The blazing magma came crashing down like a swarm of fire dragons, carrying enough destructive force to overwhelm everything beneath it.
The ice spears stood no chance.
They melted almost instantly under the unbearable heat, exploding into clouds of white steam that rose for only a moment before being swallowed by the even hotter magma.
Even the flames launched by the Marines lost their intensity when confronted by Bullet's molten barrage. They were devoured outright, overwhelmed by temperatures far beyond anything they could produce.
Rock fared little better.
Huge stone projectiles shattered apart under the impacts, fragments spraying across the plaza as though some giant had crushed them in his hands.
The Marines using simulated Dark-Dark Fruit abilities found themselves in an even worse position.
They had hoped to exploit the chaos and slip close enough to touch Bullet, but the dense magma bombardment made approaching him nearly impossible.
Molten projectiles hammered the ground around them without pause, forcing them to remain at a distance.
Whenever one came too close, even the scattered splashes of magma were enough to leave terrible burns across their bodies.
Before long, Marineford's central plaza had become a genuine sea of fire.
Magma flowed across the ground.
Flames raged between ruined buildings.
Screams, explosions, and the thunderous collapse of structures blended into one continuous roar.
"Help!"
"Damn it! They're setting Headquarters on fire!"
"You bastards! Just because you're Emperors doesn't mean—"
"Kill them!"
The Marines struggled desperately amid the burning battlefield, suddenly looking painfully small against the scale of the destruction around them.
At the center of it all stood Bullet.
Like an immovable mountain, he continued enduring Magellan's venom head-on.
The poison relentlessly ate into his colossal fused body, forcing him to devote a significant portion of his strength to suppressing it.
Yet Bullet refused to retreat.
His presence remained overwhelming.
At the same time, he maintained Meteor Volcano: Heavenfire Burns the City, saturating the entire battlefield with indiscriminate magma bombardment.
The sky itself appeared to be burning.
Countless molten masses fell like meteors, spreading destruction in every direction.
Under such overwhelming firepower, the Marines' counterattack was forcibly suppressed almost as soon as it began.
Their attacks disappeared beneath the barrage.
Their formations broke apart again.
And Bullet's terrifying presence only grew more oppressive.
The brutality of the battlefield became impossible to ignore.
Bodies lay scattered across the plaza.
Blood soaked the shattered ground.
The smell of smoke and iron filled the air.
Many of the majors and lieutenant commanders who had swallowed the Super Green Blood serum and rushed forward had briefly gained enough power to believe they could make a difference.
But they lacked the experience of veteran Vice Admirals such as Onigumo and Doberman.
Those men had survived countless battles and developed instincts that could only be earned by repeatedly standing on the edge of death.
Their bodies and Haki were on an entirely different level as well.
Onigumo, Doberman, and the other Vice Admirals possessed physiques tempered by years of combat, along with Haki strong enough to shield them from attacks that would kill ordinary officers outright.
The majors and lieutenant commanders had gained impressive abilities through the serum—
but their bodies remained comparatively fragile.
Their control over those borrowed powers was also far less refined.
The Vice Admirals could adapt their techniques instinctively, regulating output and timing with years of experience.
The younger officers could not.
Their powers were powerful, but unfamiliar.
Clumsy.
Difficult to control under pressure.
And against something like Bullet's Meteor Volcano: Heavenfire Burns the City, those weaknesses became fatal.
One officer desperately gathered his freezing power and formed a thick ice shield.
Cold air condensed around his hands.
Layer after layer of crystalline ice spread outward until a solid barrier stood in front of him.
Then a massive chunk of magma crashed into it.
SSSSSS—!
The shield disappeared almost instantly.
It did not crack.
It did not break.
It simply vaporized.
A cloud of white steam erupted where the barrier had been, vanishing almost as quickly as it formed.
Elsewhere, another Marine used a rock-based ability to raise a defensive shelter.
The ground shook beneath his feet.
Huge slabs of stone erupted upward and stacked together, forming what appeared to be a sturdy bunker.
For one brief moment, the Marines behind it thought they had found cover.
Then the bombardment arrived.
BOOM!
The first magma projectile struck.
Stone exploded outward.
BOOM! BOOM!
More followed.
The supposedly solid shelter was pulverized beneath the repeated impacts, reduced to broken rubble in seconds.
Once again, the Marines were exposed.
Once again, there was nowhere left to hide.
And above them—
the burning sky continued to rain magma.
...
One of the Marines using a simulated Dark-Dark Fruit ability tried to force his way through the apocalyptic rain of magma.
His eyes were filled with desperation and reckless determination as he pushed forward, hoping to create an opening amid the chaos.
Reality proved far crueler.
The shock waves from the explosions tore across the battlefield like invisible blades, while sprays of molten rock scattered through the air like blazing meteors. Caught between the two, the Marine quickly found himself overwhelmed and was forced to retreat.
Even then, he was not fast enough.
A single drop of magma splashed onto his body.
"AAAAARGH!"
Agonizing pain erupted through him instantly, and his scream cut sharply through the battlefield.
The Marines had already suffered catastrophic losses among their Vice Admiral-level fighters.
Many had been killed or seriously wounded during the disastrous battle against the Eternal Divine Kingdom, while those who remained had then been battered even further by Kaido's assault on Marineford.
The Vice Admirals had once formed the backbone of the Marines' fighting strength.
Now most of them were lying in pools of blood.
Only a handful could still stand, and every one of them was badly injured and utterly exhausted. In their condition, organizing any effective large-scale resistance was almost impossible.
That left a massive gap in both the Marines' command structure and their elite fighting strength just as they were forced to confront Bullet's fully formed colossal destroyer.
The majors and lieutenant commanders still had the will to fight.
Many were prepared to die where they stood if that was what it took to protect Marineford.
But determination alone could not erase the gulf in strength.
Against Bullet, they were simply too weak.
They had courage in abundance, but no power capable of overturning the battle.
"Hahahahaha!"
Bullet's triumphant laughter rolled across Marineford.
"No one can stop me now!"
The colossal magma giant became even more violent.
The bombardment from Meteor Volcano: Heavenfire Burns the City showed no sign of slowing, with wave after wave of molten projectiles continuing to rain down across Headquarters.
Marineford's central plaza, once used for grand ceremonies and military assemblies, had been turned into a burning wasteland. The stone beneath the magma glowed red-hot, and the air reeked of smoke and scorched debris.
The harbor was no better.
Warships that had once lined the docks were swallowed by flames, their hulls collapsing as magma poured across the waterfront.
Nearby buildings fell one after another beneath the bombardment until entire sections of Marineford had been reduced to rubble.
The fortress that had once stood as a symbol of Absolute Justice now looked like a vision of hell.
Flames devoured everything they touched.
Marines screamed as they struggled through the inferno.
Some were buried beneath collapsing buildings before they could escape.
Others found themselves trapped by flowing magma, the molten tide closing in until there was nowhere left to run.
The resistance the Marines had fought so desperately to organize was being crushed little by little beneath Bullet's overwhelming destructive power.
"Ice…"
A strained voice sounded through the smoke.
"…Age!"
Kuzan forced himself upright.
His grievously wounded body looked as though it might collapse at any moment, but fierce determination remained in his eyes as freezing air poured from him.
Ice spread across the battlefield.
The bitter cold raced toward the burning sections of Marineford, freezing stretches of molten ground and opening escape routes for soldiers trapped by the flames.
At the same time, Kuzan tried to extinguish the fires consuming the surrounding buildings.
But his earlier attempt to intercept Kaido's Bolo Breath had already aggravated the injuries Bullet had inflicted on him.
Now he was trying to suppress a disaster spanning enormous sections of Marineford.
It was too much.
He froze one burning area—
only for another to ignite moments later beneath fresh magma.
No matter how much cold he released, the flames kept spreading.
For perhaps the first time, genuine anxiety and helplessness were clearly visible on Kuzan's normally composed face.
He had no choice but to focus entirely on rescue efforts and containing the fires.
That meant he had nothing left to spare for stopping Bullet himself.
Marineford was being pushed toward destruction by Bullet alone.
Sengoku's furious shouts rang through Headquarters.
Tsuru watched in grim silence.
Blood continued to spill across the battlefield.
All of it became little more than a tragic backdrop to the destruction unfolding before them.
Sengoku's fury finally reached its limit.
Haki surged around him as he glared at Bullet, his entire body trembling with rage.
Even if he had to throw his aging body into the fight himself, he could not allow Bullet to continue destroying Marine Headquarters.
Then, just as Sengoku prepared to move—
"WORORORORORO!"
An even more excited laugh suddenly thundered down from the sky.
Kaido's colossal Azure Dragon form twisted through the clouds.
His scales gleamed coldly as he abruptly changed direction.
The enormous dragon tail swept behind him, generating a violent gale that sent towering waves rolling across the surrounding sea.
Kaido no longer seemed interested in the burning battlefield below.
Something else had caught his attention.
Something more important.
The massive Azure Dragon surged forward like a blue-black hurricane of destruction.
And his destination was clear.
The rear of Marine Headquarters.
The grim cluster of fortified structures connected to the entrance of the Marines' great prison—
Impel Down.
---------
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