Balloon Terminal.
Kaido was standing on his ship at that moment, gazing at the deserted island.
He was exceptionally tall, roughly the same height as Charlotte Linlin, around eight or nine meters.
At the same time, he was incredibly muscular, with bulging muscles covering his body, dragon scale tattoos adorning his skin, and horns protruding from his head.
Overall, his aura was wild and violent. At first glance, he looked like a brute.
But in reality, although Kaido always liked to seek death, fight alone, and do reckless things, he wasn't actually a true brute. On the contrary, he was rough on the outside but meticulous within, and quite shrewd.
"Why is there no one here?" Kaido murmured softly, a hint of displeasure in his eyes.
"Boss, what exactly are you doing here?" A man who was equally tall but much thinner asked, standing behind Kaido.
All-Star King.
Or rather, he would become All-Star King. In fact, he hadn't earned the title of Wildfire yet.
The Beasts Pirates hadn't yet reached their peak state. Compared to Charlotte Linlin, Kaido's strength might not be lacking, but his influence was indeed much weaker.
He didn't have many powerful masters under his command. Only King and Queen were worth mentioning, and as for the future All-Star Jack, he was only in his teens and hadn't joined the Beasts Pirates yet.
Of course, Kaido had plenty of subordinates, but their quality wasn't very high.
It was only thanks to him, the big guy known as the "strongest creature," charging at the front, that the Beasts Pirates had any real power at all.
It was precisely because of this that Kaido realized the weakness of his subordinates, so he wasn't in a hurry to stir up trouble in the New World.
He'd been consolidating his strength over the past few years.
In order to compensate for the lack of combat power under his command, he'd set his sights and plans on the country of Wano, where there were many samurai.
At the same time, Wano Country also possessed excellent forging technology, which would help him break into the arms business in the underworld. He'd recently made a considerable amount of black market money.
He'd achieved his goal of taking over Wano Country. Kozuki Oden had been killed by him, and the orthodox Kozuki clan of Wano Country was basically extinct. Now the entire country was in his hands.
The Beasts Pirates had begun to develop.
However, Kaido's mood still wasn't very good, because the task of recruiting high-end combat power hadn't been achieved in Wano Country.
Although there were many samurai in Wano Country, they were quite resistant to him as a pirate. For the time being, no powerful warriors were willing to work for him, so he could only control Wano's samurai power by manipulating the Kurozumi family.
In addition, Kaido had discovered that Wano Country was somewhat "overrated." The samurai were very famous, but apart from Kozuki Oden, there weren't many who could truly fight.
And most of them were die-hard Kozuki Oden loyalists.
Forget about serving Kaido. The fact that they weren't actively seeking revenge or trying to cut off his dragon head was already a blessing.
Therefore, although the Beasts Pirates had grown considerably stronger, made substantial money from arms dealing, and established a base like Wano Country that was closed to the outside world and easy to defend but difficult to attack, Kaido was still in a foul mood.
Perhaps it was for this reason that Kaido would place such importance on talent in the future. People like Kidd and Luffy, after being defeated, he wouldn't be willing to kill. He'd lock them up to grind down their arrogance and see if he could recruit them for his own use.
Listening to King's question, Kaido sighed slightly. "I'm a little tired of always staying on Onigashima. I just wanted to get some fresh air. There's no other reason."
After that, Kaido waved his hand. "Alright, you guys go handle your business. There's no need to wait for me on the Sky Island. Let me be alone for a while."
Due to the lack of manpower and the fact that business with the Donquixote Family hadn't yet been fully established, the Beasts Pirates' arms business was still relatively "primitive."
Every time goods were shipped, King was the one personally responsible for escorting them.
But in order to keep a low profile and avoid attracting attention, Kaido relied on his ability to bring them to Sky Islands every time, then took the Sky Island route. After arriving at the destination, he'd use balloon octopuses to descend and transfer the goods.
It had to be said that Kaido was truly devoted to the Beasts Pirates and lived a very hard life.
This was why Kaido was here, and Sakazuki, who'd somehow uncovered some clues, had discovered this operation.
Seeing that his boss Kaido had spoken, King stopped asking questions and simply inquired, "Do you need us to leave a ship for you?"
Kaido waved his hand dismissively. "No need. It's been a long time since I jumped from such a high place..."
King was speechless.
However, he also knew that his boss could be insane sometimes, so he just nodded, turned around, and left without saying anything more.
Soon, the Beasts Pirates' fleet departed from the Sky Island, leaving only Kaido standing alone on the shore, gazing at the sun in the distance.
Kaido stood there motionless, seemingly in a daze. He waited for the sun to descend behind the clouds and the sky to darken slightly before he came to his senses and stretched.
Just then, a dark figure with a hint of flames suddenly flew over from the distant horizon.
Kaido was momentarily stunned, then asked, "Why are you back again?"
As the figure drew closer, Kaido realized that King, who had just left a few hours ago, was now in a disheveled state. He looked as if he'd been in a fight and suffered a loss.
As soon as King landed, he said urgently, "Boss, hurry! The Marines are coming!"
"Marines??" Kaido looked at King in bewilderment, then glanced at the vast White Sea in the distance. "You're saying the Marines came to a Sky Island to catch pirates?"
You had to understand that Sky Islands weren't under the World Government's jurisdiction. They'd always been independent of that system. The World Government was too lazy to pay attention to Sky Island people. As for the Marines, although they occasionally came up to take a look, it was impossible to say they came specifically to catch pirates.
It was for this very reason that Kaido had chosen to use the Sky Island route to smuggle arms!
Because it was safe!
"Where's my fleet? Where are the goods?" Kaido suddenly thought of his munitions and asked quickly, not waiting for King to answer.
"They all sank... Boss, it's the Marine Admiral, Violent Tiger Finn! He's on the Sky Island for some reason. Let's go!" King said urgently.
"They all sank?" Kaido's eyes flashed with fury. "An entire fleet's worth of goods? All my 300 billion Berries of munitions sank? That's enough to arm tens of thousands of people!"
Looking at the furious Kaido, King didn't dare say anything for a moment.
A few hours ago, he'd set out from here with a whole fleet of arms, ready to deliver goods to the North Blue. But after sailing for a while, he'd suddenly spotted a Marine warship.
That's right. Only one ship.
At that time, King hadn't taken it seriously. He'd been ready to sink it and be done with it. He'd even felt there was no need to provoke it, that it was fine to ignore the warship. The entire Beasts Pirates fleet was there, and they were ten thousand meters high. This warship shouldn't take the initiative to attack. Would they be looking for death?
As a result, the warship had rushed toward them immediately upon spotting them.
King still hadn't taken it seriously and had prepared to teach them a lesson.
But before he could make a move, enormous gravitational pressure had instantly enveloped the entire Beasts Pirates fleet.
It was at that moment that King realized something was terribly wrong.
Gravity manipulation had become one of the Marines' signature abilities.
The one who wielded this power was none other than Marine Admiral Rodriguez Finn, known as Violet Tiger of Marine and Evil-Slayer!
He'd heard that guy was extremely difficult to deal with. Even Charlotte Linlin, who was as famous as his boss, had suffered at his hands!
As expected, the fleet had no power to resist at all. Finn had sent them into freefall, dropping them from a height of ten thousand meters... There was basically no hope of saving anyone.
King could only fly and was quite strong, so he hadn't been killed instantly by Finn's area attack. After struggling to break free from gravity's constraints, he'd flown back as quickly as possible to report to Kaido.
Seeing that King was no longer speaking, Kaido's furious aura gradually subsided. He said in a low voice, "Marine Admiral? The guy who took something from Linlin, right? I didn't provoke the Marines, but they came to provoke me instead? Fine. I want to see what this so-called Marine Admiral is capable of!"
Just as Kaido said this, a warship quickly came into view on the surface of the White Sea.
To be honest, Kaido really wasn't afraid. So what if it was a Marine Admiral?
It wasn't like he hadn't fought Marine Admirals before. He'd fought with Sengoku and Zephyr many times. Wasn't he still alive and well?
This Finn, although he had a big reputation, hadn't truly been tested yet. This time was a good opportunity to measure that guy's worth.
Thinking of this, Kaido grabbed the spiked club standing beside him. "He's just a Marine Admiral. I'm going to crush him!"
In fact, King wasn't too worried either. He knew how powerful his boss was. What's more, compared with Finn, the new Marine Admiral, Kaido was a veteran master who'd been famous for years. There was no reason he couldn't win, right?
The title of strongest creature was no joke!
Besides, even if they couldn't win, couldn't they still run away?
Both he and Boss Kaido could fly!
Thinking of this, King didn't say anything more.
He stood beside Kaido, touching his sword's scabbard, ready to fight a fierce battle with the Admiral.
Kaido was also gripping his spiked club, staring at the approaching warship with a sharp gaze. He was genuinely excited. To be honest, it had been a long time since he'd had a good brawl.
He'd been looking for an opportunity to vent his frustrations recently, and then the Marines had run right into him. Wasn't this perfect timing?
However, just as Kaido was getting ready for a major fight, as the warship drew closer and closer, Kaido finally saw the figures on the deck clearly.
Then he froze, raised his hand to rub his eyes, and looked over carefully again.
What the hell!?
Kaido turned and looked at his subordinate King, suspicion in his eyes.
Are you an undercover agent sent by the Marines to infiltrate my crew?
Didn't you say there would only be one Admiral?
At that moment, King was also dumbfounded, cold sweat forming on his forehead.
Good heavens! On that deck were Marine Admiral Rodriguez Finn, Admiral Candidate Sakazuki, Marine Hero Monkey D. Garp, and even the Vice Admiral rumored to have eaten the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, Gion!
So many big shots on one warship? Why didn't they show themselves before?
"Boss, this... is it still too late to leave now?" King asked quickly.
Kaido's face twitched slightly.
It was too late!
But he couldn't say that directly. So for the sake of his pride, he had to pretend to be fearless. He waved his hand. "Leave? What for? Who do you think I am? Pull the boat to the dock..."
Halfway through his words, Kaido suddenly realized he didn't have a boat.
So he paused for a moment before continuing with a straight face, "Wait until they bring their boat over here for me!"
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