihilated in the original timeline.
Under these circumstances, Moria could only hope to defeat Kaido if he had powerful reinforcements.
And reinforcements did exist in Wano. Kozuki Oden possessed the strength necessary to deal lethal damage to Kaido.
It was just that, even to this day, Oden's reputation somehow still had room to plummet even further. While Moria was fighting a bloody deathmatch against Kaido for the sake of Wano Country, Kozuki Oden chose to blindly trust Kurozumi Orochi's lies, stubbornly insisting on dancing naked in the streets every single day.
People used to think Oden simply didn't know how to leverage his connections—that he was too stubbornly proud to ask Roger or Whitebeard for help.
But reality proved that even when highly capable reinforcements literally kicked the front door down and started fighting his oppressor, he would still completely miss the opportunity.
His comrades were slaughtered to the last man. Relying solely on the bizarre powers of his Shadow-Shadow Fruit, Moria narrowly managed to escape Kaido's grasp with his life.
But in the process, Moria's spirit was utterly, irreparably broken. Ultimately, all he did was steal the corpse of Shimotsuki Ryuma and the Meito Shusui before fleeing Wano Country, initiating his descent into becoming a bitter, obese recluse.
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