# Chapter 675: The Dragon and Kaido
"Thirteen times!?"
Hearing this, most of the guests, including Ian, were stunned. Ian couldn't help but ask, "With Kaido's strength, he's attacked that many times and still couldn't destroy Wano Country!? Is Wano Country really that powerful?"
"Mamamama! Do you think Kaido was as strong as he is now from the very beginning?" Big Mom laughed loudly. "You've completely misunderstood!"
Her expression shifted slightly, and Big Mom said with some seriousness, "Although the world says that in a one-on-one fight, Kaido is the strongest, almost everyone knows that Kaido has also been captured many times after losing. This isn't just idle talk. That man Kaido has fought against all three other Emperors, including myself. He was defeated and captured by me once, and twice by Whitebeard. But without exception, none of us could kill him!"
"How can there be someone in this world who can't be killed?" Ferred interrupted at this point.
"Kaido is truly strange. Besides his immense vitality, he also has a peculiar ability!" Big Mom shook her head. "He seems able to adapt to any environmental change! I once had Perospero encase his entire body in candy, completely sealing him in to suffocate him to death. But in the end, he somehow managed to breathe inside the candy coating..."
Adapt to any environment!? When Ian heard this, his mind stirred. He felt this was just like Vegapunk's dragon on Punk Hazard. So this guy really did have that kind of ability too?
What Big Mom said was true. She currently had no way to kill Kaido either. For her Soul-Soul Fruit ability to extract someone's lifespan, a condition had to be met: the target must have even a trace of fear in their heart, causing their soul to loosen and become extractable by Big Mom. But that madman Kaido, even when captured by Big Mom, showed no fear or dread toward her at all. This rendered Big Mom's fruit ability completely ineffective against Kaido.
And Kaido's body, like Big Mom's, possessed steel-like strength. No matter how sharp or powerful, no blade, spear, sword, or halberd could harm him.
The reason Big Mom valued Ian so highly was precisely because of the ability he displayed during the New Edd War naval battle — the power to directly seize another's soul. In her view, if she could obtain Ian's method of utilizing soul power, then she would have a way to kill Kaido.
"So you're saying that Kaido wasn't that strong at first, but through constant challenges, he became increasingly powerful. Is that what you mean?" Ian asked her.
"Exactly!" Big Mom nodded. "This is the real reason he's obsessed with challenging others and attempting suicide. As long as something can't kill him, the power used against him becomes something he can adapt to. But at the same time, he can actually be injured. You saw that huge wound on his abdomen, didn't you?"
"Yes!" Ian nodded. "I was wondering at the time how that scar came to be. With his regenerative abilities, there's no reason he couldn't heal that scar, right?"
"That scar should date back to his earliest days when he first appeared in the New World!" Big Mom said. "At least, when he first came to fight me, I already saw that scar. And I suspect that scar was left on him in Wano Country!"
"So you're saying that Kaido's repeated attacks on Wano Country are for revenge?" Ian asked.
"It is revenge, but not revenge for being wounded!" Big Mom laughed sinisterly. "It's revenge for the killing of a friend!"
"Revenge for a friend?" Ian asked in confusion. "Kaido has friends? Someone from Wano Country killed his friend?"
"Not many people know about this matter!" Big Mom picked up a donut from the table and began eating it voraciously, speaking between bites. "And it was spread by the pirates who once followed him!"
After finishing a large donut in two or three bites, Big Mom licked her fingers and continued, "I don't know if you've heard, but there's a legend circulating in Wano Country about a dragon-slaying swordsman. A long time ago, an evil dragon attacked a city in Wano, but a samurai named Ryuma slew that dragon. Samurai Ryuma was revered as a hero by the people of Wano, and the skull of the dragon he killed was preserved and put on display in Wano Country for people to see!"
"What does this legend have to do with Kaido attacking Wano Country?" Ferred asked in confusion.
"Mamamama! Of course it's related!" Big Mom laughed loudly. "According to stories spread by the pirates who once followed him, when Kaido once broke into Wano Island, he found that dragon's skull, and then he hugged that dragon's skull and wept loudly!"
Everyone was stunned upon hearing this. "No way! Was Kaido's friend that dragon!?"
Only Ian felt a thunderous realization in his mind, as if everything suddenly became clear.
However, he still had one point he hadn't figured out, so he couldn't help asking, "The story of Samurai Ryuma slaying the evil dragon should be from many years ago, right? Fifty years? A hundred years? Even if Kaido was friends with a dragon, how could that span such a long era!?"
"Who knows?" Big Mom sneered. "Don't even mention you all — even I thought it was impossible when I heard it. The dragon-slaying legend is from a very long time ago. That guy Kaido's age is at most about the same as mine. How could he have had a friend from so long ago? But he stubbornly believes that the samurai of Wano Country killed his friend, so he persistently organizes pirate attacks on Wano Country."
"Although in the New World, the giant nation of Elbaf is widely recognized as the world's strongest country, Wano Country is not weak either!" Big Mom said. "Kaido has organized pirates to attack Wano Country many times, but each time he was defeated by Wano's samurai. Wano Country is a nation that reveres swordsmanship, with many swordsmen and grand swordsmen. Ordinary pirates are utterly useless before them. And setting aside these numerous pirates, how could Kaido alone destroy an entire country? So when Kaido realized this, he began purposefully building an army of Devil Fruit users... Actually, I suspect his initial goal was to break into Wano Country, dig up the dragon-slaying samurai's grave, and mutilate the corpse to vent his anger. But interestingly, just a few years ago, before Kaido could attack Wano Country, something happened there — Samurai Ryuma's grave was robbed, and both his corpse and burial items disappeared without a trace. With nowhere to vent his anger, Kaido shifted his target to the entire Wano Country, changing his previous strategy of direct assault and beginning to incite internal strife in Wano. He wants to overthrow the entire country..."
Ian never expected to hear such a story from Big Mom's mouth.
Big Mom didn't know the secrets behind it, but Ian, through his connection with the Revolutionary Army, had learned some information from Dragon. Combining the two, he immediately guessed the general picture.
Kaido was a monster created by Vegapunk after taking over the World Government's original artificial Uranus project. And considering that Vegapunk also used Lineage Factor technology to create dragons, it was highly likely that Kaido's body also contained the Lineage Factor of dragon-like creatures. Otherwise, there was no explanation for his ability to adapt to any environment.
Ian guessed that dragons were indeed one of the creatures that existed in this world long ago. Not to mention that the dragon-slaying legend of Wano Country was indeed true, but also the giant Sea Kings in this world, and even Big Mom's collection of rare creatures like griffins — all of this explained everything.
Oh, and there was also the Mink Tribe's homeland, Zou, with that giant elephant master...
It was just that very few of these rare creatures remained in the present day. Vegapunk must have cloned those dragons through Lineage Factor technology, and not just one.
Perhaps it was because of this that during Kaido's time at the Punk Hazard research facility, he really did become friends with Vegapunk's created dragons...
It was easy to imagine that as an experimental subject, no one treated Kaido as a normal person. In the researchers' eyes, Kaido was a monster, and only monsters could play together with monsters.
However, something might have happened later on Punk Hazard Island. The dragon that became Kaido's friend might have escaped from the island and flown away, never to return.
And when the first accident occurred on Punk Hazard, Kaido also took the opportunity to escape...
After escaping the laboratory, the first thing he thought of was probably to find his former friend — that dragon that had escaped from Punk Hazard!
And coincidentally, at that very time, he heard the legend of the dragon-slaying in Wano Country...
Although the timeline simply couldn't match up, Ian estimated that after searching fruitlessly for a long time, Kaido had probably lost his reason by then. Because for Kaido, that dragon was his true "companion," so this guy attacked Wano Country alone without distinguishing right from wrong, wanting to avenge his friend, without ever considering whether Wano Country was truly the enemy.
Of course, in the later period, as he attacked Wano Country again and again, he also discovered some secrets hidden in Wano — like the Road Poneglyph and such — and things became even more uncontrollable...