Chapter 584: The Barbarian
"Ka...Kaido!!??"
"What's going on!? Why is Kaido here!?"
"What... what does he want!?"
"Oh god! Whitebeard alone as an Emperor is already terrifying enough, and now another Kaido..."
The entire battlefield instantly erupted into a huge buzzing sound, the noise of tens of thousands of pirates and Marines murmuring in shock.
Let alone them, even Ian and Ace were filled with extreme astonishment at this moment.
Ian looked toward Fujitora, only to find him also frowning deeply.
"What's going on?" Ian asked Fujitora in a low voice. "Didn't you say Red-Haired Shanks went to stop the Beast Pirates? Why is Kaido here!?"
"I don't know what happened either!" Fujitora shook his head. "Could it be that Red-Hair lost to Kaido!? That's why he couldn't stop him?"
"No... no!" Ian thought for a moment and denied this possibility. "Shanks and Kaido are roughly equal in strength. How could he lose?"
"Regardless, this is a huge problem now..." Fujitora sighed.
Aokiji, Kizaru, and Akainu were also looking at each other in dismay. The Marines hadn't even dealt with the Whitebeard Pirates yet, and now another Beast Kaido had appeared. What was this war going to...
Meanwhile, people watching the live broadcast around the world were also like startled birds. They held their breath uneasily, staring at the screen. They had heard the Marine Captain's report, but they were still clinging to the hope that it might not be true.
For a moment, both pirates and Marines unconsciously stopped fighting and looked toward the distant sea.
That was the direction where the Marine Captain had reported Kaido appearing...
Because of this, no one noticed that in a corner of the battlefield, behind a huge reef, there were two figures.
"Fufufufufu! So he's finally here!"
Doflamingo, wearing his flamingo coat, had a trace of blood at the corner of his mouth. He clutched his chest, raised his head to glance in that direction, then crouched down and said to Gecko Moria, who was lying on the ground: "See? I told you I'd give them a huge surprise, didn't I?"
At this moment, Moria looked utterly miserable, covered in blood all over his body!
Although he had been coughing up blood after taking a powerful straight punch from Jinbe earlier, he hadn't been this badly off back then. His current state was actually caused by Doflamingo!
The reason was that after Doflamingo was knocked down from midair by Whitebeard's punch, he was also injured. So the two injured men temporarily regrouped.
After realizing that Whitebeard's condition far exceeded their expectations, they stopped putting in much effort and gradually retreated to a corner.
However, just when Ian and Ace were fighting Akainu, Doflamingo suddenly attacked Moria from behind, piercing his body with a whip strike!
At first, Moria didn't understand why Doflamingo had suddenly attacked him, but then he remembered the words Doflamingo had said to him earlier and realized that Doflamingo wanted to kill him. He immediately fought back.
But his strength was far inferior to Doflamingo's, and he was quickly beaten to the brink of death.
Hearing Doflamingo's laughter, he struggled to lift his head and asked: "You... you brought Kaido... brought Kaido here? Did he tell you to kill... kill me?"
"Wrong!" Doflamingo cackled. "The one who wants you dead is the World Government!"
"Wh... why!?" Moria asked in disbelief. "You're no longer... no longer a Warlord. Why are you taking orders from... the World Government!?"
"Because I want you dead too!" Doflamingo crouched down and slapped Moria's face hard. "If you want to blame someone, blame your strange Shadow-Shadow Fruit ability!"
"Shadow-Shadow Fruit!? Why... why do you say that!?" Moria grew more confused.
"Your ability is too dangerous!" Doflamingo said. "If you keep developing it and actually create a monster with an immortal body, that would be terrible..."
His voice grew quieter toward the end, so much so that Moria couldn't hear his final words clearly.
"Wh... what!?" Moria coughed up blood and pressed for an answer.
But Doflamingo ignored him, stood up, and looked toward the distant battlefield.
"Trafalgar Law... he really didn't die, and he even joined Ian's Dragon Hunter Pirates... The Surgery Fruit was eaten by Law. If that kid Ian finds out about the 'Eternal Surgery' ability, it could be troublesome..." Doflamingo thought to himself, stroking his chin. Under his sunglasses, his eyes were unreadable.
But as he thought, Doflamingo suddenly gritted his teeth. Threads shot from his fingers, instantly piercing Moria's body on the ground.
Moria made gurgling sounds from his throat, staring at Doflamingo with venomous eyes. After struggling for a while, he finally stopped moving.
Having killed Moria, a smile finally appeared on Doflamingo's lips.
"The Celestial Dragons' national treasure is mine. No one else will get their hands on it! All potential threats must be eliminated!"
"Kaido is here. I should leave too. Hmph, Red-Haired Shanks should have realized by now that the Kaido he was facing was a fake! The puppet clone made with the Shadow Ride Thread ability is really useful. It was worth spending so much time strengthening this technique..."
"Now, let that madman Kaido have his fun..."
With that thought, Doflamingo looked up at the sky, shot threads from his fingers to latch onto the clouds, and then, in a strange posture, floated away in another direction...
If Ian could have seen this scene, he would have understood that the real reason Kaido appeared here was actually because of him.
Because of Ian, Doflamingo had been stripped of his Warlord title early. Back on Dressrosa, using Sugar's Toy-Toy Fruit ability, he had turned many World Government officials, CP agents, and even Marine officers into toys. When Sugar's ability was undone, Doflamingo's crimes were fully exposed. This act of fooling the World Government and Marines led to another intense Marine pursuit.
Moreover, since his territory had fallen into Ian's hands, Doflamingo had no choice but to seek refuge with Kaido.
Thus, history deviated once again. When the Marines launched their war against the Whitebeard Pirates, the war-crazed Kaido, who always wanted to fight a grand battle, naturally wanted to join in.
Originally, Red-Haired Shanks had gone to stop the Beast Pirates to prevent the war from escalating. With his strength and reputation, he could indeed have held Kaido back.
But with Doflamingo now by Kaido's side, things became different.
Doflamingo used his String-String Fruit ability to create a fake Beast Kaido with the Shadow Ride Thread technique and left it on the Beast Pirates' ship. When Red-Hair appeared, the real Kaido showed himself briefly, then left the puppet clone on the ship to fool Red-Haired Shanks. Kaido himself took the opportunity to head to the battlefield alone.
Doflamingo's Shadow Ride Thread ability originally couldn't be controlled if the puppet was too far from the user. But after being defeated by Ian, Doflamingo spent some time specifically developing this ability. Now, the new Shadow Ride Thread puppet could be controlled from a great distance, though the drawback was that it couldn't speak.
However, not being able to speak wasn't a problem, because under Kaido's orders, the Beast Pirates didn't engage the Red Hair Pirates but merely faced off from a distance. As long as Red-Hair didn't personally attack Kaido, he wouldn't notice the difference.
Although Doflamingo had been stripped of his title and pursued by the Marines, he still knew the secrets of the Celestial Dragons. The World Government couldn't push him too hard. With the Warlords' combat strength depleted, they eventually approached him again, offering to stop pursuing him in exchange for his participation in the war, along with a secret mission: to kill Gecko Moria after the battle.
After receiving the World Government's invitation, Doflamingo discussed it with Kaido and devised this plan to deceive the heavens and cross the sea...
As for Kaido, that madman, despite having a crew, often acted alone. So it wasn't surprising that he would come to the battlefield by himself...
Because of Doflamingo's quiet departure, no one knew the reasons behind all this. But for now, everyone had no time to think about it. All eyes were fixed on the massive ship appearing on the sea.
Standing on the bow deck was a towering figure with wild, long hair and a pair of curved horns on his head. His bare upper body was covered in explosive, powerful muscles, and on his left arm was a bright red dragon-scale tattoo!
Like the strongest barbarian from mythology... Even before the ship had approached, his figure was already clearly visible. And the moment they saw him, an oppressive pressure that took their breath away swept over them!
Amid the terrified gazes of countless people, Kaido, standing at the bow, puffed out his chest, took a deep breath, and then suddenly opened his mouth and let out a furious roar!
"WHITEBEARD——————————!!!!!"
Boom! As his roar echoed, a massive shockwave swept through, sending countless splashes of water exploding across the sea!
When the sound reached the battlefield, many Marine soldiers and pirates covered their ears in pain and crouched down, unable to withstand the deafening noise...
A single roar heralded the arrival of the strongest creature in the world—Beast Kaido...