Piloting a gargantuan cybernetic mecha and slicing freely across the boundless ocean was a childhood dream shared by practically every man across the seas.
At this exact juncture, a sudden wave of intense regret washed through Drake's mind. To think that his analytical models had only just unsealed this magnificent operational feature of the Going Guard. Had he discovered the parameters along an earlier timeline...
Wouldn't he have been able to coordinate his movements with the flagship much sooner, standing together as the ultimate, most eye-catching figures defining the absolute horizon?
It had to be said—the engineering was thoroughly magnificent!
The raw psychological pull of this humanoid configuration possessed an absolute, lethal attraction for them. By this current hour, Luffy and the rest of the crew were so intensely overwhelmed by fanatical excitement that their composure had entirely fractured.
Drake, conversely, preserved absolute zero reservation. His gargantuan cybernetic fists whipped forward to generate a rapid succession of blurred tracking lines, hammering punch after crushing punch squarely into the hull of Pluton.
The white-robed CP0 agents desperately scrambled to execute emergency repair protocols, but their response tracking completely ran out of operational windows. Pluton's physical vessel was far too monumental, rendering the battleship's baseline tactical maneuverability exceptionally sluggish.
Even though its integrated drive matrix comfortably ranked at the absolute zenith of naval engineering, a battleship remained merely a battleship; it could mathematically never duplicate the organic, fluid flexibility governed by a living biological vessel.
Under ordinary parameters, this mechanical restriction would register as a dangerous vulnerability. Yet historically, backed by an almost reality-bending structural defense, this flaw was cleanly insulated from becoming a critical hazard window.
But this afternoon, standing opposite the Going Guard, this structural defect was forcefully magnified ten-thousand-fold. The flagship's raw destructive output, speed parameters, and locomotive fluidity cleanly outclassed the engine of myth across all tactical vectors.
Far out across the distant sea horizon, a minuscule black speck gradually materialized within the currents.
Optimizing the visual telemetry, the speck resolved into a solitary individual. The biological asset was clad in a crisp, black combat tunic, his gaze projecting a lethal, razor-sharp focus that sundered the air.
The Gorosei!
The incoming powerhouse was none other than the bald Elder who had specially deployed from the Holy Land of Mary Geoise.
At this current fraction of a microsecond, the bald Elder stood completely paralyzed, his eyes locked onto the cataclysmic war sundering the distant waters. The exact millisecond Pluton had initially crashed through the coastline to enter the deep ocean channels, his surveillance arrays had firmly established a lock.
Seeing the legendary Ancient Weapon successfully awaken, an incandescent surge of pure euphoria had initialized within his chest. Yet the progression of the battlefield had rewritten its parameters far too rapidly.
Before the proud smirk could even cleanly settle across his features, the Going Guard had smoothly cleared the clouds, delivering a monumental, crushing blow that hammered square into Pluton's framework, causing the entire sea channel to violently shudder under the kinetic weight.
The Elder's expression instantaneously froze solid.
Exactly what classification of humanoid entity was that cybernetic machine? To think it could single-handedly pin the ancient weapon down and ruthlessly pulverize its mass was a reality his calculations had entirely failed to simulate.
For a reality-bending masterpiece of this tier to exist upon this planet—could it be the output of a Devil Fruit ability?
Exactly what fruit could generate this layout?
He was granted zero resource margin to waste on the riddle. In a fraction of a heartbeat, Pluton's optimized manifest sundered completely, violently degrading into a heavily dilapidated, half-shattered wreck of broken metal.
Precisely—it was thoroughly half-ruined.
Every single kinetic strike unleashed by the humanoid Going Guard archived an immensely tyrannical volume of pure force. Compounded by continuous spatial warps, it initialized a brutal, one-sided sequence of absolute liquidation.
Within an exceptionally compressed timeline, Pluton was hammered into a completely unrecognizable state, its internal drive systems and core structural compartments sustaining an incalculable layer of terminal damage.
Deep within the crumbling decks of the ancient weapon, the white-robed agents scrambled in absolute panic to dodge the cascading debris. Yet at this stage, merely absorbing the residual shockwaves of the Going Guard's offensive output sundered their biological limits.
A massive registry of elite CP0 operatives had already sustained severe, bleeding trauma simply from being brushed by the peripheral blast vectors.
The moment Pluton's legendary defensive shielding suffered a total structural failure, the discipline of the Cipher Pol vanguard completely dissolved into a rout.
Granted, their individual combat mass was far from weak, but facing the synchronized power of Drake and the humanoid Going Guard, their existence differed very little from common ants.
By this hour, the world-shaking update verifying Pluton's resurrection had successfully saturated every single sea quadrant of the planet, striking a chord of primitive horror across the hearts of countless populations.
The legendary engine of destruction—recorded across the sagas as a force commanding sufficient mass to level a sovereign land mass with a single discharge—had officially re-entered the global grid, firmly integrated into the inventory of the World Government.
Throughout the expanses of the Grand Line, the pirate armadas found their internal confidence severely fractured. For the supreme architects of the global regime to secure a world-ending weapon of this caliber was an piece of intelligence that offered absolute zero comfort to their voyages.
The World Government would inevitably weaponize Pluton's cataclysmic output to execute a total, unrestricted crusade to systematically wipe the pirate fleets from the sea.
Permanently closing the ledger on the Great Pirate Era.
Setting the lawless factions aside, even ordinary civilian populations harbored a profound dread regarding the paradigm shift. After all, when an authoritarian regime successfully locks down an absolute monopoly on a force that can destroy the world, no sensible mind can look upon the timeline with a single fraction of joy.
BOOM!
Suddenly, a thunderous kinetic boom erupted across the ocean surface, a black silhouette rapidly expanding within the tracking arrays of the vanguard.
"What variable has breached our sector?" Luffy and the others questioned, their focus tightening as the speck closed the distance at high velocity.
The silhouette optimized within a fraction of a breath, and the bald Elder materialized directly before their perimeter.
"The Gorosei!" Mitian's pupils executed a violent contraction. She naturally recognized the incoming asset—was it not one of the five supreme sovereigns who permanently anchored the absolute apex of governance within the Holy Land of Mary Geoise?
What operational necessity had driven his vessel to clear the borders of Mary Geoise to anchor this coordinate?
Throughout the entirety of her military career, her intelligence databases had never archived a single rumor tracking a member of the Gorosei vacating the Holy Land.
Evaluating that specific protocol, her mind had consistently logged data assuming the five sovereigns were structurally restricted from ever leaving Mary Geoise.
Yet looking upon the bald Elder anchoring this sector this afternoon, her internal thoughts were choked by a profound wave of severe shock—though the absolute anchor driving her astonishment was the reality that the Elder was seamlessly navigating the open sky currents utilizing raw, physical locomotion.
The specific technique he deployed was explicitly one of the standard forms of the Marine Rokushiki—Moonwalk.
Had the performance been restricted to standard Moonwalk parameters, an advanced officer of Mitian's caliber would have mathematically refused to project this depth of surprise. Yet the absolute velocity and kinetic pressure generated by the Elder's strides completely sundered her foundational understanding of the technique.
That performance was light-years removed from a baseline Rokushiki form.
The raw physical mass commanded by this old relic is exceptionally deep!
This was the definitive, absolute premise that materialized across the collective consciousness of the crew. Facing the data, even an individual as unbothered as Luffy felt his combat networks violently light up with a fanatical desire to deploy.
His personal focus had been starved of raw action for far too long.
"This newcomer logs as a hostile asset as well, right? Let my vanguard claim his line!" Luffy roared, smashing his fists together as a proud, sweeping grin split his features, fully primed to vault out into the melee.
"Hold your vector, Luffy! Do not permit your impulses to fracture our strategy. That individual represents the absolute highest authority ruling the World Government—one of the Gorosei. Exactly what strategic variables explain his presence at this coordinate..." Sabo intervened, placing a firm arm across Luffy's chest to freeze his acceleration, his eyes narrowed into a deep, calculating focus as he analyzed the approaching titan.
"One of the Gorosei?!" The companions muttered in absolute awe, staring blankly at the black-robed figure whose physical frame was actively radiating a dense, hyper-explosive expansion of muscle mass.
Merely parsing his external biometric signatures sundered any doubt that this old man wielded a truly terrifying tier of physical strength.
Amidst the collective shock of the bridge, the Elder breached the absolute perimeter of the flagship. Yet while the Elder's physical vessel stood fully unsealed within the tracking arrays of Luffy's group—
The bald Elder possessed absolute zero visual data regarding the interior layout of the Going Guard, completely blind to the presence of the vanguard.
This was the reality-bending engineering native to the flagship; the sheer perfection of the cloaking matrix left even Luffy's seasoned crew experiencing a wave of profound admiration.
"Exactly what manner of anomalous construct are you?!" The Elder roared as he closed the distance. Waiving a single microsecond of diplomatic preface, he unleashed a brutal, high-velocity spinning crescent kick.
KABOOM!
The kick connected flush against the armored crown of the Going Guard, the monumental kinetic weight forcing the mecha's head to tilt violently to the flank.
The raw physical weight behind the impact rippled through the flagship's exterior field to detonate a colossal wave across the ocean surface, wind currents howling frantically through the airspace.
This metric vividly demonstrated that the Elder's offensive output was exceptionally deep.
The optical nodes of the Going Guard suddenly flashed with a lethal, blinding light. The mecha smoothly compressed its arm into a rigid block, driving a hyper-dense fist straight toward the bald Elder's coordinate.
Yet the Elder's physical vessel vanished from the tracking line in a fraction of a millisecond, seamlessly weaving out of the path of the punch.
Inside the core command pocket, Drake's eyes narrowed into a razor-sharp slit. This old relic genuinely desires to show off his mechanical footwork before my eyes, huh.
In the very next microsecond, the humanoid configuration of the Going Guard vanished from the spatial grid entirely. The bald Elder re-materialized across the sky currents, only for the gargantuan mecha to seamlessly execute a warp jump to lock its coordinates directly behind his spine.
The Elder initiated another rapid displacement, yet Drake's reaction speed was light-years faster.
When it came to navigating absolute spatial locomotion, Drake had historically never logged a single trace of fear opposite any entity on the planet. A monumental, armored boot descended from the absolute apex of the heavens, hammering down with cataclysmic weight straight onto the Elder's frame.
KABOOM!!
Interwoven with dense ripples of localized spatial distortions, Drake drove 100% of his physical mass into the blow. This strike archived the absolute, maximum performance ceiling of the Going Guard's mechanical output.
The open airspace felt as though it had permanently frozen solid, the entire civilized world executing a profound shudder. Below the heel, the bald Elder's eyes snapped wide into absolute, trembling circles, an unbridled torrent of fresh crimson spraying violently from his lips.
"Exactly... exactly what tier of cataclysmic force is this?!"