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Chapter 476: Max-Level Marines Steamroll God Valley
East Blue, Foosha Village coastline.
The sea breeze, thick with a heavy, briny tang, crashed against the reef. Garp sat cross-legged on a jutting outcropping of rock, happily munching from a bag of otherworldly-flavored senbei he had bought from Blake's shop. The crackers crunched loudly in his mouth.
His bronzed muscles gleamed under the sunlight, every sculpted line looking as though it were cast from solid iron. Ever since acquiring the Sage Body, Garp felt as if his energy reserves were truly boundless. He could go three days and three nights without batting an eye, and still obliterate a mountain with a single punch.
Sengoku stood beside him, arms crossed over his chest, the seagull on his cap bobbing gently in the wind. His gaze drifted into the distance, locking onto the quiet little wooden building sitting in the center of the village—Partys Bar. His eyes were fraught with complex emotions.
Who could have ever imagined that the dignified Marine Headquarters would uproot itself and relocate entirely to the weakest of the seas, all because of a run-down tavern?
Garp tossed the last senbei into his mouth and dusted the crumbs from his hands. Leaning in close to Sengoku, he lowered his voice. "Hey, Sengoku. Let's talk business."
Sengoku shot him a sidelong glance, scoffing in annoyance. "I know exactly what you're thinking before you even open your mouth. You want to go buy another ticket from Blake, don't you?"
Garp broke into a massive grin, looking like a sly old fox that had just raided a henhouse. "Heh, you know me too well, Sengoku. But this time, it's different." He raised a single finger, his tone turning conspiratorial. "We aren't going to any of those weird alternate worlds."
Sengoku raised an eyebrow. "Not going to another world? Then where do you plan on going?"
Garp rubbed his hands together, a glimmer of uncontainable excitement flashing in his eyes. "We're going to God Valley."
The moment those two words left his mouth, even the sea breeze seemed to stagnate for a second. Sengoku froze. The name of the island completely erased from the map by the World Government violently exploded in his mind. God Valley. The massive war from thirty-eight years ago was an indelible memory burned into the souls of their generation of Marines.
"God Valley?" Sengoku's voice unconsciously dropped to a harsh whisper. "Blake's dungeons even have our past history?"
Garp slapped Sengoku's shoulder with enough force to make the Fleet Admiral stumble. "Are you stupid? He can resurrect the dead! Slicing out a piece of past time is nothing to him! I asked Blake about it earlier. He said as long as the money is right, he can open any dungeon."
Sengoku frowned, his expression rapidly shifting from shock to solemn gravity. "I don't know about this. God Valley is too complicated. It's not just that madman Rocks; there's also the absolute mess with the Celestial Dragons." He paused, his tone heavy. "What's the point of experiencing that hellish battlefield all over again?"
Garp curled his lip in utter disdain. "What do you mean, 'experience it all over again'? Look at the strength we have now!" He flexed his arm, his bronzed bicep bulging high with thick veins popping against the skin. "Did you forget your True Several Thousand Hands that shattered an island with one slap? With my Sage Body and the Eight Inner Gates, if I had these moves back then—"
Garp's voice suddenly pitched into a booming shout. "There's no way that bastard Roger would've stolen the spotlight!"
Roger. The name was like a needle piercing flawlessly into Sengoku's nerves, causing his eye to twitch. Back during the battle of God Valley, Garp and Roger had teamed up to defeat Rocks. Garp had been crowned the Marine Hero because of it. But what about Roger? He had constantly rubbed his victory in their faces. Not to mention, that straw-hat-wearing bastard later ignited the Great Pirate Era, bringing endless, monumental headaches to the Marines.
Garp astutely caught the subtle shift in Sengoku's expression. His smile grew even shiftier as he discreetly nudged his old friend with his elbow. "Don't tell me you don't want to beat the crap out of him?"
That sentence was the match that lit the powder keg Sengoku had kept buried in his heart for decades. Roger. That insufferable bastard who always wore that straw hat and laughed without a care in the world. And Rocks. That wildly ambitious, insufferably arrogant overlord of the seas. The Marines had paid such a horrific, tragic price at God Valley. Sengoku himself had barely made it out alive.
But if... If we could return to that time with the power we wield now?
Sengoku's pupils dilated slightly. An image involuntarily blossomed in his mind: He transformed into a towering golden Buddha, dozens of meters tall, with a thousand sky-piercing wooden arms rising behind him to blot out the sun. He pictured himself grinding Rocks into the dirt and swatting Roger straight into the earth with a single slap. That feeling... it would be a hundred times more satisfying than becoming Fleet Admiral.
His breathing grew heavy. The tight furrow of his brow slowly smoothed out. Lifting his head, his eyes burned with intensity as he looked at Garp, spitting out two words. "I'm in."
Garp erupted into a deafening roar of laughter, startling the nearby seagulls into a scattered frenzy. "Hahahaha! Now that's what I'm talking about! Let's go! We're finding Blake right now!"
The two old men, with a combined age approaching a hundred and fifty, looked exactly like two delinquent teenagers sneaking off for an all-night session at an internet cafe. Arms draped over each other's shoulders, they marched toward the tavern with long, eager strides.
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