Hearing Allen say there was no concrete evidence, the surrounding people quickly lost interest. A few others looked bewildered, completely unaware of who this so-called Rocks was.
Right at that moment.
A slight commotion broke out in the plaza below. Out on the distant sea, several dark silhouettes loomed faintly within the hazy mist.
Allen and the others seemed to sense something, instinctively narrowing their eyes to gaze into the distance.
More and more outlines of sailing ships gradually emerged from the fog, and the leading vessels slowly broke free from the mist.
"They're here!!"
"It's the pirate crews under Whitebeard!!"
"On guard!!"
Marine officers below continuously shouted orders at the top of their lungs. Out on the sea, pirate ships surged forward one after another.
Standing at the bows of those ships, the faces of infamous great pirates from the New World successively appeared before the Marines' eyes.
"Ice Witch Whitey Bay! Great Whirlpool Spider Squard!"
"Doma! And McGuy...!"
"Whitebeard's subordinate crews! The grand fleet of forty-three pirate crews is all here!!"
"Where is Whitebeard! Confirm his location immediately!"
The shouts were brief and urgent. At this very moment, the pressing reality of war finally began to spread into everyone's hearts.
Atop the execution platform, Sengoku stood tall and straight with his hands behind his back, a heavy solemnity in his gaze behind his glasses.
One hundred thousand Marine elites conscripted from all over the world, facing off against the strongest man in the world and his fifty thousand vicious pirates from the New World!
This was destined to be a brutal war!
Sengoku couldn't help but glance down at Ace, who was kneeling to the side with his hands bound by Seastone chains, and said coldly,
"To think that Whitebeard would mobilize his entire force just for you."
Ace slowly raised his weak, drooping head.
He did not respond to Sengoku. Instead, he looked at the familiar faces appearing on the sea, biting his lower lip tightly. His eyes held nothing but remorse and shame.
"Fleet Admiral!!"
Suddenly, a shout came from below the execution platform. Sengoku turned to see a field officer rushing over from a short distance away.
"The Gates of Justice have been opened without any orders! We can't reach the control room either!"
"What did you say?!"
Sengoku's expression changed drastically in shock, but before he could ask any questions...
At that moment.
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle!
A massive amount of bubbles erupted in the bay in front of Oris Plaza. A dark shadow slowly surfaced, and the water level rose sharply along with it.
The sudden commotion drew everyone's attention. They stared intently at the disturbance in the bay, and as a certain possibility dawned on them, their mouths fell open in sheer disbelief.
Splash!!
A colossal object broke through the surface of the sea, kicking up a massive splash. Amidst the spray, a white whale-shaped pirate ship, coated in a tough, transparent film, revealed its true form!
"That's... the flagship, the Moby Dick!!"
"They actually came in by coating the ship!!"
"That is the strongest man in the world! Whitebeard, Edward Newgate!!"
The entire Marine force was shaken beyond measure. In the bay, the airborne spray rained back down, and the rocking Moby Dick gradually steadied itself.
Allen narrowed his eyes slightly, fixing his gaze on the ship.
Dozens of figures stood tall on the bow deck of the white whale pirate ship. The leading man was over six meters tall, bare-chested, with a burly, muscular physique and a white, crescent-shaped mustache curving upward.
Wielding his massive naginata, [Murakumogiri], Whitebeard looked down upon the entire battlefield with a commanding gaze, a domineering white pirate captain's coat draped over his shoulders.
Behind him, a line of immensely powerful division commanders stood side by side, including Marco the Phoenix, Diamond Jozu, and Flower Sword Vista.
With just their arrival, the overwhelming aura of the Whitebeard Pirates invisibly enveloped the entirety of Oris Plaza!
"What an astonishing presence..."
Allen couldn't help but sigh in admiration. Keeping his eyes on that man, he knew just from his stance that the opponent was terrifyingly strong.
"Gurarara! It's been decades, hasn't it, Sengoku? How is my foolish son doing?!"
Whitebeard threw his head back and laughed heartily. His gaze pierced through the distance, locking straight onto Ace and Sengoku on the far-off execution platform.
"Pops!!"
Ace couldn't hold back his roar, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
Sengoku turned his head to confirm with the staff operating the Visual Transponder Snail below the platform. Then, he took a step forward and picked up the microphone.
"Since you're here, perfect. Before we carry out the execution of Fire Fist Ace, I have something to announce to the world..."
...
On the Sabaody Archipelago, a loud and clear voice echoed from the broadcasts. Marine Fleet Admiral Sengoku stood on the execution platform, loudly recounting the events surrounding the execution of the Pirate King, Roger, all those years ago.
The gathered crowds and newspaper reporters below looked bewildered, not quite understanding the point of his story.
That was until Sengoku loudly announced Ace's true identity on the screens.
"The bloodline of the Pirate King, Roger, that still exists in this world! Portgas D. Ace!!"
"What?!"
"Breaking news! Hurry, contact the newspaper agencies!!"
"Fire Fist Ace is actually Roger's son!"
"My god! It's unimaginable that Whitebeard has been sheltering him all these years!"
An uproar instantly erupted in the plaza. Countless reporters, still reeling from the shock, hurriedly contacted their respective agencies.
Scattered across various corners, the Supernovas all wore expressions of astonishment upon hearing this information. On the balcony of a certain building, Nami and the others looked completely shocked.
"To think there was such a secret."
"It's truly unbelievable."
"Wait a minute, isn't Fire Fist Ace the Straw Hat kid's older brother?"
Sanji was the first to notice the discrepancy. He looked at Nami in confusion, "Doesn't that mean the Straw Hat kid is also Roger's son?"
"Uh... I'm not sure about that either..."
Nami smiled awkwardly, waving her hands sheepishly. "But I did hear Allen mention that Marine Vice Admiral Garp is Luffy's grandfather."
"Garp... Is that Garp the Fist, the one known as the Hero of the Marines?" Robin asked curiously.
Nami nodded. "That's right. When we saw the news about Water 7, Allen mentioned it to me because both of their surnames are Monkey D."
"Monkey D..."
Robin furrowed her brows slightly. After pondering for a moment, she confirmed, "The World Government's most wanted criminal, the leader of the Revolutionary Army, Dragon, also has the surname Monkey D."
"Eh?"
Nami's expression shifted to surprise. "No way, could it be that he is...?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it's highly likely. It's said that Dragon used to be a Marine as well, before he broke away to establish the Revolutionary Army."
Robin replied softly.
At these words, Sanji and the others were completely stunned.
The Pirate King, the Marines, and now the Revolutionary Army—the relationships between these people were truly a tangled mess.
At that moment, Buchi, who was calmly and nonchalantly eating potato chips in the back, glanced at the screen and suddenly said,
"Mmph! Everyone, look, the battle has started."
The group quickly looked up. Unsure of what they had just missed, they saw on the screen two massive tsunamis, hundreds of meters high, erupting and surging menacingly toward Marineford.
"Hey, hey, hey, what the hell is this?"
"How terrifying. Can a human really do something like this?"
"Just what scale of war is this?"
Just as the giant tsunamis were about to crash down and submerge everything, a figure suddenly leaped out from below the execution platform.
"An Admiral is making a move! It's Aokiji!"
Aokiji leaped into the air, extending two extremely long icicles from his hands. The moment the icicles touched the tsunamis, the colossal waves, over a hundred meters tall, rapidly froze solid into ice.
...
Marineford, on Oris Plaza.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, that's quite exaggerated."
"This war really is a gathering of monsters."
"Fufufufu... The one standing on the other side is the strongest man in the world. We should have been mentally prepared for this."
Looking at the tsunamis completely frozen into massive ice walls on both sides, Allen and the other Warlords of the Sea couldn't help but marvel.
Hawkeye raised a hand to pull down the brim of his hat, then drew the pitch-black, two-handed greatsword from his back. With a sharp, eager gaze, he stared at Whitebeard in the distance.
"Let me test the gap between the strongest man in the world and us."
"A test from the World's Strongest Swordsman? This feels like it's going to be very interesting, fufufufu..." Doflamingo looked at him with a smile.
Allen glanced over, then immediately shifted his gaze back to the bay that Aokiji had just frozen.
Now that they had a foothold, the pirates on Whitebeard's ships jumped down one after another, roaring as they charged forward with swords drawn and guns raised.
On Oris Plaza, the elite Marine soldiers also roused their fighting spirit. Led by the Vice Admirals, they leaped onto the ice to meet the enemy head-on.
Allen's gaze swept across the battlefield, finally landing on a man with a pineapple-like hairstyle on the Moby Dick. The corners of his mouth curled up.
First Division Commander, Marco the Phoenix.
Whether Mythical Zoan types could be analyzed by his ability—the time to verify it had come.