No wonder the two of them were so stunned.
Looking toward the sky—
At this mont, the entire heavens churned like boiling water, constantly rolling and heaving.
KRAK!!
Countless jagged, black lightning bolts snarled and clashed violently, rending the sky into fractured webs as though the very firmant were about to shatter.
And at the very center of the sky, a colossal black vortex churned, terrifying and vast—
a spiraling maw that looked ready to devour the world.
All of this…
Was the phenonon born from their clash—
when the Conqueror's Haki of both combatants surged out uncontrollably.
BOOM!
A series of explosive detonations erupted.
The two figures crossed paths high in the air, then were blasted backward like cannonballs, stopping a hundred ters apart under the gaze of everyone in the battlefield.
The space where they had just clashed was fractured, split by deep, pitch-black cracks that seed bottomless.
"More troubleso than I expected."
Nao looked at Whitebeard.
"Whether it's Big Mom or Kaido—compared to you, they're half a tier weaker."
"But…"
He tightened his grip on both blades, voice calm.
"That's still all there is to it."
After this brief exchange, Nao had already gauged Whitebeard's level.
Whether speed, strength, physical endurance, or mastery of Haki—
Whitebeard fell short of him.
From the mont this fight began, the outco was already determined.
"Talking big again, brat."
Whitebeard grinned.
"I told you not to lump with those two. That was just a warm-up. The real fight starts now!"
BOOM!
Whitebeard swung his massive blade again, tearing across a hundred ters of sky in an instant.
With a resonant clang, sparks bursting everywhere, Nao blocked the strike effortlessly with Azakana's blade.
Looking through the gap in the crossing weapons, Nao glanced downward.
"How about we change the venue?"
"Hm?"
Whitebeard followed his gaze and imdiately understood.
At their level, a full-power battle released unimaginable force.
Even without intending it, the collateral damage alone was catastrophic.
If they kept fighting here, countless of his own n would be obliterated by stray shockwaves—
and all of Marineford would be reduced to ruins.
"Gurararara! The kid's learned to worry about property damage now?"
Whitebeard chuckled.
"Looks like Shiki's rampage back then left quite an impression on you Marines."
He squinted around.
"So where to? Don't make it too far—I don't have that kind of patience."
"No need to worry. I've prepared for this."
Nao cut him off lightly.
He flicked his finger—
a streak of pale purple lightning shot upward, scattering into the sky.
In the southeast corner of the battlefield, Gion t Nao's gaze across the distance.
She smiled, snapped her fingers—
BOOM!
The sea to Marineford's right erupted violently as the waters surged outward.
From the massive vortex rising from the deep, a floating island erged, rising steadily into the air.
Its enormous shadow swept across the battlefield, alarming many pirates who thought it was so secret Marine weapon.
But instead, the floating island simply drifted overhead and stopped above the ocean, more than ten kiloters out from the bay.
"Shiki's power, huh…"
Whitebeard looked up at the island as it passed overhead, a faint glimr of nostalgia in his eyes.
But he said nothing more.
He stepped into the air using Moonwalk and landed in the center of the floating island.
Nao moved even faster—
his entire body erupting into azure lightning as he streaked across the sky, appearing at the opposite end of the island in an instant.
"Well then… shall we begin?"
The two made eye contact.
Whitebeard grinned and tightened his grip on Murakumogiri.
The next mont—
Without a single wasted word, and under the gaze of countless eyes, the two figures on the floating island struck at the sa mont—
launching themselves forward in a fierce assault on each other!
There was no doubt about it.
The real battle had finally begun.
In the distance—
At Sengoku's command, two Video Transponder Snails rose into the air, adjusting their lenses to capture the clash atop the floating island.
This was not only a duel between the strongest in the world—
it was a collision between the old era and the new one.
"Nao…"
Sengoku looked toward the sky, his gaze heavy.
As the man who had been Nao's superior for more than a decade, the current Fleet Admiral trusted his power more than anyone else.
What he wanted—
was for the entire world to witness, without the slightest obstruction or concealnt, the mont Whitebeard was defeated.
To tear down the pedestal of this so-called "strongest man in the world,"
and shatter the last lingering delusions and fantasies in the hearts of every pirate!
...
The war raged on.
Ti felt strangely stretched and heavy, but the sun still climbed steadily across the sky.
Before anyone realized it, noon had already passed.
The grand war that would determine the future of the world had been ongoing for several hours now.
The brutal clash of over a hundred thousand fighters only grew more savage as the hours dragged by.
Southeast corner—
A rugged, tiger-like Longarm Tribe pirate swung his teor hamr wildly, laughing as he tore through more than a dozen elite Marines.
Before he could catch his breath, he felt a sudden chill at his neck—
Rosinante passed silently behind him, decapitating him with a single slash.
A young Marine from the East Blue, who had joined the Marine to follow Nao, finally overca his fear.
He picked up a fallen sword and charged forward with a roar—
but before he could take more than a few steps, a rain of black flaming embers fell from above and engulfed him.
His screams were brief; his body was reduced to ash in an instant.
Even Marine Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals,
even pirate officers with bounties over one hundred million—
countless were defeated, gravely injured, or killed outright…
In a world-shaking battle of this scale—
It seed that no matter who you were,
you were nothing but a small, fragile being,
utterly powerless to control your own fate.
...
No one knew whether, in the very next second, they would be the one gripping an enemy's head and laughing wildly—
or the one dying silently in so forgotten corner of the battlefield, returning to dust.
Even the heavens seed unable to bear the sight.
At so point, the sunlight disappeared, and the sky filled with heavy clouds.
Rain began to fall.
At first it was only a faint drizzle, but it quickly turned into a torrential downpour.
Raindrops splattered across the frozen sea surface and the devastated harbor plaza.
The impact stirred up a light white mist.
Suddenly the world grew dim, distant—
the shouts of battle and the tallic stench of blood felt separated by an entire world, blurred behind the curtain of rain.
Buzz!
Within this somber, oil-painting-like downpour, a brilliant golden light suddenly pierced the rain, exploding in midair.
The torrential rain in the surrounding area vanished instantly.
At the center of that golden radiance, Kizaru floated motionlessly, his index finger slightly bent.
Opposite him—
The blue phoenix flas died out, and a broken body plumted from the sky, crashing into the ground without a single movent.
Many pirates stared blankly at the trajectory, eyes widening in disbelief.
"Commander Marco!!"
"Commander!!!"
Heart-rending screams ca from every corner of the battlefield.
Kizaru continued to stand in the rain, unmoving, rely glancing at the crater below as he shrugged.
"I should say… not bad for the phoenix. Even more troubleso than I expected. He was already at his limit hours ago, and he still managed to hang on until now…"
"But now, at last, I can free up my hands to deal with the other ones—hmm?"
Kizaru suddenly let out a soft "Oh?" and raised an eyebrow, looking toward the southwest corner.
Boom!
At almost the exact sa mont—
The surging black flas that had filled the southwestern sky abruptly vanished.
A black, toothless pterosaur let out a long, mournful cry as it crashed into the ground.
Buzz!
Swordlight blazed, cutting through the remaining flas and splitting them apart.
A graceful figure floated beneath them.
"You're pretty fast, Gion…" Kizaru murmured, a trace of surprise in his eyes.
Below, the pirates—still stunned by Marco's defeat—exploded into chaos.
"Hey, that, that's…"
"It's the head of the Beasts Pirates' Three Calamities, Wildfire King!!!"
"H-How could this be? Didn't they say that female Marine was only an Admiral candidate? How did Captain King lose so quickly!"
The Beasts Pirates' mbers trembled, their eyes filled with disbelief.
On the high platform at the rear of the plaza—
Sengoku, sitting at the execution platform and commanding the entire battlefield, jolted upright in excitent.
At last, after hours of grueling war—
a breakthrough.
Across the entire pirate alliance, excluding Whitebeard, Kaido, and Red the Aloof, the strongest fighters acknowledged by all were Marco and King.
Now, both had fallen—
completely losing their combat ability—
while Kizaru and Gion, two of the Marine's top combat powers, were now free to intervene elsewhere in the battlefield.
With this shift in montum, even though the duel between Nao and Whitebeard atop the floating island had yet to reach a conclusion—
the outco of this world-shaking war was already decided!
"Continue the assault!"
Holding the Transponder Snail, Sengoku bellowed his command across the battlefield:
"Whitebeard Pirates First Division Commander Marco, and the head of the Beasts Pirates' Three Calamities, King, have both been slain!"
"The Pirate Alliance has lost its montum!"
"All units, coordinate your attacks! The outer fleet is to begin encirclent imdiately! Do not allow a single pirate ship to escape! Exterminate every last pirate within this harbor!"
"YES, FLEET ADMIRAL!"
Responses erupted from every corner of the battlefield, roaring like thunder!
Almost everyone had seen what happened just monts ago, and with Sengoku's broadcast added on top of it, the Marine's morale soared to its peak.
anwhile, on the pirate alliance's side, panic spread rapidly.
So pirate officers who had just been holding their own in battle suddenly exposed fatal openings in their panic, leading to devastating injuries.
And with Kizaru and Gion returning to the battlefield after only a brief rest, the situation across Marineford plaza shifted sharply to one side.
The Marine fought with increasing ferocity, while the pirates were beaten back at every turn.
All of this was broadcast across the world, projected onto countless screens, igniting excitent and cheers everywhere.
On the execution platform—
Sengoku put down the Transponder Snail and swept his gaze across the prisoners.
Most of them had closed their eyes in pain and despair.
Only the 4th Division Commander, Thatch, and a few core mbers of the Whitebeard Pirates still stared stubbornly at the floating island in the sky, teeth clenched, eyes filled with desperate hope.
Are they pinning their last shred of hope on Whitebeard?
Sengoku sneered inwardly, then lowered his head to glance at his watch.
There was less than half an hour until the scheduled execution.
Judging from the current situation, within that ti, the pirates in the plaza would be completely routed and then crushed by the Marine ships waiting outside the bay.
In other words, the fall of the pirate alliance would coincide perfectly with the mont of execution.
And when this was broadcast live to the entire world, it would sound the final death knell for the Great Pirate Era.
And the prestige of Marine Headquarters would ascend to an unprecedented peak—
Enough to deter all criminals.
Enough to stabilize the world.
Enough to finally bring peace to these chaotic seas.
Thinking of this, Sengoku could barely contain his excitent.
But at that very mont, the Transponder Snail in his hand suddenly began shaking violently—an urgent incoming call.
"Hm?"
Sengoku frowned.
This snail, during warti, was restricted so that only calls from the strategy division could get through—and only for major ergencies, to avoid disrupting battlefield command.
A vague sense of dread rose in his chest.
Still, he answered imdiately:
"This is Sengoku. What's the situation?"
"F–Fleet Admiral! Sothing terrible has happened!"
On the other end, soone was panting frantically, voice trembling, clearly terrified beyond asure.
"It's Impel Down! We just received word—
S–Sothing huge has happened in Impel Down!!!"
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