CHAPTER 86: CHAPTER 86: BLUE-EYES WHITE DRAGON’S FIRST BATTLE, AOKIJI’S TRUE STRENGTH

Flashing back to the evening two days ago, after Karl had eavesdropped on the conversation between Aokiji and Sengoku.

Nami and the others, who were in the process of dismantling Gran Tesoro and covering it with levitation power, suddenly received a call from Karl.

Upon learning from Karl that the Marines had dispatched another Admiral and elevated the Buster Call to its highest level, the faces of Kalina and the other women changed in shock.

Soon, however, Karl’s subsequent words, or rather his plan, slowly calmed them down.

"...I understand."

"Awooo..."

Whatever Karl had instructed, Nami and Little White both nodded in agreement.

Boom—

Immediately, Little White tilted his head to the sky, his mouth opening to gather a dazzling white light.

A beam of white light, relatively large for his young dragon form, shot into the heavens.

The beam grazed past a News Coo that was circling high in the sky, continuously monitoring Gran Tesoro.

The intense air current sent the News Coo tumbling, startling a shower of feathers from its body.

After regaining its composure, the News Coo frantically flapped its wings to leave this dangerous place.

An instinctual, bloodline warning made the News Coo feel as if, even from a thousand meters up, a pair of vertical pupils were staring at it without a shred of emotion.

As one of the most intelligent animals in the world, second only to the Mink Tribe, the News Coo knew that the beam it had just dodged—one that would have meant certain death upon contact—was not a lucky miss. The white dragon had intentionally aimed wide.

It was a warning!

Faced with a choice between its life and the information, the News Coo chose the former without hesitation.

To gather intelligence, one first had to be alive to bring it back.

"...A warning, you say?"

When the News Coo returned to the mobile headquarters of the World Economic Journal and relayed the Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s warning to Morgans, he was not angered but delighted. He exclaimed with excitement, "I hear the Marines are preparing to send a second Admiral to support Aokiji. It seems the Dragon Rider’s side is about to make a big move as well."

"Since they warned me, it means that what happens next cannot be revealed, or at least, cannot be exposed to the world by me."

"To avoid any trouble, have all the News Coos monitoring the waters near Gran Tesoro return at once."

"Unlike those Marines and pirates with limited flight capabilities, that dragon is not as simple as everyone thinks. It can fly, and if it wants to kill them, it would be an incredibly easy task."

Perhaps due to years of evading pursuit from various powers, Morgans’s sense for danger was extremely sharp.

His decision was the correct one.

If he hadn’t withdrawn all the News Coos in time, Morgans would not only have lost several of them but would have also offended Karl’s crew.

If they were to meet in the future, Karl would have absolutely killed this birdman.

Because if the subsequent actions of Nami and Little White were exposed to the world, the global attention focused on Karl would shift to Kalina and the others, putting them in an absolutely passive and dangerous situation.

After confirming with his Haki, which was on the same level as Karl’s, that all the News Coos had departed, Little White and Nami began to accelerate their dismantling of the city.

Previously, because of the News Coos, every time Nami and Little White dismantled a section, they would only apply the levitation power without actually making it float.

But now, with the monitors gone, Nami began to manipulate massive sections of the gilded ground, making them float up from the golden city like giant bricks.

After a hundred pieces of ground, each the size of a large three-masted galleon, were floating overhead, Nami manipulated them, merging them into a dozen giant meteors covered in a layer of gold.

With a slight upward gesture of her finger, the dozen golden meteors shot into the sky, hiding themselves among the high-altitude clouds, ready to fall with a single thought from their creator.

After recovering her stamina, Nami continued to create more of these golden meteors, constantly sending them into the sky to expand her ammunition depot.

While Nami was creating the meteors, Little White transformed into a streak of light and flew out of Gran Tesoro, heading towards the pirate ships that had not been scared off by the Buster Call and were still monitoring Gran Tesoro from a distance, moving along with the island turtle.

What followed was a scene that, for the pirates, was nothing short of an absolute tragedy unfolding upon the sea.

Until now, Little White had not fought in the New World.

In fact, since coming into this world, aside from helping Karl clean up some small fry, Little White had yet to face his first true battle.

So, just how strong was Little White with his current six-star level of power?

On this point, besides Karl, who understood Little White’s strength completely, it was likely that not even Kalina and the others, who knew about his "shared racial talent," knew the full extent of his power.

Although it was said that however strong Karl was, Little White could be just as strong.

But, Little White was ultimately a dragon, and some techniques that humans could use were impossible for him as a dragon.

To understand roughly how strong Little White was, one only needed to look at his abilities:

A six-star dragon’s body, a monster physique capable of infinite evolution (shared), mastery of all three types of Haki at their peak (shared), the strongest Logia-type Rumble-Rumble Fruit, Rokushiki (shared), Life Return (shared), the racial trait of light attribute power, the first trait of Body of Steel (shared), the second trait of Absolute Comprehension (shared)...

Any single one of these abilities, if possessed by an individual, could make them a "superhuman" capable of sweeping through the first half of the Grand Line.

Possessing two would make one a New World powerhouse, like a standard division commander in a Yonko’s crew.

Possessing three would undoubtedly make one a world-famous monster of the New World.

Possessing four would make one a Yonko Commander-level existence.

When all these abilities were concentrated in one being, that being stood at the pinnacle of the seas, a super-powerhouse who could clash with the Marines’ top combatants and the rulers of the New World without a victor being decided in a short time.

At this moment, Little White, with an appearance the size of a house cat, concealed this very power beneath his cute exterior.

What did it feel like to be targeted by a monster at the pinnacle of power?

Soon, those pirates who were either monitoring the situation or just there to watch the excitement would all experience this feeling of despair.

Swoosh—BOOM!

A blue-white meteor streaked across the sea’s surface, leaving a white line in its wake and kicking up waves on both sides.

As a true user of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, Little White, relying on his small yet monstrously powerful body, crashed into a pirate ship at a speed that no one could react to.

In an instant, the pirate ship exploded like a firework, blooming with a dazzling light.

Little White’s body shone with brilliant lightning. His dragon physique combined with the Body of Steel not only made him impervious to blades and bullets but also gave him extreme speed. When covered in lightning, he also possessed an immense and unparalleled heat.

Anything he touched would be instantly shattered into dust and even ignited on the spot by the electric heat.

Clearly, this pirate ship was a prime example.

Swoosh—RUMBLE!

After destroying one pirate ship, Little White’s small body, shimmering with blue-white light, flew out from the flames. Then, from several nautical miles away, he fired a beam of light completely disproportionate to his size at a large pirate ship.

This beam was different from the Bursting Gale Bullet; it was a Destruction Ray that fused light and lightning.

Both light and lightning are incredibly fast.

In just a few blinks of an eye, the Destruction Ray, aimed with Little White’s peerless perception, struck the large pirate ship before it had time to turn its rudder.

After shattering the large pirate ship with a single blow, Little White did not stop his assault. He continued to convert his stamina into the power of light and lightning, turning his head to sweep the Destruction Ray across the other pirate ships.

It seemed there were no truly strong individuals among the pirates monitoring Gran Tesoro.

Or rather, even those pirates who could be considered minor experts in the New World were no different from cannon fodder under Little White’s Destruction Ray.

With just a single, sustained Destruction Ray, Little White destroyed all the pirate ships.

After eliminating these fools who were monitoring and watching the show, Little White flew back to Gran Tesoro at top speed to continue helping Nami dismantle the golden city.

It wasn’t until the dawn of the day Karl fought Kizaru.

Little White, who was telepathically linked with Karl, finally transformed into his giant form, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. He flew out of Gran Tesoro, streaking across the night sky at extreme speed, preparing to intercept the Buster Call’s advance, just as Karl had.

The Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s speed was incredibly fast. Possessing two special physiques, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, and the innate ability to fly, his speed in the air was even faster than Karl’s, perhaps even rivaling Kizaru’s in a straight line.

In just over half a day, after flying an unknown number of nautical miles, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s peerless perception spotted the Marine Buster Call fleet.

"ROAR..."

Letting out a deafening roar, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon accelerated once more.

With lightning speed, he quickly appeared in front of the Buster Call fleet.

Unlike Karl, who only focused on destroying the warships’ masts, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon intended to destroy the warships themselves. He opened his mouth and gathered a Destruction Ray, a fusion of light and lightning.

The dazzling beam, carrying power far surpassing God’s Judgment, was fired as an ultra-long-range strike at the Buster Call warships from several nautical miles away.

"Ara ara... is his mount also this powerful?"

The appearance of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon had been detected by Aokiji’s Observation Haki.

Seeing that this creature was completely different from its master, unleashing an energy beam of astonishing destructive power from such a great distance, Aokiji stood up and walked to the bow of the ship. He looked at the Destruction Ray approaching at extreme speed, a beam that would surely unleash world-ending power upon impact, and said helplessly, "However, this dragon doesn’t seem to have its master’s rationality. It looks like this is going to be more troublesome."

After speaking, Aokiji unleashed a level of power completely different from what he had used against Karl.

"Ice Age!"

Half of Aokiji’s body turned to ice. Then, with his iced right hand, he gave a light wave in the direction of the incoming Destruction Ray.

In an instant, a severe cold swept over the entire world.

An unparalleled freezing power froze the moisture in the air and spread across the surface of the sea.

Dozens of kilometers of the sea ahead were instantly turned into a white ice field.

In addition, a giant ice pillar and a small iceberg appeared in the air and fell onto the ice field.

Inside the ice pillar was the beam formed from light and lightning, now frozen into the world’s most magnificent crystal.

The small iceberg was the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

From several nautical miles away, Aokiji had, in a single moment, frozen dozens of miles of the sea, as well as the moisture in the air.

If he wished, he could freeze moisture at any time to create a massive iceberg out of thin air.

...This was Aokiji’s true strength.

Why didn’t Karl destroy the warships?

Did he have to charge up his attacks to destroy them?

Couldn’t he use the Rumble-Rumble Fruit’s speed to create distance from Aokiji and then launch a sneak attack on the ships?

He could, but to destroy a large warship with his fruit ability, he would need to charge the attack.

For example, a normal God’s Judgment and a charged God’s Judgment were attacks of completely different levels.

If Karl had tried to destroy the warships, the result would have been the same as what happened to the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and its Destruction Ray: he would have been frozen by Aokiji.

This is because Logia users must become tangible when attacking a target.

The moment he became tangible to charge an attack to destroy a warship would be the moment Aokiji froze him.

Aokiji’s large-scale Ice Age could not only freeze the sea but could also be focused on a small area, allowing him to avoid his own men.

His control over this ability was exquisite.

With the speed to freeze dozens of miles in an instant, even Karl’s lightning speed was not fast enough to complete a charged attack before Aokiji made his move.

Although with Karl’s physique, he could quickly break free if his physical body were frozen and would not be seriously affected, Karl was too self-aware to allow himself to be hit by a control-type debuff from an opponent of the same level.

It was for this reason that Karl considered it highly irrational to try and destroy the warships with Aokiji present.

That was why, after his attempt to destroy a warship with a charged attack failed, he switched his focus to the main and secondary masts.

Clearly...

The Blue-Eyes White Dragon did not possess Karl’s rationality.

With relatively little combat experience, it targeted the warships from the very beginning.

Faced with such a Blue-Eyes White Dragon, Aokiji naturally would not hold back as he had against Karl.

CRACK!

To the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, being frozen by Aokiji was merely a tickle.

Without even needing to use the electric heat of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon infused its consciousness into its body and used Life Return to shatter the iceberg that had sealed it.

"ROAR..."

Although it was unharmed, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon felt its draconic pride had been offended.

After letting out a deafening roar, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon’s entire body glowed with brilliant blue-white lightning. Then, its massive draconic form transformed into a giant beam of lightning, shooting towards the warship, preparing to destroy Aokiji’s flagship in a single ramming attack.

"Lightning? Is this dragon a Devil Fruit user, or is it a simple racial talent?!"

"I heard that when Admiral Kizaru reported to the Fleet Admiral, he mentioned that this dragon was unaffected by the lightning pillar of a Rumble-Rumble Fruit user. Could it be a Thunder Dragon species?"

"..."

Watching the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, crackling with lightning, the five Vice Admirals’ faces changed drastically.

"Compared to its lightning power, its physique under that imposing aura is the most troublesome part."

As if his Observation Haki had sensed something, Aokiji’s face had, at some point, become completely serious.

Unlike the human Karl, this dragon’s objective was crystal clear.

Its master did not want to get entangled with him, so he only destroyed the masts, avoiding a direct fight whenever possible.

This dragon was different. It was single-mindedly focused on the warships.

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