At that very moment, on the other side of the Red Line, a vast armada of black-sailed ships smashed through the waves, approaching the Holy Land of Mariejois.
At the head of the fleet, a colossal, horned figure stood on the prow, laughing with arrogant abandon.
"WORORORO! Marines! Are you ready to fight a true world war with me, Kaido?!"
The Governor of the Beasts Pirates roared, casually swinging his massive spiked mace, Hassaikai.
His very presence was a suffocating wave of intimidation.
"Your fate is sealed!" a voice screamed from above.
King, Kaido's lead commander, spread his massive pteranodon wings and shot into the sky, diving straight for the Marine defensive line.
"Enemy in the air! All Seraphim, fire at will!"
An overwhelming volley of lasers shot into the sky, converging on the lone figure.
But King didn't even flinch.
He flew straight through the barrage, the beams of light scattering harmlessly off his super-heated, Lunarian-enhanced body.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The explosions were violent, but King emerged from the smoke completely unscathed, moving at an impossible speed.
The faces of the Marine officers commanding the line turned white with horror.
"He's... he's immune to the lasers!"
Before they could react, King swooped down, his massive talons seizing a Marine captain.
"AHHH!"
The scream was cut short as the man was torn to pieces mid-air.
The sight shattered the Marines' morale.
"What do we do, Vice Admiral?! We can't stop him!"
"Even an Emperor's cadre is this strong?! We don't stand a chance!"
The Vice Admiral in command was speechless.
He knew, with a sickening certainty, that they couldn't possibly stop this assault.
They were outclassed.
But he had his orders.
"Hold the line!" he roared, his voice trembling. "Delay them until reinforcements arrive!"
It was a hopeless plea. Kaido's main ship had now reached the coast.
The Emperor laughed at the paltry defense.
"Wororo! If this is all you have, you're truly useless! This new world belongs to Rocks!"
With a proud roar, Kaido leaped from his ship, raising his mace high.
He didn't aim for the Marines. He aimed for the sea.
BOOM!
The mace struck the ocean, and the entire sea level exploded upwards in a monstrous tsunami.
The violent impact tore everything apart, and the Marine's defensive line of ships was instantly capsized and shattered.
The Vice Admiral, standing resolutely on the shore, was hit by a wall of water but held his ground.
Kaido took back his mace, and as the waves crashed around him, he leaped into the air and began to transform.
But something was wrong.
The vibrant, blue scales of his dragon form were gone.
In their place were dull, corpse-like, gray-white scales.
A strange, black, necrotic fluff seemed to grow from his back, and a suffocating, gloomy breath of death steamed from his new, jagged fangs.
This was not the Kaido they knew.
This was a monster reborn by the Necromancer's power.
"ROAR!"
He opened his bloody mouth and exhaled.
It was not fire.
It was a rolling, physical cloud of pure despair and death.
The dragon's breath rushed toward the Marine lines.
"QUICK, DEFEND!" the Vice Admiral screamed in terror. "ALL SERAPHIM, INTERCEPT WITH MAXIMUM LASER FIRE!"
Hundreds of Seraphim, the last line of defense, unleashed their attacks.
A blinding wall of laser beams shot forward, a torrent of light powerful enough to vaporize an island.
And then the two attacks met.
There was no explosion.
The moment the lasers touched the dragon's breath, their light simply... died.
The beams grew dark, their energy was unmade, and they turned to absolute nothingness, as if they had never existed.
The Vice Admiral stared, his mind unable to process what he had just seen.
The combined power of hundreds of Seraphim... an attack that should have pierced the skies... had been extinguished.
It had caused no damage. It had done nothing.
Their ultimate weapon was useless.
The Vice Admiral stared in mute horror.
Their ultimate weapon, the laser barrage, had been extinguished.
He finally understood.
The pirates hadn't just gotten stronger.
They had ascended to an entirely new level, one that operated on rules they didn't even understand.
Kaido's target, however, was not the terrified Vice Admiral.
His target was the Seraphim.
The colossal black dragon, now a creature of death and decay, went on a rampage.
Lasers and cannon fire peppered its new, gray-white scales, having no effect whatsoever.
The pirate crew, watching from their ships, roared with approval.
"As expected of Kaido-sama! He's like a war god!"
"The Marines are so weak! It's pathetic!"
"Hahaha! In half an hour, Mariejois will be our territory!"
In their view, the outcome was already decided.
The Marines were just trash to be slaughtered.
BOOM!
Kaido's powerful dragon tail sent several Seraphim flying.
A bolt of black, necrotic lightning fell from the sky, striking one of the machines.
It didn't just explode; it was instantly reduced to a pile of charred charcoal, its pilot dying without a scream.
Another Seraph flew in, its massive heat hawk swinging down.
CLANG!
The blade and the black lightning collided in a deafening explosion, the ground for tens of meters around them vaporizing.
Kaido just grinned.
"You want to stop me with this?" he sneered.
Another bolt of black lightning, moving at astonishing speed, struck the Seraph.
The machine was split in two, its pilot's face frozen in an expression of pure disbelief as his body was torn apart.
"Impossible!" a young Marine soldier murmured, his voice trembling.
"That's a new Seraphim model! How could it be destroyed so easily...?"
The new generation of Marines had never seen the footage of Big Mom's massacre.
They had been raised in the era of Seraphim invincibility.
Now, they were learning the truth: the Marines had fallen far, far behind.
Kaido, dragging his massive, undead body, ignored the small fry and charged directly toward the Marine Headquarters building.
"Stop him! Stop him at all costs!" a Marine officer shrieked in panic.
But it was useless.
The black lightning surrounding his body was a perfect defense, annihilating any laser that came near.
A wave of despair and terror, as cold and dark as Kaido's own aura, washed over the battlefield.
"It's over... We're going to lose."
"That monster... We can't stop it."
"The Marines is... finished."
Kaido's dragon breath, a foul mixture of despair and death, began to gather in his throat.
He looked at the Marine HQ, now just a short distance away, a triumphant, cruel smile on his face.
He knew that not even an Admiral could stop this new power.
BOOM!
Just as he was about to unleash the final, devastating blast, a loud noise erupted from behind him.
The black dragon turned around, annoyed.
There, in front of the Marine headquarters, stood a single figure.
He was old, covered in blood, and wearing a battered Vice Admiral's uniform, but he stood unyielding.
A flicker of surprise, then recognition, then pure, unadulterated hatred entered Kaido's eyes.
"GARP!" he roared, his voice filled with resentment. "You old-time remnant! You still dare to stand in my way?!"
The name echoed across the battlefield.
The younger Marines trembled.
Garp. The legend. The Hero of the Marines.
But they saw only an old, gray-haired man.
Could he really do anything? Wasn't he just a symbol, a relic of a bygone era?
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Please Read My new One Piece fic : You call this a Pirate ?