One Piece: The Legend of Beasts

With a loud bang coming from the rubble pile, rubble flew everywhere and a dark figure suddenly jumped out from the rubble, drew a sharp arc in the air, and fell heavily to the ground. Countless cracks spreading from under his feet were enough to show his rage at the moment.

"Hey... This is the second time..."

Kaido picked up the mace that fell on the ground, and stared at the back of the man he had seen countless times on Beehive Island with gritted teeth. The anger in his heart could no longer be suppressed, and he yelled at the man, "Who told you to interfere with my battle without authorization, Newgate?!"

A powerful aura surged out from him, stirring up gusts of wind that blew the surrounding debris everywhere. The entire earth was shaking constantly, and the cracks that spread became more and more dense, extending to a place where there was almost no end in sight.

Newgate's golden hair fluttered freely in the wind, but his body did not move at all. No expression could be seen on his angular features, making it impossible to guess his true thoughts.

After the shaking of the ground gradually subsided, Newgate slowly explained: "I just think that the burial place you want is at least not in this kind of place."

Kaido was immediately furious when he heard this, and his roar turned into a roar: "Are you looking down on me?!"

Before he could finish his sentence, he leaped up and shot towards Newgate at a speed as fast as a flash of lightning across the sky.

However, the opponent's speed was faster than his.

Before the iron rod with the power to split mountains and crush rocks touched Newgate's cloak, he suddenly saw a ball of white light flickering in front of his eyes. Before he could see what it was, he felt a huge force coming from the iron rod, which made his whole body fly backwards like a baseball hit by a bat, and crashed into the stone wall behind him along with the weapon in his hand.

"That's really cruel..."

Witnessing the entire process of Kaido being knocked away, Roger, who had not moved, could not help but sigh and asked Newgate, who had just put away his naginata, "Isn't that guy one of yours? Or did you two have any personal grudges in the past? If so, please tell me!"

"...When did you become such a gossip?"

Seeing his old rival's eyes glowing, Newgate sighed and shrugged speechlessly. He turned his gaze to the mountain that was shaking violently due to the sudden impact and said slowly, "Don't worry, that stubborn kid won't fall down because of this level of attack."

"damn it......"

With a palm as big as a palm fan placed on the stone wall, Kaido slowly crawled out of the human-shaped hole he had created. Except for several tears in his clothes, there were no obvious scars on his body. However, his eyes contained anger and humiliation that were difficult to conceal.

Newgate had turned around at some point and was looking at him walking towards him step by step, his face still calm.

"That was so painful just now, you bastard..."

Kaido wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, feeling the crackling sound from his bones, and couldn't help but laugh in anger. He pointed the mace at Newgate's head and shouted, "Haha! Just right! If you still insist on hindering me, let's continue the inconclusive battle six years ago..."

"Don't you understand yet?"

A sonorous and powerful voice directly overwhelmed Kaido's words, causing the young man to subconsciously pause, and the resentment on his face was gradually replaced by astonishment. Since he became a pirate, this was the first time he saw the man who never showed his emotions speak to him in such a stern tone.

Newgate stared coldly at Kaido who was standing on the ground like a wooden man. Even with Roger, an outsider, present, he did not give his subordinate any face at all: "Just now, I didn't even use my domineering power, but I was able to make you almost powerless to resist. With your current body and will, what else can you do?"

Because he was too eager to achieve success, he had consumed a lot of his domineering energy in the previous fierce attack on Roger. Now, whether it was strength or speed, he could not exert half of his usual level, and even standing firmly was extremely difficult.

Moreover, when one is blinded by anger, he naturally cannot successfully activate the Observation Haki to foresee the future.

If the stick had been thrown at Roger, whom he had just met, instead of Newgate, with whom he was on the same ship, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

For a soldier, the most terrifying thing in the world is not even realizing his own weakness.

Thinking of this, Kaido was horrified. He bit his lower lip tightly, and cold sweat dripped down his forehead.

Sensing the other party's wavering heart, Newgate's tone softened again, and he spoke word by word: "Think carefully about everything you have done so far. Did you challenge an enemy far stronger than you out of sheer blood and reckless courage, or did you become stronger and then wash away the previous shame... These are what you said when you encouraged that guy."

There was a buzzing sound in his head, and Kaido seemed to be shocked by Newgate's words. He stood there in a daze, with an extremely complicated expression on his face, which showed shame and high spirits.

It’s like a pedestrian who has been lost for a long time and vaguely sees the direction to move forward in the maze.

"Well, well, well! It's rare that this kid Newgate said something pleasing to the ear!"

"Who says he is my beloved Newgate? Could you please slow down a little, ahhhhhhh!"

"Don't speak so loudly out of the blue, idiot!!"

A hearty and familiar laugh came from the air, mixed with bursts of air-breaking sounds and the screams of two women, which attracted the attention of the three people on the field at the same time.

Looking up, I saw Lingling riding on Zeus and rushing towards me from a distance, drawing a beautiful arc in the air and swooping down towards this place.

Behind her were two tall women, who could be vaguely identified as Stusi and Guloliosa from their clothes. The strong wind made them sway up and down like paper figures, and they had to hold on to Zeus' body tightly to ensure that they would not be blown away.

"That woman is still so reckless...!"

Before Newgate could finish his complaints, Lingling, who was accelerating rapidly, whizzed past the three of them and only stopped after traveling a long distance on the ground.

"You little brat, if you want to fight, why don't you bring me along?"

With a heavy landing sound, Lingling jumped off the back of Zeus, who was out of breath from the long journey, and walked towards Kaido carelessly, saying, "Are you trying to take all the credit for yourself? You really don't take us seriously, do you?"

Although her tone sounded like she was scolding, her beautiful face was filled with her signature cheerful smile, making her look like a helpful big sister next door - if she didn't have a bloody sword on her shoulder.

Kaido was not at all surprised by her arrival. Thinking of the conversation in the cemetery that day, he suddenly felt a little sorry and a bitter smile appeared on the corner of his mouth: "I'm sorry, my recklessness has brought you trouble again."

"Oh?"

Newgate seemed to have seen the most bizarre thing in the world. His eyes widened involuntarily. "The little devil in my memory is not so polite."

“It hurts so much…”

Guluoliosa groaned as he climbed up from the ground. He looked down at the collapsed Herodi and saw that the snake was fine except for its eyes rolling around. He breathed a sigh of relief, wrapped it around his waist again, and punched the stone wall hard, saying bitterly, "Damn Lingling, I'll teach her a lesson after this war!"

"Second..." Stussy rubbed his sore back, seeming that he had not yet recovered from the dizziness, and agreed weakly.

"Well, well! According to traditional rules, kings fight against kings, and generals fight against generals. Since Roger is the captain of the ship, it is reasonable for us to send out pirates of equal status."

Linlin walked to Kaido and stopped, then turned her head towards the gap between two rocky mountains and smiled sinisterly, "You should have no objection, right, Rocks?"

"Hahahaha! How dare you make decisions for me without my permission? You're getting bolder and bolder!"

With a deafening sound, the two mountains exploded into pieces in an instant. Amid the rubble that fell like raindrops, a figure stood motionless on the ground. When several huge rocks were still some distance away from him, they seemed to hit an invisible barrier and turned into powder in an instant and disappeared.

Roger shifted his gaze to that man, his eyes becoming more serious than ever before, completely different from the way he looked at Kaido and Newgate before.

As an ordinary person, he was a little too tall. As a giant, he seemed a little short. After a fierce battle, his clothes were still spotless, his hair was standing up and fluttering in the wind, and his face was always wearing an unruly and evil smile. Just standing there could make people feel an inexplicable huge pressure, and even breathing became a little uncomfortable.

Of course, this pressure is only for relatively weak people. Roger's heart was not beating and he was not breathing. His body was as straight as a gun. He just watched quietly as his figure flashed in front of Kaido like a ghost, and watched a group of pirates armed with live ammunition swarm in from behind him.

Even though they had met each other hundreds of times, Kaido was still surprised when he suddenly met this person. He opened his mouth slightly and wanted to say something, but his throat seemed to be stuck and he couldn't say anything.

The man stared at him for a long while, then suddenly burst into laughter like a child, almost crying: "Haha! You look really lame like this! I thought you could at least last a few rounds, but in the end you couldn't even take one move!"

His laughter sounded particularly harsh, which made Kaido so angry that he was about to explode on the spot. But then he remembered that he had often threatened to defeat Roger personally along the way. Since he failed to do it, it was normal to be ridiculed. So he slowly put down the half-raised mace.

When the laughter gradually died down, the man's face regained its long-lost calmness, and he slowly said: "It's still too early for you to be on the top of the world. But fighting with a powerful domineering user in advance, no matter what the result is, at least you can gain a lot of practical experience, which will be of great benefit to your future improvement. The premise is that you have to do everything you can to survive."

Kaido stood there in a daze, as if he had not fully understood the meaning of the other party's words for a while.

The man didn't care whether he understood or not, he slowly turned around and gradually moved his gaze towards a man.

A man who had never been looked at directly since he arrived.

Almost at the same time, Roger's gaze met the man's eyes.

When their eyes met, sparks seemed to fly.

No one could see what the sparks looked like, but everyone could feel it clearly in their hearts, and their hearts began to beat inexplicably.

Roger's eyes were like the vast ocean, big enough to hold thousands of islands.

The man's eyes were like bottomless darkness, as if they could swallow up everything on the sea without leaving even a trace of residue.

The moment their eyes met, they walked towards each other step by step, without their gazes shifting.