The World's Strongest Creature!

The moment the words left his mouth, Kaido vanished from the spot.

No, he didn't disappear.

He was just too fast.

He was so fast that even Observation Haki could only catch a blurry outline; he passed right through the air before it could even be pushed aside.

Akuta's pupils contracted sharply, and his body reacted faster than his mind, the shadow dragging him sideways to the right.

But the moment he moved, Kaido's spiked club appeared where he had been standing.

"Boom!"

The spiked club slammed into the ground, causing the roof of the entire ghost island to shake violently. The crack spread from the point of impact, like a black lightning bolt cleaving through the upper structure of the entire island.

Akuta was hit by the aftershock, and his body flew out like a kite with a broken string, tumbling several times in the air before barely managing to regain his balance.

A sharp pain shot through his left arm. Looking down, he saw that most of the shadow armor there had been shattered, revealing the torn skin beneath, with blood seeping from the cracks.

"What, you're injured already?"

Kaido emerged from the dust, carrying his spiked club. He swept his dragon tail behind him, clearing away all the rubble blocking his path.

"Weren't you trying to damage my scales?"

His tone carried an almost playful ease, but his vertical dragon eyes burned with genuine fighting spirit.

Akuta stood up, clutching his left arm, and looked at Kaido, who had transformed into his beast form, with a grin spreading across his face.

"Is this the real you, Kaido?"

He moved his left arm, and a shadow rose from beneath his feet, temporarily sealing the open wound.

"Much better than that timid old man from before."

Kaido wasn't angry.

He just chuckled, then raised the spiked club again.

"Thunderous Eight Trigrams."

This time, he revealed the name of the move.

But this time, the Thunderous Eight Trigrams was more than twice as fast as the previous one.

The spiked club, imbued with a dark red aura, hurtled towards the Akuta at a speed almost impossible to follow with the naked eye.

The speed even surpassed sound, leaving a black vacuum channel in its wake, tearing the air to shreds before it could close.

The Akuta's Observation Haki was screaming wildly.

Without a moment to think, he used Mirror Replication, instinctively channeling Conqueror's Haki into his right fist and raising it to meet the attack.

"Boom!!!"

The moment the two forces collided, Akuta felt as if he were punching a mountain that was crashing head-on into him.

He was propelled backward by the force, his feet carving two deep furrows in the ground, until he crashed into a surviving stone wall and came to a stop.

The stone wall collapsed behind him with a deafening roar, burying his body under the rubble.

"Cough!"

Akuta crawled out from the rubble, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of its mouth.

In that attack, Kaido didn't use any fancy techniques; it was purely a crushing display of speed and power.

In his human-beast form, Kaido's speed and strength are on a completely different level compared to his previous human form.

This is the real Kaido of the Beasts.

This is the man known as the "strongest creature in the world".

"What's wrong?"

Kaido's voice came from the other side of the smoke and dust, calm and composed.

"You can't even stand up?"

Didn't you say that there's no eternally strongest on this sea?

Kaido's footsteps drew closer, each step causing the ground to tremble.

Where is your ambition? Where is your domineering spirit? Where is your awareness?

Amidst the smoke and dust, Akuta's figure slowly straightened up.

He raised his hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth and glanced down at his right fist.

The shadow armor on his fist was mostly shattered, revealing the reddened skin underneath.

Even with the combined effects of the Binding Technique and the Devil Fruit power, his fist still suffered a tremendous recoil from that attack.

If he takes a few more hits like that, his fist might shatter first.

However, Kaido didn't give him much time to think, as his second attack came down again.

"Bang!"

Akuta crossed his arms, and his shadow solidified into a shield in front of him.

The spiked club slammed into the shield wall, instantly denting it.

Akuta was forced to kneel on one knee by the immense force, and the rock beneath his feet sank into a deep pit.

The second baton followed immediately, shattering the shield.

Akuta gritted his teeth, and a shadow surged out from behind him, transforming into several tentacles that wrapped around Kaido's arm.

Kaido flicked his wrist, and the "Ryuo" wrapped around it shattered those shadow tentacles.

"Too weak! Too weak!"

Kaido's voice came from above.

Akuta looked up and saw that the spiked club was already raised high, with black and red lightning on the club condensing into a dazzling pillar of light.

The power of this strike looks to be almost as strong as the Thunderous Eight Trigrams strike from before!

Akuta's pupils suddenly contracted. He had no time to think and his body instinctively rolled to the right.

The spiked club slammed into the spot where he had just been kneeling, pulverizing the entire rock and sending Akuta flying through the air.

He tumbled through the air more than a dozen times, his shadow stretching behind him in an attempt to slow him down, but the force was too terrifying, and his back slammed heavily into several stone walls.

"Cough!"

A mouthful of blood gushed from his throat. Akuta wiped it with his sleeve and stood up unsteadily.

His shadow armor was mostly shattered, revealing his battered body underneath. The injury to his left arm was worsening; every time he raised his arm, it aggravated the torn muscles, causing him to sweat profusely from the pain.

Kaido gave him no chance to catch his breath.

The third, fourth, and fifth batons landed in succession.

Using his shadow to pull himself apart, Akuta kept dodging, but Kaido's attacks became faster and heavier, each strike precisely blocking his escape route and forcing him to take the hits head-on.

Akuta blocked twice with Shadow Shield and once with Conqueror's Haki, but each collision depleted a portion of his Conqueror's Haki, and each hit brought him one step closer to his limit.

Your shadow is getting thinner.

Kaido suddenly spoke.

He leaned his spiked club on the ground, looking at the shadows around the Akuta that were once as thick as ink, but now were noticeably thinner.

Akuta glanced down.

Indeed, his shadow was much thinner than when the battle had begun, and its edges were even starting to blur.

He tried to summon more shadows from the ground, but those shadows dissipated as soon as they appeared in the aftershocks of Kaido's Haki.

"The power of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit ultimately relies on physical strength."

Kaido slowly walked towards him, each step treading on the heartbeat of the Akuta.

"Your stamina is waning, your domineering aura is waning, your shadow will naturally thin, and my attack..."

He raised his spiked club, the black and red lightning on its shaft burning even more intensely than before.

It's far from over.

Akuta's breathing grew heavier and heavier.

He could feel that his Conqueror's Haki was almost completely depleted.

The explosive power of that punch had consumed too much energy, and the subsequent hard-hitting attacks had continuously eroded what remained.

And what about Kaido? From the start of the battle until now, the intensity of this monster's Conqueror's Haki has not weakened at all; on the contrary, it has continued to rise.

Is this the true power behind the world's strongest creature?