Kaido’s body began to glow, a precursor to him unleashing Dragon Dance.
At this moment, the amplification was far from reaching his body’s limits. However, Whitebeard didn’t wait for Kaido to complete the preparation for his Dragon Dance. With a clap of his hands in mid-air, the surrounding air rushed towards Kaido as if compressed, interrupting his skill activation.
“Newgate, you..!”
“Gurararara! Brat, this is a battle. Though I don’t know what strange move you were about to pull off, you won’t get the chance to continue!”
He didn’t understand what the Dragon Dance was, but he could keenly feel that after Kaido had completed that peculiar movement, there was a noticeable enhancement in both speed and attack.
Initially, they were evenly matched in strength, with Kaido even lagging behind in destructive power. But everything changed after that bizarre move.
He wasn’t sure how many times Kaido could use it. Once or twice were fine, but if it went beyond that, there would be no need to continue the fight.
Unlike the earlier attack, Kaido had already dissipated most of his strength with that forward lunge just now, and now Whitebeard’s Seaquake, unleashed from both hands, was solely meant to disrupt Kaido’s execution of the Dragon Dance.
Due to this disruption, Kaido’s Dragon Dance failed to complete.
However, this was normal. Unless there was a significant power gap leading to complacency, no one would allow their opponent to complete a skill activation. In the battles aboard the Rocks’ ship over the years, he had witnessed too many moves that required charging.
Allowing the opponent to complete the charging was either due to carelessness or it isn’t necessary to interrupt or it couldn’t be interrupted.
In the New World, powerful individuals generally don’t rely much on techniques that require a long time to charge. It is a waste to use them against weak opponents, and they cannot be used against strong opponents. Only specific techniques like Spear of Elbaf designed to deal with enormous targets like the Giants are passed down.
“But that’s what makes it interesting, isn’t it? Sure enough, Newgate, only an opponent like you can make me excited!”
He wasn’t someone who couldn’t fight without his skills. Even though Whitebeard had disrupted his follow-up of Dragon Dance, his previous one had already been completed. At this moment, his body was filled with even more powerful strength.
“Madman…”
That was the only assessment Whitebeard could make of Kaido’s behavior. But it had been the same before. Even when Kaido was just an apprentice, he liked fighting.
Back then, he wasn’t nearly as strong as he was now, losing more battles than winning. Yet no matter how many times he lost, after his wounds healed, he would charge back into the battlefield as if it was the only place in his eyes.
From noon to midnight, their battle had exceeded twelve hours. During the three days and nights of fighting with Roger, Whitebeard would wait for him to rest before resuming the battle due to Roger’s health. But it was different now; both monsters were full of energy and showed no sign of stopping.
Perhaps for them at this moment, the warm-up is only just coming to an end.
Boom!
Crash…
The barrier in front of Kaido shattered like a mirror. Whitebeard’s attacks were all large-area AOE attacks, so using Substitute in front of him didn’t make much sense. Moreover, Substitute could only withstand damage and confuse the enemy.
If Kaido used Substitute, the stamina consumed to create it would be even greater than taking a punch from Whitebeard. Also, Whitebeard’s attacks would hit both his Substitute and his main body.
“Sure enough, this barrier can’t be used continuously.”
Kaido didn’t use Protect against normal attacks, which made Whitebeard suspicious. If this skill was truly so useful, then blocking all attacks would be the best choice.
Though Kaido was a battle maniac, Whitebeard knew he didn’t have a masochistic streak. In battle, he would try to avoid being hit by stronger attacks as much as possible. So, this skill must have some kind of limitation.
But besides Protect, Kaido also had the physical enhancement of his Azure Dragon devil fruit and incredibly strong Haki. While advanced Armament Haki could cause internal damage, it wasn’t guaranteed to hit the opponent’s body all the time.
After all, his Seaquake couldn’t be imbued with Armament Haki, and his other attacks didn’t have the same massive range as Seaquake, so Whitebeard took a long time to come to this conclusion.
Seizing the opportunity, he launched a series of fierce attacks at Kaido’s vital points, forcing Kaido to repeatedly use Protect.
In fact, when employed as a defensive skill, continuous use of Protect isn’t entirely unviable, but the more it was used in succession, the lower the success rate. Judging from the current results, Kaido’s luck today wasn’t particularly good.
“So what if it can’t? I’ve got plenty more tricks up my sleeve!”
In another clash, the scales on Kaido’s body suddenly stood up, and then those scales shot out like bullets, each one infused with powerful Armament Haki.
Scale Shot, using one’s own scales as weapons to harm enemies by shooting scales.
A dense rain of scales shot towards Whitebeard, leaving many bloodstains on his body. Soon after, waves of white light emanated from his entire body, and the powerful vibrations sent those scales flying.
However, the power of those scales didn’t disappear.
“Namur, watch out!”
Marco’s wings swept down to block them, and soon his body became riddled with holes. But under the flames of the Phoenix, the wounds on his body rapidly healed.
On the other side, King pushed his defense to the max, standing in front of everyone with his massive pterosaur wings acting as a shield.
Although these were stray bullets being deflected, they still caused pain when hitting the body. Even in such a situation, Morgans was still trying to take photos without caring about his life. Only after his feathers were trimmed into a vulture-like hairstyle, he obediently hid behind.
But Whitebeard’s attacks didn’t stop. The white light on his body kept spreading, and Kaido even felt the island under his feet shaking.
As the deflected scales disappeared, Rotom’s filming continued. Through its night vision goggles, one could see the surrounding islands gradually collapsing. Soon afterwards, Whitebeard unexpectedly let go of his grip on the sword, allowing Murakumogiri to be flung aside.
Although it was unclear what Whitebeard intended to do, an opportunity had presented itself before Kaido. Seizing this opening, he quickly swung the Hassaikai in his hand again.
“Thunder Bellow Bagua!”
In response, Whitebeard swung both fists simultaneously. Kaido instinctively used Protect, but the next moment, a sense of crisis arose in his heart. Whitebeard wasn’t a fool. Knowing that Kaido had a defense skill, he shouldn’t have used this type of attack.
Then, he suddenly felt a pain in his chest and abdomen. Whitebeard’s shockwaves had actually penetrated through the barrier and directly attacked his body.
The powerful impact caused Kaido’s body to stagger backward, leaving two deep ravines on the island made of rocks.
“Awakening! Sure enough, you’ve already mastered it…”
Chapter 530 Interrupting the skill activation and Awakening
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