WHOOSH!
The howling storm from the distant horizon arrived with terrifying speed, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
"Sabo!"
Dragon's deep voice echoed from within the tempest as an invisible gale, like an unseen hand, caught Sabo mid-fall and gently lowered him to safety.
The fierce wind howled across the open ground of the ironworks, sweeping away loose earth and stones.
Dragon, clad in a blue robe, held Sabo in his arms, his stern face marked with intricate web-like tattoos.
His deep, penetrating eyes seemed to reflect the countless trials and tribulations of the world.
"Borororo! Such distinguished guests arriving in my territory without notifying the host—isn't that a bit impolite? Monkey D. Dragon, leader of the Revolutionary Army!"
Caesar folded his wings and landed, locking eyes with Dragon.
Dragon had already noticed Law, Ulti, and the others hundreds of meters away, as well as the unconscious Koala and Betty.
A long-dormant fury surged in Dragon's chest.
"Caesar! You've gone too far!"
Dragon's gaze sharpened, and from his seemingly unassuming frame erupted an earth-shaking wave of Conqueror's Haki, compressing the air and ground for miles with thunderous force.
The towering cylindrical stone walls of the ironworks split open with massive cracks, and boulders the size of millstones crashed down in a deafening cascade, kicking up waves of dust.
"Guh!"
Hundreds of meters away, Ulti, Page One, and Black Maria instantly felt as if a mountain had been dropped onto their heads, slamming them violently into the ground.
The earth beneath them cratered under the pressure, their faces drained of color as they coughed up blood.
Even Law, gripping his longsword, was forced back several steps by the terrifying force of the Conqueror's Haki.
"Impressive Haki! Bororo! Truly worthy of being Garp's son!"
Completely unaffected by Dragon's Conqueror's Haki, Caesar took a step forward, looming over the grim-faced Dragon with a grotesquely wide grin.
"What a fine leader you are! You took advantage of me being distracted during the meeting to pull off this sneaky business. Wano Country is my territory! Everything here belongs to me alone! Whether it's the people, the land, the Poneglyphs, or even... the ancient weapon Pluton, or even a single strand of hair—none of it has anything to do with you and your Revolutionary Army!"
Caesar took another step forward, standing face to face with Dragon.
"World's Worst Criminal? You think I care about that? I am Barbarossa Caesar!"
As these words fell, an abyssal, vast, and boundless aura erupted from Caesar's towering, mountain-like frame!
A crimson Conqueror's Haki swelled and spread, sweeping across dozens of miles, dyeing the heavens and earth in a deep shade of red.
Boom! Rumble! Rumble!
From the depths of the sky, thunderclaps suddenly roared, and the earth shook and trembled in response!
Dragon gritted his teeth, his own aura intensifying even further!
He lifted his right leg and stomped down with a thunderous crash!
Boom!!
Between the two of them, the earth groaned and emitted deafening explosive sounds.
A massive fissure, centered on the ground before them, rapidly spread outward in both directions.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The earth collapsed, and two clearly visible crimson energy spheres appeared in the air, pressing against and colliding with each other!
Countless black lightning bolts, triggered by their Conqueror's Haki, tore through layers of space, turning the area within several miles into a chaotic void.
In the distance, Ulti and the others were already being tossed and rolled by the overwhelming storm stirred up by the collision, stumbling and staggering as they were forced back over a thousand meters.
"Too... too strong!"
Page One's chest was stained with the blood he had just coughed up.
Staring at the ironworks collapsing thunderously a thousand meters away due to the clash of their auras, he was dumbstruck, trembling with terror.
Even the usually carefree Ulti was left speechless, her small crimson lips slightly parted, her eyes reflecting the two terrifying figures—one large, one small—as she remained silent for a long time.
Black Maria was even worse off.
Her face flushed deeply, she clutched her full chest, trembling uncontrollably, as if lost in some indescribable fantasy...
Boom!
Behind Caesar, the massive ironworks completely collapsed.
Countless giant stones crashed down, kicking up billowing dust, leaving the fate of the still-sleeping workers inside unknown.
As Caesar and Dragon withdrew their auras, the terrifying storm gradually subsided, leaving only the scarred and devastated earth as a testament to their inhuman power.
The distance between the two now exceeded a dozen meters.
Between them, a chasm three to four meters wide and bottomless had appeared, stretching out to an unknown distance on either side, as if it had split the very land of Wano Country in two.
Caesar narrowed his eyes, his expression turning serious.
Dragon's face was pale, his expression extremely grave.
"Caesar, I already tried to overestimate your strength. But I never expected I'd still underestimate you! The current you has surpassed even Roger and Whitebeard in their prime, reaching an unprecedented height!"
Caesar grinned widely.
"You're not so bad yourself, Monkey. Your bloodline must be one of the royal lineages passed down from the ancient Kingdom, right? And likely the most outstanding branch of descendants. The Celestial Dragons have been breeding your Monkey family for centuries—they must have collected quite a bit of your genetic material by now."
"You really know quite a bit, Barbarossa Caesar."
Dragon's eyes flickered as he locked gazes with Caesar.
"Ever since you awakened in Wano Country, I've had the Revolutionary Army's intelligence division gathering all kinds of information about you, about Kaido, and about the Oni Tribe."
As Dragon spoke, the corners of his mouth curled slightly upward, but he noticed Caesar's expression gradually darkening.
"Fifty-five years ago, the ancient Oni Tribe, which had been passed down for over a thousand years, seemed to suffer a disaster caused by one of their own prodigies. In that incident, the Oni Tribe's population plummeted by eighty percent! Some ancient elders who had been slumbering for hundreds of years, like living fossils of history, unfortunately perished in that turmoil!"
"Enough!" Caesar gritted his teeth, his burly body trembling uncontrollably, his fists clenched so tightly they creaked.
But Dragon didn't stop.
He continued, "The youth who nearly slaughtered his entire tribe was only ten years old and had awakened the legendary supreme talent of the Oni Tribe—the Oni Blood. And just before this great upheaval, this Oni prodigy seemed to have disappeared from the Oni Tribe... Where did he go?"
As Dragon spoke, his eyes blazed with light as he suddenly turned to Caesar, whose aura was fluctuating wildly, and shouted.
"Caesar! Why was Rocks so determined to recruit you, an unstable element? Did you really think he was that desperate for talent?"
"No! It was because..."
"You were once a slave of the Celestial Dragons too!!"