"What—?!"
Cracker's advance ground to a sudden halt, his face twisting into a mask of shock and fury as he stared at his two Biscuit Soldiers, cleanly severed at the waist without having made a single sound.
Though he knew he was facing a Great Swordsman, the sheer speed and lethal sharpness of that blade was utterly terrifying!
Before he could even process the shock, Oliver was already upon him. The gleaming steel of his blade caught the midday sun, flashing blindingly as it came down in a brutal overhead slash aimed squarely for Cracker's skull, driving a fierce, whistling gale before it.
Even before the edge made contact, the suffocating pressure made it feel as though the very atmosphere was being sliced in two!
"Pretzel Light Flash!!!"
A feral, ruthless expression erupted on Cracker's face. Instead of retreating, he lunged forward, a visible ripple of shockwaves distorting the air around his greatsword as he thrust it forward with devastating power.
Clang—!
The crisp, deafening screech of clashing steel sent a violent shudder through the atmosphere.
In the next instant, a cataclysmic shockwave exploded outward like a howling gale. Roaring with the force of a thousand charging stallions, the tempest swept across the sky and earth, instantly blowing away the dense curtains of dust and sand that choked the battlefield.
"Kuhahaha—!"
"What an absolutely magnificent clash!"
Crocodile's mocking, booming laughter echoed from somewhere deep within the pursuing sand tornado.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
A rapid-fire volley of metallic collisions rang out, throwing brilliant showers of sparks into the air. Oliver and Cracker blurred into twin streaks of black shadow, locked in a ferocious, high-speed exchange of strikes and parries.
Hearing Crocodile's voice close in from behind made Cracker grow increasingly desperate, forcing him to push his swordplay to a frantic, breakneck velocity.
"You bastard! Get the hell out of my way!"
"You're dying right here, Cracker! Two Sword Style: Garuda Slash!!!"
A colossal, crescent wave of sword-light erupted from Oliver's blades. The energy took the shape of a monstrous, mythical bird, shearing through the air with a piercing, high-pitched screech that sounded exactly like the cry of a predatory beast.
Boom—!
The terrifying energy tore a massive chasm into the earth, cutting clean through Tail Island before blasting out into the open sea. Of the dozens of ships anchored off the coast, seven or eight were instantly obliterated by the stray energy...
And then, the sea split open!
A bottomless, jagged rift tore from the island's coastline straight into the horizon, cleaving the ocean completely in two and creating a sheer, abyssal trench between the parted waters.
Witnessing this cataclysmic display of power, countless pirates looked as though they had been choked by the throat, unable to squeeze out a single sound.
"He... he tore the earth with a single strike, and split the sea with a single slash..."
Raisin stared with absolute horror at the ocean waters, which took a long, agonizing moment to slowly churn back together. The sheer shock in his chest was beyond words, leaving him to stammer out in a trembling groan: "A... a Great... Great Swordsman!!!"
As a man of the blade himself, Raisin knew exactly what that pinnacle of swordsmanship represented.
"Oliver! It has to be Oliver! In the entire Chris Pirates, he's the only one capable of such monstrous swordsmanship!" Opera cried out in sheer panic.
Right then, out on the waters surrounding Tail Island, a fleet of over a dozen black, wolf-headed warships emerged into everyone's view. Flying from their mainmasts was a skull flanked by golden rings, swords, and daggers, the unmistakable banner of the Chris Pirates.
Furthermore, every single one of these black wolf-headed vessels was a massive, hundred-meter-long sail-and-steam hybrid ship of the line. Their decks featured three towering masts, their hulls were reinforced with thick steel armor plating, and their bows sported triple-gun turrets with a caliber easily exceeding three hundred millimeters. The standard dessert-themed tart ships of the Big Mom Pirates couldn't even begin to compare.
Immediately after, a sequence of deep, muffled booms reverberated across the water as conical shells were launched from the 305mm naval artillery pieces, raining down squarely upon the Big Mom Pirates' grand fleet.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Earth-shattering explosions rocked the sea, churning the water into towering, thirty-meter waves. One tart ship after another blew apart and capsized, sending thick, rolling columns of black smoke billowing into the sky.
Against such firepower, a single artillery shell was more than enough to completely punch through and sink a minor tart ship. Even their larger subsidiary pirate vessels, which were mostly traditional wooden sailing ships, were either instantly sent to the bottom or left heavily crippled by a single impact, completely stripping them of any chance of a quick escape.
"Retreat! We have to retreat right now!" Galette shrieked in terror. "Our ships are completely outmatched! If we stay here, our entire fleet will be wiped out!"
"Have Amande and Baron Tamago bring the main ships closer to the coast to pick us up!" Raisin barked, grabbing Galette by the arm as he quickly issued commands. "Also, order Counter, Cadenza, and Cabaletta to take command of all remaining tart ships and do everything they can to hold back the Chris Pirates' fleet!"
"I-I understand!" Galette nodded frantically, her face pale with tension.
On the other side of the naval engagement, the Fish-man Nando was commanding his sixteen steel-clad battleships to relentlessly hammer the Big Mom Pirates' formation.
As the Chief Shipwright of the Clifford Kingdom, every single one of these vessels had been personally designed and engineered by Nando himself, with only the advanced weapon systems being credited to Dr. Vade.
Fierce firepower, impenetrable armor, and breakneck speed... even as mass-produced models, these ships held a distinct edge over standard Marine battleships. When it came to pure artillery performance, even the Marine headquarters' top-tier vessels fell short.
"Their formation is shifting. Are they trying to pull close to the island to extract their forces...?"
Standing atop the deck of the largest wolf-headed flagship, Nando peered through his brass spyglass, meticulously tracking every movement of the Big Mom Pirates' fleet.
He watched as dozens of tart ships, typically used for scouting and support, began surging forward in a desperate wave, attempting to form a sacrificial blockade to stall the advance of the Chris Pirates' fleet.
Meanwhile, the remaining capital ships belonging to Big Mom's high-ranking officers and their primary subsidiary captains were breaking away toward the shores of Tail Island, frantically preparing to pull their land forces off the beach.
"Nando-sama, Captain Oliver has already made landfall on the island. Should we press the advantage and completely break the Big Mom Pirates' fleet?" A burly, heavily muscled man stepped forward. He carried a broadsword as wide as a man's palm, a bloodthirsty grin plastered across his face.
"Mosa, let the Fish-man brothers deploy. Let's speed up the destruction of their vanguard!" Nando nodded, looking at the man who served as the Vice-Commander of the First Division.
Moments later, blood-curdling battle cries and wild, predatory howling erupted from the decks of the various ironclad warships.
"Hahaha! It's finally our turn!"
"Let's show Captain Aeridar what us Fish-men are truly capable of!"
"Oooh—! Slaughter the Big Mom Pirates' scum!"
"..."
Across the decks of the fleet, rows of Fish-men flashed ferocious, bloodthirsty grins. Brandishing swords, sabers, spears, and tridents, they dove headfirst into the churning ocean waters.
At that moment, the forces commanding the defensive line of tart ships were the three Counter brothers, the 6th, 7th, and 8th sons of the Charlotte Family, born as part of a set of quintuplets alongside Opera.
The three brothers possessed formidable individual combat strength, each easily on par with New World pirates sporting hundred-million Berry bounties. However, when faced with an underwater assault spearheaded by an entire legion of Fish-men, their standard land-based martial arts were rendered completely useless.
The dozens of tart ships were already struggling to contain the heavy artillery fire of the ironclad fleet. Now, with hundreds of Fish-men boring holes through their hulls from the depths below, their defensive line collapsed into absolute chaos in a matter of minutes.
One by one, the colorful tart ships began to list heavily, sinking into the dark ocean waters as a steady stream of corpses floated to the surface, dyeing the immediate sea a deep, brilliant crimson.
In the water, Fish-men possessed an absolute, biological supremacy; standard human warriors stood zero chance against them in the deep.
"Damn Fish-man bastards!"
"I'm going to slaughter every single one of you rotten fish!"
Furious roars echoed from the decks of the three primary officer ships, accompanied by violent surges of Armament Haki that rippled across the decks.
Counter and Cadenza were both massive, heavily bearded powerhouses. Counter wore a vibrant purple coat, while Cadenza sported a distinctive black-and-purple striped outfit topped with a matching hat.
Both brothers were exceptional shock-troopers who possessed highly refined Armament Haki. Any Fish-man who attempted to swarm over the bulwarks of their officer ships was instantly met with a bone-shattering punch that sent them spitting blood as they crashed backward into the sea, unable to rise again.
Simultaneously, Cabaletta, a burly, bearded man clad in a tight yellow bodysuit, proved to be an equally terrifying threat. In addition to his immense physical strength, his raw speed was exceptional; many of the attacking Fish-men were blasted off the deck before they could even register his silhouette.
Unfortunately, the individual martial prowess of these three brothers did very little to alter the grand scale of the engagement. As the primary flagships of the defensive line, the three officer ships they commanded were naturally targeted by the bulk of the Fish-man saboteurs below. With their hulls thoroughly breached, the massive vessels began to slowly settle into the water, tilting toward their graves.
The total collapse of the Big Mom Pirates' vanguard was now completely irreversible!