Chapter 224: Another Great Battle
After realizing what Vegapunk meant, Ian immediately picked up the nail-like forced cooling device with both hands, then solemnly placed it in Ace and Sabo's hands, saying with a serious expression: "Ace, Sabo, this great and glorious mission is entrusted to the two of you!"
There was no helping it—just thinking about having to shove something as thick as a log under Uranus's body made Ian shiver all over. It was way too dirty!
So for such a difficult task, Ian felt it was better to let someone else handle it.
However, Ace and Sabo weren't fools either. Although they were a beat slow to react, they still caught on, and their faces immediately turned green as they began to make excuses, firmly refusing to accept the mission.
After going back and forth for a while, Sabo suddenly said: "Why does it have to be us? Can't we just find someone else?"
Ian and Ace suddenly realized—that made sense! But who would they hand this task to in the end?
All three of them happily decided to let their comrades suffer rather than themselves, but as for which comrade would bear the burden, they couldn't think of a good candidate for the moment. So in the end, they agreed to set aside the dispute and develop it together!
Little did they know, Dragon and Ivankov nearby were watching the three of them with dark lines on their foreheads... Not to mention Ace, but you, Ian and Sabo—the second and third in command of the Revolutionary Army—discussing how to screw someone else over in front of so many people. Was that really okay?
After temporarily setting aside the matter of the cooling device, Ian shifted the topic to Kuma.
This was the issue he cared about most. Earlier in the research institute, the subtle movement Kuma had shown had been weighing on Ian's mind. He could sense that Kuma's action at that time was absolutely not something a person who had lost consciousness and been transformed into a mechanical weapon would do!
So he directly asked Vegapunk: "Dr. Vegapunk, has Kuma's consciousness truly completely disappeared?"
Not only him, but after hearing Ian's question, Dragon and Ivankov also turned back in surprise to glance at Kuma, who was holding a book in his arms, then turned back to stare intently at Vegapunk.
"Theoretically, yes!" Vegapunk nodded, but then, before Ian could show a disappointed expression, he continued: "However... the human brain is the most mysterious thing. Whether consciousness and the soul are equivalent—I can't even say that clearly! Kuma's modification was carried out by me personally. Logically speaking, his thought processes have stopped, which means consciousness has been lost. But his body is still alive, which means his soul still exists. So even I don't know if his consciousness has truly completely disappeared... In fact, while Kuma was with me, this strange action of his appeared from time to time. What you saw was not an isolated example..."
Ian's eyes lit up, and he quickly pressed further: "This should belong to subconscious activity, right? Then do you think there's a possibility of Kuma's consciousness recovering?"
"It's hard to say!" Vegapunk shook his head and said: "Maybe yes, maybe no. However, I think being around humans, compared to staying with those cold war machines, should have a better effect on him..."
"Great!" Ian clenched his fist and said: "Dr. Vegapunk, I hope you can let Kuma stay by my side from now on. If you need a bodyguard, I'll find someone else for you!"
Vegapunk smiled and waved his hand, saying: "I understand what you mean. Don't worry. Even if you didn't say it, I wouldn't have Kuma continue as my bodyguard. As the people most familiar with him, perhaps being with you can better help his consciousness recover. But I hope you'll let me have regular contact with him. It would be very helpful for my research on human consciousness."
"Of course, no problem!" Ian nodded in agreement, then turned to Dragon and said: "Dragon, although Kuma is an important officer of the Revolutionary Army, I hope you can let him follow me. Kuma is a very important person to me..."
Yes, in Ian's mind, Kuma's status was unparalleled. To put it in words, Kuma could be called Ian's 'guide'! On Ian's path of growth, Kuma had given him too much help.
Dragon also understood Kuma's importance to Ian, so he didn't say much and simply nodded in agreement.
Ian walked over to Kuma, spread his arms, and hugged Kuma's leg, closing his eyes as he murmured: "Don't worry, Kuma. I will definitely find a way to restore your consciousness..."
A faint beeping sound came from inside Kuma's body. He seemed to twitch slightly, as if trying to do something, but soon stopped moving. However, this abnormal behavior made everyone who was watching him closely realize that his subconscious might indeed still exist. This meant that Ian might actually be able to help him recover...
The Revolutionary Army's fleet sailed across the sea, speeding forward through the wind and waves. What Ian and the others didn't know was that while they were heading back, at the other end of the New World, another major event was taking place.
Uranus had attacked Wano Country!
This had actually been anticipated, but it came earlier than expected...
Eight hundred years ago, during that great war, Wano Country had been an enemy standing against the Celestial Dragons. In Uranus's memory, the samurai of Wano had given it a lot of trouble back then. Just like its retaliatory attack on Elbaf, the land of the giants, when Uranus was flying aimlessly through the skies of the New World and suddenly discovered that Wano still existed, it didn't hesitate to launch an attack!
For the people of Wano, this was an unprovoked disaster. A giant dragon suddenly appeared in the sky and, without any explanation, began spewing blazing flames toward them. Countless houses were burned down, and countless civilians were displaced.
Since Wano had suffered a dragon attack once before, people immediately associated it with the legend of the samurai Ryuma slaying a dragon. These ordinary people didn't know Uranus's true origin and thought it was a descendant of the dragon Ryuma had slain, coming for revenge.
So they once again longed for the samurai Ryuma, hoping that another dragon-slaying samurai would appear to kill this giant dragon for them.
Only Shogun Kurozumi Higurashi of Wano knew what this giant dragon really was. However, he didn't know that Uranus had already gone out of control. He thought it was a retaliatory action by the Celestial Dragons and the World Government against Wano.
While lamenting how disaster-prone Wano was, he quickly dispatched troops and allied with other feudal lords, trying to counterattack and drive Uranus away.
The leader of this force was naturally Wano's greatest samurai, the grand swordsman Mogura Yoshiyuki!
At first, Uranus didn't use its Devil Fruit power to attack Wano. It just flew in the sky with its massive body, continuously spewing flames at the ground. Under these circumstances, Mogura Yoshiyuki and a group of Wano samurai could occasionally hit Uranus with sword slashes and such. Although the damage to Uranus was minimal, if it continued, Uranus might have found it troublesome and flown away temporarily.
But no one expected that at this very moment, Kaido suddenly appeared!
To put it simply, for Kaido right now, Uranus was his number one target of hatred, even surpassing Ian or Whitebeard. After all, Ian had only captured his subordinate, Queen the Plague. But Uranus had caused the complete destruction of his entire crew. Back then, thanks to the loyal Jack the Drought sacrificing himself to save him, Kaido had survived the nuclear explosion. After wandering around, he had fled back to Wano, waiting here for Uranus to appear!
As a product of the Celestial Dragons' artificial Uranus project, Kaido actually had some understanding of Uranus. When Vegapunk was experimenting on him, he had mentioned Uranus to Kaido intentionally or unintentionally. So Kaido knew that if the Celestial Dragons deployed Uranus, the chances of it attacking Wano were very high...
He waited here, and sure enough, Uranus came!
When enemies meet, their eyes burn with hatred. Kaido didn't care about Wano's army at all. He immediately transformed into Yamata no Orochi and clashed head-on with Uranus!
What surprised Mogura Yoshiyuki and the others the most was that when Kaido appeared this time, his body was several times larger than before, almost comparable to Uranus. This was because Kaido had, unfortunately, caught Gecko Moria, who had come for revenge, and absorbed the power of Moria's shadows!
Moria was really unlucky. He thought that with Kaido injured, he might be able to get revenge for what happened back then. Instead, he became a textbook example of delivering himself to the enemy. Not only was he crushed by Kaido again, but the thousand shadows he had prepared for Ian to use against Kaido became the means for Kaido to fight Uranus.
With his power multiplied several times, Kaido was undoubtedly the most ferocious person in the world at that moment, bar none! With the boost from the shadow power, he had the potential to single-handedly kill Uranus. And that was exactly what happened. When Uranus came close to the ground to spew flames, Kaido suddenly struck, transformed into Yamata no Orochi, dragged Uranus down from the sky to the ground, and bit into Uranus with multiple heads, leaving it covered in blood!
But the problem was right there. When Uranus felt a strong threat to its life, it once again used its Devil Fruit power, releasing a nuclear explosion attack directly on the ground! This was its instinct as a living creature.
The Wano samurai army, which had been keeping their distance because of the battle between Kaido and Uranus, couldn't escape either. The moment the nuclear explosion occurred, the blast radius covered dozens of kilometers. The Wano samurai didn't even have time to groan before they were wiped out. Even Mogura Yoshiyuki, Wano's greatest swordsman, couldn't hold out for long!
Kaido was blown away in the first instant of the explosion. Although his powerful body prevented him from being killed, it allowed Uranus to take to the sky again.
Kaido actually had means of flight, but the problem was that Uranus was called the 'Uranus' for a reason—in the air, its advantage was absolute. Moreover, the shadow power that Moria had infused into his body had a time limit, and that time limit was shortened by the impact of the nuclear explosion he had suffered.
There was another, more important point: the powerful cell-regenerative ability in Kaido's body was completely suppressed by the intense radiation emanating from Uranus. The damage he took in battle was real and couldn't be recovered in a short time...
In their fight, the maddened Kaido, disregarding the cost, attacked Uranus relentlessly, inflicting heavy damage on it. But this also caused Uranus to continuously use nuclear explosions against him.
More than ten nuclear explosions erupted across the territory of Wano, one after another...
It was under these circumstances that Momonosuke and the others landed in Wano, essentially running headfirst into this great battle...