One Piece: Dungeon Shop. Scamming Garp, Reward: Eight-Tails Jinchuriki-Chapter 326: Fatherly Love as Heavy as a Mountain, Kaido Saves Someone to Build a Bond

Chapter 326: Chapter 326: Fatherly Love as Heavy as a Mountain, Kaido Saves Someone to Build a Bond

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Chapter 326: Fatherly Love as Heavy as a Mountain, Kaido Saves Someone to Build a Bond

The air inside the Vermilion Gym was thick with the suffocating, metallic tang of ionized ozone and the sickening scent of charred flesh. The once-invincible pitch-black demon dragon, a creature that had commanded terror across the Viridian Forest, now lay slumped on the cracked arena floor as if its very spine had been ripped out. The obsidian scales that had once deflected the strikes of a hundred Pokémon were now brittle and shattered, falling away in large, blackened flakes to reveal the raw, smoking muscle beneath.

4x Weakness to Electric.

This was an absolute, inescapable truth etched into the fundamental laws of this new world. Even the "Strongest Creature" of the Grand Line, with a physical vessel forged in the fires of a thousand battles, could not fully exempt itself from the crushing judgment of elemental mechanics. Every nerve in Kaido’s body was screaming, his consciousness flickering like a dying candle under the weight of the paralysis.

"Hahaha!"

Lt. Surge threw his head back, letting out a piercing, jagged laugh that echoed through the hollow gym. His rugged, military-hardened face was a mask of pure, unadulterated contempt as he looked down at the fallen titan.

"See that, Baby? This is the absolute power of [Type Advantage]! In this world, all the brute force in the universe is useless if you’re a primitive idiot. Those who don’t understand the rules only deserve to rot on the floor like a common dead fish!"

Surge stomped forward, his heavy military boots crunching on the debris of the arena. He reached Kaido’s massive head and delivered a sharp, mocking kick to one of the dragon’s broken, blackened horns.

"Quiet now, aren’t we? Where’s that world-ending roar gone, huh? You’re nothing but a glorified battery for my Raichu!"

Kaido struggled to crack open a single scarlet eye. The world was a blur of golden sparks and pain, but deep within his pupil, a furnace of rage was beginning to roar. It was a fury that threatened to incinerate whatever shred of reason he had left.

Humiliation. It was a cold, soul-searing poison that Kaido hadn’t tasted in decades. Since his rise to the rank of Yonko, who—aside from the few monsters who stood on his own level—had ever dared to treat him like this? To step on his head? To mock him like a beaten dog?

I will kill him, Kaido snarled in the silent void of his mind. I will tear this blonde bstrd into microscopic pieces and swallow his arrogant soul whole!

But his body refused to answer. The current from the Raichu hadn’t just fried his skin; it was like a million microscopic chains of lightning had been threaded through his every cell, locking his muscles in a permanent, agonizing state of rigor mortis.

"Still got that fire in your eyes, do you?"

Lt. Surge noticed the murderous glare and gave a cold, dismissive sneer. He stepped back and signaled to his partner, who was already crackling with renewed energy.

"It seems you need a lesson that even a beast like you won’t forget. Raichu! Finish this joke! Let’s give this 4x Electric-weak mud-fish the burial it deserves! Use [Thunder]!"

"Rai—chu!!!"

A cruel, predatory glint appeared on Raichu’s chubby face. It slammed its paws into the ground, and its body erupted in a blinding, golden supernova of radiance. The intensity was several orders of magnitude more terrifying than the previous [Thunderbolt]. High above, the very air seemed to tear asunder as a localized storm front materialized instantly beneath the gym’s ceiling. A bolt of lightning as thick as an ancient oak began to coalesce, humming with a frequency that made the floorboards vibrate.

If that strike hit, the body Kaido inhabited—already fragile and suppressed by the system’s rules—would likely be disintegrated into ash.

Suddenly, a small, blurred figure came stumbling through the smoke and debris.

"Don’t... don’t you dare hurt Mr. Dragon!"

It was Lilly.

The timid, fragile girl who usually spent every waking moment trembling in the dragon’s shadow somehow found a reservoir of courage she didn’t know she possessed. She threw herself forward, her thin arms spreading wide as she planted herself firmly between Kaido’s massive, helpless head and the descending doom. Her small legs were shaking so violently she could barely stand, and tears were streaming down her face, but her jaw was set in a line of desperate defiance. She didn’t retreat an inch.

"Oh? A touching display of master-servant devotion?"

Lt. Surge raised an eyebrow, the mockery in his tone reaching a fever pitch. He didn’t stop the attack; if anything, his grin widened.

"Since you’re so eager to be buried with your pet, I’ll be happy to grant your wish! Both human and fish can turn into charcoal together! Fire away, Baby!"

[BOOM—!!!]

The sky-cleaving bolt was a heartbeat away from falling. Lying in the dust, Kaido stared up at the tiny, trembling back of the girl who was trying to shield him. For a fleeting, surreal moment, his mind drifted back to a different lifetime.

This scene... it was hauntingly familiar. Many years ago, another brat—Yamato—had stood just like this, shouting about protecting things that were already doomed, standing in front of him with that same misplaced, irritating conviction. Back then, he had simply laughed and sent her spiraling into a wall with a single, casual swing of his club.

Foolish brat...

Kaido began to curse her internally, but then, a cold, mechanical voice boomed in his mind with the force of a divine decree.

[Warning! Fatal crisis detected for the Host!]

[Extreme emotional volatility detected from the Trainer. [Bond System] activated!]

[Current only solution: Mega Evolution (Super Evolution)!]

[Mega Evolution Conditions: Must hold a [Key Stone] and a [Gyaradosite], and achieve ’Max Bond’ with the Trainer!]

[Post-Evolution Effect: Type changes to [Water/Dark], Flying-type weakness eliminated, and both Defense and Attack will surge significantly!]

Mega Evolution? Eliminating the Electric weakness?!

The light in Kaido’s dimming eyes suddenly flared with a terrifying, predatory intensity. Was this the "power outside the rules" that the blonde fool had been bragging about? The ability to rewrite one’s very nature through the strength of a bond?

Max bond, is it...

Kaido glanced at the sobbing, terrified Lilly, and his mouth pulled back into a savage, hideous grin that was hidden by the shadows. He had never been a good man, and he had been a legendary failure as a father.

But for power? For the chance to stand back up and crush the life out of his enemies? He would play whatever part the world demanded. What was the harm in acting like a "loving father" for a few seconds if it meant the difference between ash and godhood? If he needed to max out this damn bond, he would play the father, the savior, or the ancestor himself!

"ROAARR—!!!"

A roar that shook the very foundation of the building erupted from Kaido’s throat. In that final, desperate instant before the lightning struck, his massive body—which had been locked in paralysis—suddenly snapped into a blur of motion through sheer, indomitable force of will.

He didn’t move to strike Surge. He didn’t move to escape. Instead, the ten-meter-long black dragon coiled and contracted in an instant, its obsidian scales forming a solid, impenetrable wall of armor around the girl. He pulled her into the center of his massive frame, shielding her with his thickest muscles and using his softest underbelly to wrap her securely in a draconic cocoon.

It was a position of absolute, selfless defense.

[BOOM—!!!!]

The terrifying [Thunder] struck with the weight of a falling star, meant to annihilate every atom in its path. It slammed directly into Kaido’s already charred and broken back. The sound of his flesh tearing and the remaining scales exploding was enough to make one’s skin crawl. Thick, acrid clouds of black smoke billowed outward, obscuring the entire arena.

Watching the broadcast back in Foosha Village, a collective gasp went up from the patrons of Partys Bar. That hit was beyond brutal.

"Is that guy Kaido... actually insane?"

Sengoku’s eyes were nearly popping out of his head as he gripped the bar counter. The murderous King of the Beasts, a man who viewed strength as the only currency of the world, was actually using his own body as a living shield for a child? Had the laws of physics simply ceased to exist?

As the heavy smoke slowly began to clear, the triumphant smile on Lt. Surge’s face faltered. Raichu stood in the center of the field, its tail twitching as it scratched its head in confusion.

Beneath the massive, charred heap of smoking flesh, Kaido coughed—a wet, rattling sound. His breath was coming in shallow, ragged gasps, but he still forced his massive head to rise from the dust. With an expression he intended to be gentle—though his fangs and bloodied scales made him look more like a demon than a savior—he looked down at the unharmed Lilly in his embrace.

"Hey... you brat," he rumbled, his voice a low, painful rasp. "I’m... cough... I’m fine. As long as you’re safe... that’s all that matters to me."

As the lie left his mouth, he awkwardly extended a massive, trembling draconic claw and lightly patted her head with the tenderness of a falling mountain.

Lilly was frozen. She stared at the giant being who had been burned and broken nearly to death just to keep her from being touched by a single spark. She looked into his burning scarlet eyes and saw what she could only interpret as true, sacrificial concern. In that heartbeat, the young girl’s heart was struck by a force far more powerful than Surge’s lightning.

So this is what it feels like to be protected? she thought, her vision blurring. Had this fierce, terrifying dragon been looking at me as a daughter all this time?

"Mr. Dragon... waaahhh!!!"

Lilly finally shattered, throwing herself against his blistering scales and wailing with a grief that tore at the air. Her tears flowed like a dam had burst, soaking into the dragon’s wounds.

And within the interface of Kaido’s vision, the progress bar for the bond value began to skyrocket at an impossible velocity!

[Bond Value +10!] [Bond Value +20!] [Bond Value +50!] [Congratulations! Bond Value has broken through the critical threshold!] [Sensing a powerful ’Will to Protect’ and ’Absolute Trust’. Mega Evolution pathway... OPEN!]

It worked!

Kaido felt a surge of ecstatic, predatory triumph. A jagged, dark smirk spread across his soot-covered face, hidden from the sobbing girl.

Cry for me, brat! Be moved by my sacrifice! This is the power of ’Fatherly Love’... as immovable as a mountain!

In the next heartbeat, a rainbow-colored light of such blinding intensity that it was impossible to look at erupted from within Kaido’s broken frame. The pillar of radiance instantly shattered the remaining roof of the gym, piercing the very heavens. His fading life force didn’t just recover; it exploded, surging past every limit the world had tried to impose on him.

Lt. Surge’s sunglasses fell to the floor with a clatter. He stared into the center of the light, at the massive shadow that was beginning to warp and expand into a new, even more terrifying shape. His legs began to shake uncontrollably with a primal, genetic terror.

"This aura... it’s not a Pokémon anymore," Surge whispered, his voice trembling. "How is this possible?!"

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