BOOM! A thunderous roar shook the heavens as a colossal silhouette blurred across the desert sky.
The Going Guard was executing continuous spatial warps, pushing its velocity to its absolute limits. The microsecond intervals between each warp jump were drastically compressed. Under the awed and startled gazes of Luffy and the crew, the flagship's exterior geometric layout suddenly shifted once more.
Mechanical fangs unsealed from the chassis, and muscular, metal talons extended from the lower hull.
"What on earth has our ship transformed into?!" Luffy gaped in absolute shock as he looked at their surroundings.
Although they were securely positioned inside the Going Guard, they possessed absolute clarity regarding the flagship's structural changes. Their tactical visual field had unsealed across a flawless, 360-degree array.
It felt exactly as though the interior bulkheads of the Going Guard had become completely transparent. From the outside, however, the flagship now resembled a gargantuan cybernetic beast, its interior parameters entirely redacted from enemy radar.
Though it looked like a primeval beast, they mathematically lacked a single name in their database to classify its species.
The lower limbs weren't overly thick, yet compounded by those visibly razor-sharp, indestructible talons, they radiated an immense, crushing volume of pure kinetic power.
It looked more than capable of pulverizing a mountain or shattering bedrock with a single swipe.
This configuration decoupled entirely from the quad-pedal transit mode they had used to navigate the desert dunes earlier; back then, it felt like a tireless mechanical steed engineered for high-speed cruising.
But looking at it now, it was a colossal, aggressively predatory alpha beast.
Exactly what biological archetype it drew from remained completely unmapped.
In truth, set aside the crew—even Drake himself lacked the exact data files decoding what manner of entity the ship had simulated.
Combat Form!
Ever since this specific operational matrix had been integrated into the flagship's systems, it had never once been deployed. Naturally, that was simply because past campaigns had failed to present a threat matrix that required it.
But this afternoon, he intended to run a firsthand diagnostic to see exactly what tier of raw offensive output the Going Guard's Combat Form could unleash.
The adversary anchoring the opposing coordinate was the ancient engine of myth that struck absolute terror into the hearts of the world.
Yet for reasons he couldn't logically decode, Drake harbored a blind, untouchable confidence in the Going Guard.
A premier asset engineered explicitly by the system's supreme blueprints—it was only logical that he maintained iron-clad faith in its capabilities.
Before an extended timeline could elapse, the gargantuan battleship that had successfully evaded their tracking lines a moment ago re-materialized directly within their sensory grid—the Ancient Weapon, Pluton.
The exact millisecond his eyes locked onto Pluton's silhouette, a brilliant, razor-sharp light rippled across Drake's pupils, a boundless surge of pride erupting within his soul.
Going Guard, this afternoon is the definitive milestone where your name shall violently shake all four seas! Let every single faction anchoring this dark ocean look upon the absolute majesty of your power today!
"Going Guard, discharge the Ion Cannon!" Drake commanded, extending a single finger to lock the tracking telemetry directly onto Pluton's coordinate.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Ion Cannon fully primed. Initializing countdown array. Five... Four...]
Drake's enthusiastic posture instantly locked up, his facial parameters straining. We are actively trading lethal blows in an all-out war right now; can we please cut the theatrical protocol?
This is exceptionally hazardous, damn it!
The exact microsecond that highly unstable premonition flared within Drake's mind, a blinding, solar-tier bloom of light sundered the spatial grid directly ahead. Predictably, the automated batteries of Pluton had discharged another primary blast.
KABOOM!
The monumental kinetic shockwave slammed against their perimeter, causing every single entity aboard the Going Guard to lose their equilibrium, nearly stumbling flat onto the floorboards.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa..."
What the hell...
A limitless herd of frantic thoughts stampeded through Drake's mind. Forcing his cognitive stability to override the panic, he pressed the internal communications channel instantly: "Going Guard, run an immediate diagnostic sweep on our structural integrity!"
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Flagship metallurgy registers as an anomalous, absolute classification. Enemy thermodynamic impact has inflicted zero structural trauma upon the hull. Integrity remains at 100%.]
Drake froze, his analytical processes pausing as his gaze swept across the entirely unblemished, perfectly static interior of the Going Guard. His mind completely ran out of standard vocabulary to describe the scenario.
The legendary Ancient Weapon Pluton—recorded across history as a force commanding sufficient mass to systematically destroy the world—had just successfully hammered two direct primary battery blasts into their hull, yet it had failed to register a single fraction of damage against the Going Guard.
Even though the surrounding desert geography had been catastrophically rewritten by the explosions, the flagship preserved a flawless, optimized state.
At that exact threshold, a mind-boggling realization suddenly illuminated Drake's thoughts. If the structural density of the Going Guard was this impregnable, did it not imply that the absolute totality of the Grand Line lacked a solitary powerhouse capable of breaching its armor?
Cross-referencing this dataset, Drake suddenly rationalized that he had initialized his voyage commanding the mantle of an untouchable sovereign without even realizing it. This was... thoroughly brain-dead of him.
As long as he deployed the Going Guard onto the field, even if he marched straight into a world-shaking global war, his vanguard would preserve an absolute, mathematically unyielding position of victory.
Had he forcefully dropped the Going Guard right into the absolute epicenter of the Summit War of Marineford two years ago...
At that thought, Drake's composure grew intensely unstable. However, the precise baseline metrics of this invulnerability still required comprehensive field testing; everything hinged on the final data logs of this afternoon's engagement.
"Ion Cannon—FIRE!!"
High in the airspace, the gargantuan jaw mechanism anchoring the bow of the Going Guard suddenly split wide, unsealing an abyssal maw. A blinding, hyper-compressed torrent of blue-white plasma energy condensed within the core before erupting outward in a cataclysmic beam.
BOOM!
The monumental column of destructive energy sundered the sky currents, driving a direct trajectory straight toward the coordinates of Pluton.
Aboard the decks of the ancient weapon, the sea of white-robed CP0 operatives had just unsealed a boisterous chorus of laughter to celebrate the delivery of their previous cannon blast. In the very next microsecond, their analytical models completely ground to a halt, their eyes widening in absolute horror as the incoming plasma beam filled their visual fields.
"N-No... this sundered all mathematical algorithms!" The lead operative shrieked in sheer, unadulterated terror, his vocal cords fracturing as he roared, "Frantic... activate the primary engine arrays to maneuver Pluton!"
Yet the high-velocity plasma beam connected with absolute zero physical resistance, hammering flush against the hull of Pluton. The sheer kinetic weight of the impact forcefully lifted the gargantuan, three-hundred-meter battleship clean out of the sands, throwing its massive chassis into the air.
The monumental impact sent the interior crew tumbling seven ways to Sunday, crashing violently against the bulkheads in a state of absolute chaos.
Multiple low-tier operatives suffered instant neurological blackouts from the trauma.
THUD!
The powerful lower limbs of the Going Guard executed a massive, synchronized extension, launching its entire cybernetic beast frame high into the airspace. The primary claws lunged forward, clawing directly for the throat of the levitating Pluton, which comfortably outperformed its own physical mass by several hundred percent.
KABOOM!
"AAARGH!..."
A continuous cadence of agonizing shrieks echoed through the internal compartments of Pluton. Multiple engineers were literally launched across the width of the ship, flying from the primary control bridge straight to the opposing bulkhead.
Because centuries had elapsed since its construction, numerous auxiliary internal systems and structural brackets that were non-essential to the primary drive matrix had sustained severe, unresolved degradation. They simply lacked the engineering capacity to buffer a mechanical trauma of this extreme magnitude.
Before long, a significant registry of interior compartments had been thoroughly reduced to pulverized splinters.
Granted, those internal calculations were restricted to Pluton's interior; analyzing the exterior hull, the Going Guard's devastating talons had merely carved out a succession of distinct, deep jagged scoring marks across the armor plating—registering as minor external lacerations.
It had failed to compromise the core mobility mechanics of the ancient weapon.
Nevertheless, tracking the telemetry, Drake's eyes ignited with a brilliant, razor-sharp light. His analytical models processed the crucial delta: Pluton's maximum primary output had yielded absolute zero efficiency against the Going Guard.
Conversely, the Going Guard's baseline offensive output had successfully sundered Pluton's armor, writing deep structural wounds across its frame.
Evaluating the raw data metrics, the disparity in their tiers was instantly finalized!
"Bwahahaha!~" Luffy let out a roaring laugh as he monitored the display, a blinding pool of excitement rippling across his gaze.
To the companions anchoring the bridge of the Going Guard, the sensation felt exactly as though they were personally throwing their own bodies into the melee, given that their tracking arrays operated with zero visual constraints.
It felt exactly as though the ship's walls were completely non-existent.
The pacing was intensely exhilarating!
As the mechanical beast initialized its subsequent sequence, our brave warrior of the sea, the Great God Usopp, found his internal stamina metrics severely collapsing, his knees turning completely to jelly from pure panic.
Standing directly behind Drake's seat, Mitian gently pressed her palm against her frosted lips, her unblinking gaze locked onto the unfolding cataclysm outside.
The sheer, world-shaking magnitude commanded by the Going Guard had cleanly decoupled from her baseline understanding of naval engineering. How could a submersible vessel project this tier of apocalyptic terror?!
Why?
Exactly what classification of entity was this flagship?
Facing a synchronized discharge from the mythical Ancient Weapon Pluton—an output that could comfortably level a sovereign land mass—it preserved a flawless, unblemished integrity, yet its casual physical strikes could enforce this level of trauma against the engine of myth!
During Drake's personal deployment a short while ago, their Observation Haki had mapped his performance metrics with absolute clarity.
Even utilizing Drake's legendary physical mass, the deep structural fissures his sword slashes had carved across Pluton's armor stabilized right along this identical tier. This data verified that a solitary mechanical claw strike from this flagship effortlessly matched the destructive capacity of an Emperor-class powerhouse.
Was this... genuinely possible within the laws of physics?
"Exactly what manner of anomalous metallurgy was deployed to forge this hull?!" Franky's vocal channels trembled with intense, technical awe. The atomic properties of this material lay completely outside his engineering databases.
To forcefully sunder the legendary defensive armor of Pluton utilizing raw, physical talon pressure was a reality that mathematically should not exist in this world.
Furthermore, the operational mechanics governed by the Going Guard were far too mind-boggling to rationalize. The global press could look upon the exterior hull and see absolute zero data regarding the interior, yet their own eyes could scan the battlefield with perfect, unobstructed clarity.
This... exactly what classification of miracle was...