"This..." Aokiji directly fell into deep thought. Looking at it this way, Vice Admiral Garp had always been like that too.
His persistent refusal to become a Marine Admiral—wasn't it precisely because of that kind of constraint?
Once promoted to Marine Admiral, they would become the direct subordinates of the Celestial Dragons, forced to carry out their bidding despite knowing full well what kind of wretched scum they were.
Not a single one of them liked that feeling.
The difference was that none of them reacted as violently as Garp. Becoming a Marine Admiral meant that even if he temporarily lost his freedom of choice, he still enjoyed a considerable amount of autonomy relative to others.
Facing the Celestial Dragons was merely an occasional nuisance; for the vast majority of their time, they were supreme, highly respected Marine Admirals!
As for the others who bore the name 'D' across the vast ocean, they all shared a distinct, unifying trait: they possessed immense ambition and unyielding steel.
No, it would be more accurate to call it a dream.
They were all the kind of stubborn fools who, once they locked onto a path, threw everything else to the wind and charged forward without looking back.
Blackbeard had been like that in his own dark way, and now Straw Hat Luffy was the exact same.
And then there was Dragon of the Revolutionary Army. One by one, they were using their own formidable power to forcefully alter the trajectory of the entire world.
This... was the true power of 'D'...
"Why are you telling me all this?" Aokiji asked in a low, raspy tone.
"Bwahahaha, no particular reason. Since you have no chance of escaping anyway, I simply thought I'd find a little amusement in you," Im let out a soft laugh.
"You might as well abandon those unrealistic fantasies of yours. After today, the Revolutionary Army will cease to exist. I've heard a few passing rumors about this turbulent New Era you all speak of."
"A bunch of troublesome brats playing house; it's time for them to wake up. Certain dreams were mathematically impossible to achieve from the very beginning... Nhn-hn-hn-hn..."
"You..." Aokiji gritted his teeth, yet he formulated no verbal refutation—because he understood the sheer, terrifying depth of the strength possessed by the figure before him all too well.
It was a power completely beyond the capacity of ordinary mortals to oppose. Even if the three Admirals gathered to form a unified front, he was virtually certain they would stand absolute zero chance against this monster.
What was even more terrifying was that he had zero data tracking the true extent of this entity's full power.
The force deployed against him during their previous encounter might not have even represented a fraction of his true capabilities!
Every time his thoughts crossed that reality, a cold shudder ran down Aokiji's spine.
How could a figure this terrifying possibly exist in this world? He had served as a Marine Admiral for many years and possessed an intimate understanding of almost every top-tier combat asset across the globe.
Yet the figure standing before him had completely shattered the baseline knowledge he had cultivated over decades. The single strike Im had unleashed that day remained vividly etched in his memory.
On that afternoon, Aokiji had intended to wage a desperate, all-out struggle, mobilizing his sub-zero ice powers to force an exit vector. The Four Elders frantically attempting to freeze his progress wouldn't have been fast enough to lock him down.
Yet right at that critical microsecond, Im had materialized directly before his coordinates. With merely a single hand, he had rendered Aokiji completely defenseless, forcing a massive spray of fresh crimson from his lips.
A single strike had inflicted critical, life-threatening trauma.
Before the heavily wounded Aokiji could coordinate a subsequent movement, the Four Elders had closed the distance to jointly subdue his frame.
"Bwahahaha, eight hundred years... It has been a very long time since I've spoken this many words. It is quite rare to have someone by my side to pass the time today." Im casually seated himself in a chair set off to the side.
This specific seat had been custom-crafted by the Five Elders explicitly for him.
Its original purpose had been to oversee the interrogation regarding Aokiji's true motives for infiltrating the Holy Land of Mary Geoise.
Ultimately, they had failed to extract a single shred of useful intelligence from Aokiji's lips, a result that Im allocated absolute zero concern toward.
After all, the core variables boiled down to the exact same predictable topics:
The hidden, classified secrets of the World Government, the truth behind the 'D', and the deep-seated darkness embedded within the regime.
He naturally harbored absolute zero care for such mundane matters. To an entity of his tier, they were nothing more than completely trivial, irrelevant details.
Casting a brief glance at the silent, unmoving Aokiji, Im casually swept his black-robed hand through the air. A brilliant, translucent light screen instantly materialized out of thin air.
"Let us sit back and comfortably enjoy this grand feast signaling the absolute end of the New Era." Im crossed one leg over the other, resting his forearms comfortably against the armrests of the chair, looking thoroughly relaxed.
In that brief microsecond, a stray glint of light illuminated a fraction of Im's features, causing Aokiji's pupils to violently contract.
Though the visual was remarkably faint and blurred, he could verify one mind-boggling detail with absolute certainty: Im's facial features looked astonishingly young!
Cross-referencing his earlier statements about "eight hundred years," Aokiji had naturally assumed Im would be an ancient, withered old man whose life metrics were near total failure.
Yet the visual data he had just glimpsed was far from the face of an old man.
Before he could process the anomaly, a high-pitched, piercing bird cry echoed through the quiet chamber, snapping Aokiji back to reality as his focus locked onto the glowing light screen before him.
Only then did he comprehend the authentic meaning behind Im's words—it was truly a grand feast...
Because the visual feed displayed across the light screen mapped the exterior battlefield: the colossal military deployment managed by the World Government, and the gargantuan cybernetic bird charging straight toward their lines.
This was undeniably the live theater of the impending global war.
What is going on here? Why would a light screen materialize out of thin air at this coordinate?!
Aokiji was thoroughly astonished to note that there was absolute zero trace of a visual Transponder Snail anywhere in the room. This verified that the projection was mathematically decoupled from a standard video Transponder Snail array.
Before long, his focus was completely absorbed by the live visual feed. In this subterranean chamber, he had previously been unable to intercept even a single fraction of acoustic data from the surface.
Yet now, he could track the live parameters with absolute clarity, as if he were personally standing on the front lines.
There anchored the Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Army—Monkey D. Dragon!
Aokiji's gaze rapidly locked onto the tall silhouette standing aboard the gargantuan cybernetic bird—clad in a deep green cloak, his face preserving that eternal, utterly calm demeanor that refused to register a single ripple of emotion.
It was only at this exact milestone that Aokiji genuinely accepted the reality that an apocalyptic, world-shaking war between the Revolutionary Army and the World Government was erupting in full force.
The light screen provided an unobstructed, crystal-clear view of the strategic balance between both factions. The immersion was so absolute that even the ambient battle cries and wind currents echoed vividly through the chamber.
Evaluating the active numerical metrics, the Revolutionary Army trailed significantly in total personnel mass. Because their forces were required to scale the sheer, vertical precipices of the Red Line, the volume of subversives capable of reaching the summit remained strictly limited.
Furthermore, the World Government was granting them absolute zero strategic leeway. Their military mass had completely saturated the central plaza, whereas the Revolutionary Army's frontline assets atop the plateau numbered merely around ten thousand.
Although additional resistance units were continuously pushing up the cliffs, the World Government had already executed counter-measures, making further ascension a grueling, near-impossible task.
"What is your evaluation?" Im suddenly inquired, his tone completely detached.
"As a former Marine Admiral, which faction do your personal inclinations wish to see claim the ultimate victory?"
"On one flank anchor your former comrades, with whom you shared decades of service; on the opposing flank stands the Revolutionary Army, seeking to enforce a total paradigm shift upon the world. Setting aside who is right and who is wrong for a moment..."
"Strictly speaking from a personal standpoint, which side do you hope wins?" Im turned a mildly amused glance toward Aokiji.
"Though the Revolutionary Army boasts a significant registry of elite powerhouses, relying on a mere ten-thousand-man vanguard to defeat the combined, unrestricted military mass of the Navy and the Cipher Pol shadow wings yields a winning percentage that resolves to practically zero," Aokiji stated flatly.
"You are truly adept at deflecting the core question. Though I assumed you would refuse to articulate a direct answer anyway. It is far from too late to finalize your judgment after taking a look at this." With those words, Im casually waved his hand once more.
The visual feed across the light screen shifted abruptly, slowly panning downward from the architectural spires of the Holy Land.
A gargantuan, sky-scraping wall of solid red stone that seemed to divide the entire world filled the display. As the camera array rapidly zoomed out to expand the field of view, the details became startlingly clear to Aokiji's eyes.
People!
A dense, endless sea of human silhouettes! The oceanic expanses and surrounding islands encircling the base of the Red Line were practically overflowing with personnel.
A significant portion of these forces were actively engaged in intense skirmishes, yet a single sweep of the eye verified that virtually every single one of them wore matching grey coats.
The Revolutionary Army!
The Navy's presence down below was sparse by comparison.
The total personnel mass commanded by the Revolutionary Army at the base was thoroughly staggering. A swift, conservative calculation from Aokiji projected that their ground numbers cleared the three-hundred-thousand mark at a bare minimum!