"What is that?!"
"How could this happen?!"
Everyone below was swallowed by a vast shadow. When they looked up at the sky, they saw it clearly.
Countless islands were falling toward Marineford.
Some of the older Marines stared at the apocalyptic scene, and memories from over thirty years ago came rushing back.
Marineford had once suffered this very same disaster.
"You are...?!"
Sengoku looked up at the sky, blood vessels bulging in his eyes. Amid the descending islands stood a man with swords for legs, towering above the battlefield like a king.
"Shiki! You bastard!"
"It has been thirty years, Sengoku!"
Even Whitebeard gritted his teeth at the sight.
"You think you can crush my dear sons to death? I will never allow it!"
With so many islands crashing toward Marineford, both pirates and Marines would suffer catastrophic casualties. After all, most of the battlefield was made up of ordinary fighters.
"Hey, hey, hey. The real show has not even started yet. How can you smash all the audience first?"
Faced with a calamity even greater than a meteor shower, Ozz flicked the ash from his cigarette, impatience appearing on his face.
Join forces to attack Marineford?
That was ancient history.
He no longer needed battle to temper himself.
His strength had already reached a point where he could not improve any further. At least for now, Ozz could see no room left to grow.
Perhaps if he found more amusement in life, his Conqueror's Haki might deepen a little more.
With the wind howling and chaos raging below, Ozz looked up at the looming archipelago.
Teleportation: Shambles
"That is Lord Ozz. What is he trying to do?!"
"Is he really going to stop the islands from falling? Not even an Admiral could block all of that perfectly!"
"This is too much, even for Black Spear..."
Under countless desperate gazes, Ozz slowly raised one hand and made a grasping motion in midair.
In his own view, it was as though he had seized the islands themselves, then calmly set them down beside Marineford.
One after another.
Invisible giant hands caught each island and arranged them neatly around Marineford.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
As enormous waves erupted and the earth trembled from the falling islands, weapons slipped from countless trembling hands.
Everyone's mouths hung wide open, incapable of closing.
Shiki grinned wildly, laughing like a madman.
"The brat Roger and I once forced back with our Haki has grown into a king too!"
"Do not get ahead of yourself, Shiki!"
At that moment, a furious shout rang out.
Beside the execution platform, Garp tore off his cape in one motion.
Whitebeard was here to save Ace. Garp did not want to fight him.
The Navy was his side. He could not turn against them.
But Shiki was just a pirate crashing the party. Did he really think the old man's fists had grown weak?
"Come and find out whether my Iron Fist still has any power left!"
"Do not die too easily, Garp!"
The meddling Shiki was immediately met with a fully charged punch from Garp and smashed into the ground like a giant cross-shaped meteor.
"Tch. The old relics of the previous era really never let anyone relax."
Sengoku's face darkened as he shifted his attention back to the Whitebeard Pirates.
"Activate the plan immediately!"
The encircling walls rose, sealing the pirates in. Then Akainu launched molten fists, shattering the ice and boiling the seawater.
It was a perfect demonstration of how devastating a Logia's large-scale destructive power could be.
The Pacifistas opened fire in unison. Cannons bombarded them in disciplined waves. The Whitebeard Pirates and the Impel Down escapees alike were driven into retreat, blood and devastation everywhere.
The Moby Dick was destroyed.
The Whitebeard Pirates' flag burned.
Even the power of the Gura Gura no Mi could not break open the encircling walls quickly enough.
The situation plunged toward absolute despair.
Outside the walls, the Marines stared at the blazing iron cage, and anyone could imagine the carnage inside.
Sengoku gazed at the trapped slaughterhouse.
Then he heard a voice.
"Hey, Marine."
Turning toward the source, Sengoku found himself staring into eyes as sharp as a hawk's.
Arms folded, Mihawk turned his head slightly and said in an indifferent tone,
"Have you forgotten? Ozz is still inside your kill zone too."
"What?!"
Sengoku's pupils contracted violently.
"Oh my. Is the Navy trying to wipe me out here as well?"
Faced with the magma fists about to crash into him, Ozz lazily pointed once and froze them in midair. He walked across the boiling seawater as if strolling through a garden, moving through this human hell with effortless calm.
He saw the look in Whitebeard's eyes.
It was helpless frustration, the grief of watching his sons fall all around him.
Most of all, the specially made encircling walls had even rendered his once-invincible Gura Gura no Mi unable to break through.
A hero in twilight,
mocked by curs.
Ozz had seen Whitebeard's power in his prime. Back then, even if he could not beat Garp and Sengoku together, crushing the Admirals and sinking Marineford into the sea would not have been impossible.
It was enough to make anyone sigh.
Letting out a quiet breath, Ozz spread his hands.
"Well, I suppose this is tradition at this point."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Part of it was also irritation. The Navy had shut the gates to kill the dog, and he had been caught inside with the dog.
Backstabbing.
He had lost count of how many times it had happened to him.
One more would not matter.
Bzzzzzz.
A strange humming sound rose, mixed with the crackling of space itself straining under unbearable pressure.
Everyone turned toward the composed man. Even Whitebeard, proud to the very end, could not help curling his lips slightly.
"I knew it would never be that simple with a bastard like you."
A black light gathered at Ozz's fingertip, warping and tearing at space itself.
The magma fists crashing down all around him twisted and vanished into nothing before they could even reach him.
"Annihilation."
In an instant.
A black beam swept forward like a ray of void.
The specially forged encircling wall, sturdy enough to withstand the shock of the Gura Gura no Mi, melted into nothing the moment the black light touched it, like snowflakes meeting open flame.
Perhaps by accident,
perhaps because he had not bothered to restrain himself enough,
even the Marine headquarters building behind the execution platform lost an entire layer to that single beam of spatial annihilation.
The Marines outside the walls stood frozen in place.
Watching that black light erase everything as though space itself had been wiped away, an eerie terror rose in their hearts.
This was not destruction like explosions, sword slashes, or shockwaves.
This was a rule-based power that made things cease to exist, that erased all.
Everyone was stunned into silence.
Only one tall, lean figure stared with blazing eyes, even losing his usual composure.
"So you finally made your move."
"Dotor Ozz."
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