Imu Has Arrived?

Ron tilted his head slightly to glance at Kaido standing on his shoulder, his gaze lingering on that blood-smeared face for two seconds before he joked, "You, Kaido, are carrying too much hostility. Youths like us should cultivate our moral character and use civilized language; going around shouting 'fuck' all day, what kind of behavior is that?"

Kaido's club-swinging motion paused slightly, and then he looked at Ron with a suspicious expression. "No... You bastard, you didn't get possessed by someone, did you?"

Ron didn't pick up that thread, his gaze falling on the streak of blood running all the way down Kaido's back.

Fresh blood was already dripping along the hem of his clothes, leaving a pool of gore on the surface of the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon's golden chakra cloak.

"Hey, Kaido," Ron's voice suddenly turned somewhat serious. "Are you leaking tomato sauce behind your back? Is everything alright?"

"Everything's fine," Kaido replied dismissively, even managing a grin. "Just a bit dizzy in the head."

"Take a deep breath, dizziness is normal," Ron retorted.

Wasn't that stating the obvious? How long had he been standing on his shoulder, and blood was already pooling all over the ground? Never mind dizziness, lying flat on the floor in a moment wouldn't even be surprising.

"I'll tell you good news, Ron," Kaido suddenly changed the subject, remembering something worth boasting about.

"Hm? You found a legendary Devil Fruit?" Ron guessed.

At the mere mention of this, a bellyful of fire ignited inside Kaido. His brow furrowed in complaint, "Not that. It was a complete trap. That bastard Sengoku made a super realistic one out of plastic. I was in too much a hurry and didn't look closely, so I took a huge bite. Then he asked me, 'Does it taste good?'"

"He's quite considerate of you, then." The corners of Ron's mouth curved slightly. "Actually, you should thank him. If he'd left a real one behind with some trash ability, you wouldn't even have a place to cry."

"By the sound of it, I have to thank him?" Kaido glared.

"Depends on what you like."

"No... I was supposed to tell you good news just now." Kaido cleared his throat heavily, attempting to drag the topic back. "With your power, I've successfully unlocked the Sixth Gate. Isn't my talent super strong?"

Pausing for a moment, Kaido seemed to remember something else, his expression turning abruptly severe. "Right, did you see that woman on Sengoku's palm? She's a bit freaky. I smashed her head completely flat, and she still regenerated."

Ron didn't make a big fuss. As a transmigrator, he understood God's Knights' abilities to a certain extent.

"That woman possesses an Immortal Body?"

"What?" Kaido was startled. "An Immortal Body? Then how the hell are we supposed to fight? Hurry up and carry me away."

"They say it's an Immortal Body, but Haki can suppress her Immortal Body," Ron explained.

"Bullshit," Kaido rebutted. "I used Haki just now, and she was still kicking around lively as ever."

"Sorry, I withdraw what I just said. To be precise, powerful Haki can suppress it."

"..."

Meanwhile, above the golden giant Buddha's palm, the blonde woman had already recovered.

She slowly raised her head, her gaze landing with displeasure upon Sengoku's Buddha face as she asked coldly, "What are you doing? Why haven't you attacked yet? Could it be that you're afraid of this fox?"

Sengoku lowered his gaze, slowly letting it rest on the blonde woman. "He is not Kaido. This guy... is strong."

"So," a mocking arc formed at the corner of the blonde woman's lips, "you're scared?"

Sengoku frowned slightly. He didn't answer immediately, remaining silent for a brief second before withdrawing his gaze, his tone flat. "I was merely reminding you. Whether you listen or not is your own affair."

With that, he squatted down slightly, gently placing the blonde woman from his palm onto the ground.

Then he straightened up, locking his gaze back onto the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon ahead.

"Ron," Sengoku's voice deepened, losing its previous composure, "I've waited a long time for you."

He offered no superfluous pleasantries; the moment he finished speaking, he pulled his palm straight back and thrust it violently forward.

"Boom!"

An invisible shockwave tore through the air, carrying a piercing whistle as it howled directly toward Ron.

"Get in, Kaido."

Considering Kaido had sustained quite a bit of injury, Ron decided to pull him inside.

As Ron's voice fell, Kaido's body seemed pulled by an invisible gravitational force, melting directly into the body of the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon.

By the time Kaido reacted, he was already standing by Ron's side.

"You can even do this?" Kaido immediately looked around, excitement in his tone. "Why didn't you let me in earlier? Can I control it? I'm inside now, so I should be able to control it, right?"

"Stop chattering, do you think this is a robot? You get in and you can control it right away?" Ron's voice echoed inside the fox demon. Following that, the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon leaped up fiercely, its massive physique stretching out in mid-air to easily evade Sengoku's shockwave.

Then, Ron's hands gripped fiercely into the void, and the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon mirrored the action.

"Screech!"

Two massive ice spikes immediately formed in the hands of the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, their sharp tips gleaming with a frigid chill in the sunlight, their surfaces wreathed in wisps of white vapor.

At the same time, dozens of chakra arms extended from behind the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, grouped in pairs with palms facing each other, beginning to condense Tailed Beast Bombs.

"Let's go, Kaido. I'll take you to shorten their lifespans." Ron's voice dropped.

The golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon gripped the two massive ice spikes tightly with its claws, diving toward the golden giant Buddha below.

Sengoku moved extremely fast, thrusting out palm after palm in succession. Shockwave after shockwave met the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon, but Ron's body was like a fish in water, twisting flexibly in the air to dodge every single attack while the tips of the ice spikes dragged trails of white through the sunlight.

Seeing that he couldn't stop the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon from approaching, a thought arose in Sengoku's mind: to put some distance between them.

Yet the exact instant that thought surfaced, his Observation Haki shrieked an alarm. Something was closing in from below.

His body instinctively made an evasive maneuver, the golden giant Buddha leaping violently to the side.

The next second, "Boom!" a deafening explosion rang out from the spot he had just occupied.

A massive hand made of ice burst through the ground, its five fingers splayed wide like a predatory maw, grabbing precisely the spot where the golden giant Buddha had been standing a second prior.

"What the?!" Kaido stood beside Ron, eyes blown wide. "Ron... this... this ice hand is your ability too?"

Ron didn't answer him, but that ice hand didn't dissipate for missing its target. It adjusted its direction in mid-air, its five fingers closing again, tracking Sengoku's movement trajectory like a living creature.

Above, the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon had already descended, pursued from behind by the ice hand. For a moment, the golden giant Buddha found himself trapped in a difficult predicament.

"Whoosh—"

"Damn it, no choice then." Sengoku furrowed his brow.

Instantly, the golden giant Buddha came to an abrupt halt, his palms thrusting out fiercely to grab the two ice spikes stabbed by the Nine-Tailed Fox Demon.

The moment the ice spikes contacted the Buddha's palms, the impact force traveled along the golden giant Buddha's arms into the ground. The earth violently quaked in an instant, collapsing with the golden giant Buddha at its center as cracks spread outward like a spiderweb.

"Crack—"

The ice hand pursuing from behind also clamped directly onto the golden giant Buddha's torso at that exact instant.

Right at this locked-down moment, the body of the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon abruptly erupted with rolling white frosty vapor, instantly encasing half of the golden giant Buddha's body in a thick layer of frost.

Following that, the ice sheet covered him at a speed visible to the naked eye, emitting crunching sounds of freezing.

The temperature around the ground plummeted sharply, the earth freezing over and spreading out to form a white domain of ice.

"Deliver another familiar taste." As soon as Ron finished speaking, the dozens of chakra arms behind the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon deployed simultaneously. All the condensed Tailed Beast Bombs were flung violently forward before the form immediately pulled back.

"What?" The frozen golden giant Buddha wanted to use his own Haki to shake off the cold, but before he even had time to execute it, his pupils reflected a volley of Tailed Beast Bombs smashing straight toward him.

The moment the Tailed Beast Bombs landed, the ground bulged upward first, then collapsed with a roar.

An expanding white core of light bloomed from the cracks in the earth like a sun rising from beneath the ground, and then the shockwave sped across the surface, crushing everything in its path.

The entire island began to shake violently, the distant sea surface affected as it whipped up giant waves.

"Rumble!!!"

The continuous explosions sounded like a string of muffled thunder rolling across the sky, lingering endlessly.

Over on Rocks' side.

When the earth shook violently, Rocks was stepping on Saint Garling's abdomen. He tilted his head slightly, his gaze first shifting toward the source of the tremor, then glancing sideways at Whitebeard beside him.

"Don't look at me," Whitebeard shrugged, his tone flat. "That's not my Tremor-Tremor Fruit ability. Over there, a fierce explosion happened."

"Gwahahaha." Rocks suddenly burst out laughing without saying much else.

He lowered his head, his gaze falling upon Saint Garling.

At this moment, Saint Garling's body was covered in shocking sword slashes, and even the side of his head had a massive gash blown open, wisps of lingering black smoke curling upward.

His breathing was weak and intermittent like a candle in the wind, liable to be extinguished at any moment.

"You bastard... are absolute trash."

Hearing this, Saint Garling's face, covered in blood and dust, managed with great difficulty to pull a slightly ferocious expression. He wanted to get angry, to roar, to once again scream the two words "Worms" in that lofty, condescending tone.

Yet when the sound welled up to his throat, he realized he didn't even have the strength left to curse.

Rocks' strength exceeded his imagination—not just the crushing might of his physical power, but more importantly, that guy's Conqueror's Haki acted like some kind of poison specifically targeted at their "Immortal Bodies," ruthlessly suppressing the recovery capabilities within them.

"How should we handle this?" Whitebeard stepped forward, his gaze sweeping across the two twitching corpses. "Even if Haki can suppress their Immortal Bodies, they can still revive. Do you know any kind of sealing ability?"

Rocks tilted his head, thinking seriously for two seconds before spreading his hands. "Where would I know that kind of stuff? How about we chop them into pieces and throw them in the sea."

"Screech~~~~"

Just as Rocks and Whitebeard were discussing how to deal with Saint Garling and the others, a piercing cracking sound suddenly traveled from the direction of the stone temple on the mountain.

Dark red arcs of electricity ignited like a fuse, bursting forth wildly from the summit of the mountain before spreading in all directions at terrifying speed, resembling a giant electric web unfurling to shroud the entire island in the blink of an eye.

"Conqueror's Haki?" Whitebeard spoke up first, his brow furrowed tightly as he cast his gaze toward the mountaintop.

"Such strong Conqueror's Haki." Rocks echoed, his expression turning serious with rare severity. "It started first from the mountain. There seems to be a very strong guy over there."

Whitebeard didn't speak, his gaze locked dead onto that area on the mountain shrouded by dark red electric arcs.

Over on Ron's side.

That powerful Conqueror's Haki blanketing the entire island naturally registered in Ron's perception as well.

Ron's brow twitched slightly, his gaze also glancing toward the summit of the mountain before he muttered under his breath, "Could 'she' have come over..."

Based on his understanding of God's Knights, they seemed to possess abilities similar to "vessels."

And that sovereign behind the World Government was capable of directly descending onto them through certain specific mediums.

"She? Who is she?" Kaido immediately asked with curiosity from the side.

"The mastermind behind the World Government," Ron stated truthfully.

"The mastermind behind the World Government? Who is that?" Kaido asked again.

Ron didn't answer. If he told him, Kaido wouldn't know her anyway; he was just acting like a curious baby, asking this and that.

He withdrew his gaze, casting a downward glance at the smoke-wreathed surroundings. Finding no trace of the golden giant Buddha, he dismissed the golden Nine-Tailed Fox Demon form.

The golden chakra cloak receded like a tide, and the two landed back on the dust-filled ground.

"Hm?" Ron drew the long blade hanging at his waist, resting it casually on his shoulder as he swept his gaze around. "Where's that blonde woman?"

"I... I don't know, I wasn't paying attention." Kaido also looked around, an expression of "I was just watching you fight" blankness on his face.

Right at that moment, the earth suddenly vibrated.

Ron and Kaido both paused slightly.

Following that, not far away, a beam of golden light pierced through layers of smoke like a golden spear thrust from beneath the earth, bursting brilliantly forth.

The massive golden giant Buddha rose from the ground once more.

"Ugh~~~" Ron raised his head slightly, watching that re-emerged golden giant Buddha as he let out an exclamation. "Well I'll be, he actually didn't die from that."

My stats got slashed in half again, dammit.

Begging for some free little gifts, thank you very much.