The thunderous booms echoed without end across the horizon.
Looking out into the distance, Rowan could clearly see that as time passed, both battles had fully entered the white-hot stage.
Shimotsuki Ryuma was fighting with the sole intention of avenging Wano. Every strike he made was decisive and merciless. Flying slashes poured out from him as though they cost nothing, raining down on Kaido in a dense barrage.
Kaido, naturally, refused to be outdone. A fight to the death? He had never feared anyone.
In terms of sheer nerve, Kaido was not the slightest bit inferior to Ryuma. But in the actual clash, he was clearly a notch behind, getting blasted away again and again by Ryuma's slashes.
King the Wildfire was in the same position. He was a genuine top-tier commander-level fighter, but against the world's greatest swordsman, Mihawk, he was still just slightly outclassed.
Because Mihawk really could stand shoulder to shoulder with an Admiral.
Their battle was just as fierce, but like Kaido, King kept getting sent flying by Mihawk's blade.
He hadn't lost yet, but defeat was only a matter of time.
The problem was that the Beast Pirates didn't consist of just Kaido and King.
Once Kaido and King failed to return, the other two Calamities, Jack the Drought and Queen the Plague, began to sense something was wrong.
No matter how many times they tried to contact Kaido and King, neither of them responded.
Both Jack and Queen started to panic. Had something really happened in Wano?
The two of them quickly agreed that they couldn't just sit around and wait. They had to go reinforce Kaido and King.
So they decisively brought along the Beast Pirates' remaining high-end combat strength.
Besides the two of them, the Flying Six, the Numbers, and the Headliners all mobilized.
When they finally arrived in Wano, they saw Kaido and King both getting beaten back.
The two of them could barely believe their eyes.
That was Kaido, the Emperor and Governor-General of the Beast Pirates, and King the Wildfire, the strongest of the three Calamities—and both of them were being suppressed by the enemy.
"Boss, I'm here to save you!"
Jack the Drought roared, his voice shaking the air. Without hesitation, he transformed into his beastman form and charged at Shimotsuki Ryuma.
"Nicely done."
Seeing this, King the Wildfire finally let out a breath of relief.
The enemy might be strong, but there was no way they could stand against the entire Beast Pirates by themselves.
At the very least, in King's eyes, he and Jack together—or he and Queen—would be enough to suppress Mihawk.
So as far as King was concerned, the moment the Beast Pirates' upper ranks arrived, the tide of battle had completely turned. Victory was just a matter of time.
Morgans noticed the same thing and muttered under his breath, "This is bad. Very bad."
In his view, Nico Robin and that mysterious boss of hers were probably about to lose.
After all, how could a mere handful of people possibly stand against a whole Emperor's crew?
Just as he was thinking about how to distance himself from them in time, the ground suddenly began to shake violently without warning.
It was like an earthquake, stunning everyone.
"What's going on? An earthquake?"
"No—that thing!"
"You've got to be kidding me! What the hell… what the hell is that?!"
As the earth shook, countless members of the Beast Pirates wore expressions of shock, terror, disbelief, and utter incomprehension.
A three-hundred-meter-tall thousand-armed Buddha rose straight out of the ground before their horrified eyes, forcing its way into everyone's field of view.
The giant Buddha's expression was calm and serene as it looked down upon the Beast Pirates as though they were nothing more than ants.
For a moment, even heaven and earth fell silent.
It was too big. Far too big. Big to the point of being absurd, impossible to believe.
Even Kaido, on seeing that three-hundred-meter Buddha, felt a chill rise from the bottom of his heart.
What the hell was that thing?
Standing atop the Buddha's head, Hashirama Senju brought his hands together and let out a calm call that spread across the battlefield.
"Everyone, I'm about to make my move. Do your best to hold on and don't die."
"Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands!"
The moment the words fell, the colossal Buddha moved. Giant fists rained down from the sky like a meteor storm, slamming into the Beast Pirates.
The thousand-armed Buddha's power was terrifying beyond description, strong enough to shatter mountains and overturn seas. The impact pulverized the ground itself.
The air screamed. The earth broke apart.
In a single instant, the entire battlefield was hit by a natural disaster on the scale of the apocalypse, something no human force could possibly withstand.
Any Beast Pirate below the Flying Six level was either blown away on contact or grievously injured by a mere graze. None of them had the ability to endure such overwhelming destruction.
Even the Flying Six themselves couldn't withstand more than a few blows.
Sasaki, the most headstrong among them, was a user of the Dragon-Dragon Fruit, Ancient Zoan, Model: Triceratops, and Ancient Zoans were famous for their monstrous toughness.
Faced with the descending fists, Sasaki didn't dodge. He roared and charged straight upward.
And then he got flattened.
The thousand-armed Buddha only needed four arms to smash through his defenses, cave in his skull, and leave him bleeding from all seven orifices as he collapsed to the ground, neither clearly alive nor clearly dead.
Who could withstand that?
The other members of the Flying Six took one look and started dodging frantically.
Who's-Who, user of the Cat-Cat Fruit, Ancient Zoan, Model: Saber-Toothed Tiger, was incredibly agile, but it made little difference. He was surrounded by several of the Buddha's arms, battered, and sent flying, ending up sprawled on the ground unable to get back up.
Ulti, Page One, Black Maria, and the others fared no better. Every one of them was struck and blasted away, badly injured and left gasping on the ground.
The only two who managed to hold out against the thousand-armed Buddha's relentless assault were Jack the Drought and Queen the Plague.
But even they only lasted a few minutes longer.
It wasn't that they didn't try to fight back. The problem was that the thousand-armed Buddha simply had too many arms.
An endless storm of blows came at them from every direction. Even Observation Haki was useless.
Against that kind of saturation attack, there was nowhere to dodge.
A few minutes later, Jack and Queen were both blasted away and collapsed motionless.
At that point, the entire Beast Pirates reinforcement force that had come to support Kaido and King had been wiped out.
Morgans was completely dumbstruck.
What kind of monster was this?
One man had just defeated an entire Emperor's crew.
It was absurd.
That several-hundred-meter Buddha was just too terrifying.
Looks like Nico Robin had really latched onto the biggest thigh imaginable this time.
Then again, where exactly had such a savage group of people come from? They were way too monstrous.
In truth, it wasn't just Morgans. Even Kaido and King were momentarily dazed when they saw the Beast Pirates completely annihilated. Their heads were ringing.
~~~
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