Magnus and Imu were never going to shake hands and make peace.
The Celestial Dragons were the ultimate evil of this world.
Even pirates who burned, killed, and plundered could not compare to even a fraction of their crimes.
It was not that the pirates' sins could be forgiven.
But compared to what the Celestial Dragons had done over the past eight hundred years, what did pirates, who still had to watch out for being arrested by the Marines, really amount to?
The Marines were justice.
But it was a limited justice, a justice that would never turn against the Celestial Dragons.
And if you never raised your hand against the greatest evil of all, then in the end, that so-called justice was nothing but a joke.
They were close.
Closer.
Hundreds of warships raced across the waters at the edge of the New World. In this world, cannon technology was still primitive, nowhere near the level where you could shoot at enemies more than ten kilometers away.
But if cannons could not do it…
People could.
A massive shadow rose behind Imu. Compared to the other Marine warships, the vessel beneath her feet was larger and broader than the rest.
Besides her, that ship also carried the Five Elders, more than a dozen members of the God Knights, as well as their Supreme Commander and current Captain.
A flaming grimoire appeared in Imu's hand.
"Transform."
The burning book blazed brighter, then twisted and reshaped into a gigantic longbow.
"Accelerate."
Whoosh.
The flaming arrow she drew back crossed over a thousand meters in the blink of an eye, then flew faster and faster, streaking straight toward Magnus's position.
"Replicate."
Just as the arrow was about to descend, Imu whispered again. The single arrow split into countless copies in an instant.
A rain of fire spread out, covering the entire White Wolf Alliance fleet.
"Whoever is struck by my arrows will have forged a contract with me."
Even from more than ten kilometers away, Imu's first move sought to make Magnus's fleet and comrades turn their coats, to make them her slaves.
But as he watched that sky-filling arrow rain, Magnus showed not a hint of fear.
He did not even need to move.
Standing a bit farther back on the prow of his own ship, looking up at the rain of light, a young man in his early twenties bared his teeth in a grin.
"Gurararara, what a spectacle. Leave this level of attack to me."
Newgate had already glimpsed that future with his Observation Haki. If no one stopped it, Imu's strike would cripple more than half of Magnus's fleet.
But it did not matter.
Because he would step in.
A milky white halo gathered in Newgate's hand. At the same time his Conqueror's Haki surged forth, intertwining with the power of the Quake-Quake Fruit.
The current Newgate only lagged behind his future peak in the polish that came from endless battles.
But as the saying went: youth is power.
If his peak-era self had to fight the Newgate of this moment, it was hard to say who would win and who would lose.
Newgate threw his punch.
The sea beneath the White Wolf Alliance fleet seemed to sink several meters under that one blow. A giant crack spread out from Newgate's fist, tearing space itself open in front of the fleet.
"Airquake."
Imu's arrow rain covered a vast area, but after Newgate's punch, a huge tree-like pattern of fractures appeared in the sky above the White Wolf Alliance.
Like the branching roots of some colossal plant, the cracks spread and spread. Newgate's force dug itself deep into the air above both fleets.
Enclosing every flaming arrow Imu had fired.
Boom.
The shattered air turned into a black maw that devoured all the arrows. If it had been a pure hand-to-hand fighter, even pouring out everything they had would not have stopped an arrow rain covering more than a kilometer of sky.
But the Quake-Quake Fruit did not play by those rules.
As the strongest Paramecia in this world, its destructive power stood at the very top of all Devil Fruits.
And when such power was unleashed on such a scale, there was a side effect.
After swallowing Imu's attack, Newgate's Airquake did not weaken. It simply kept rolling forward, spreading toward the World Government fleet.
Until—
"Hmph."
Imu snorted softly, her eyes sharpening. Her Conqueror's Haki erupted, so dense it seemed solid, and in an instant it shattered Newgate's shockwave.
"This little brat is stronger than he was a year ago."
Beside her, Jaygarcia Saturn's gaze was deep.
In the battle on Osgu Island a year ago, Newgate had not been able to fuse the power of the Quake-Quake Fruit with his Conqueror's Haki this smoothly.
At least, not with this kind of ease.
Yet in less than two years, Newgate had become so strong that, aside from Imu herself, there was no one on their side who could easily deal with him one on one.
"A man like that is willing to stand beneath someone else?"
Truly powerful people were always proud.
Conqueror's Haki was never something for those who lived their lives kneeling. If you bowed your head too far, your Haki would stagnate once it reached a certain level.
But that was only if, in your heart, you believed you were bowing.
Take Rocks, for instance.
He knew very well that as long as he stayed beside Magnus, he would never be able to reach his absolute limit. His ambition and Magnus's ambition were different. As long as he fought under Magnus's banner, his Conqueror's Haki would always be held back.
Even now.
Helping Magnus fight the World Government according to Magnus's orders was still, in essence, a kind of submission, a restraint on his own kingly will.
But Magnus had given him a debt he could not ignore.
Years of guidance and teaching. A debt of knowledge and growth that would not be repaid easily. Because of that, he could not turn his blade on Magnus.
Pirates had their own code of honor.
Magnus's kindness was the best lubricant, something Rocks could use to convince himself, something that allowed him to obey and still maintain the burning hunger in his heart, to keep his Conqueror's Haki blazing at its peak.
But even that peak was not Rocks's true limit.
Rocks knew it.
Magnus knew it.
They would have to fight one day.
But that was for later.
Compared to him, Newgate's feelings toward Magnus were much simpler.
To him, Magnus was like his own father.
You would not start disrespecting your parents just because you became an emperor.
It was that pure, uncomplicated bond that meant Newgate never once felt that serving under Magnus was "beneath" him. His Conqueror's Haki never ran into the bottleneck that plagued Rocks.
The fleets had not yet collided.
But the powerhouses aboard them were already taking action.
"I will go first."
Behind Imu, one of the Five Elders, the Mars Elder, Saint Marcus Mars, rose into the air and transformed into a gigantic creature with a bird's head, wings and talons, and a snake's body.
He planned to bypass Magnus at the front and strike at the rear ranks of Magnus's fleet.
This was war.
War was not just about winning or losing. It was about inflicting the maximum possible damage on the enemy's living strength.
And on the open sea—
As a flyer, he was born with an overwhelming advantage.
"No, Marcus Mars, wait."
Suddenly, as if realizing something, Imu spoke up to stop him.
But it was already too late.
Marcus Mars's path took him straight into a dragon thousands of meters long.
"What!?"
Stunned, he stared at the colossal dragon before him. In front of that monster, his own wingspan of a few dozen meters made him no more than an ordinary housefly.
"Barahahaha, surprised?"
A rough voice echoed from the dragon's mouth. The gigantic azure dragon reached out with one claw, casually trying to snatch Marcus Mars out of the sky.
Fortunately, Marcus Mars's movements were nimble enough that he managed to pull away in time. He stabilized himself in the air, his eyes dark and cold as he stared at the dragon.
"Giant King Harald?"
"Barahahaha, that is right. I am here to settle the debt for all the giants of Elbaf who died under your invasions."
Once upon a time, Harald had naively believed that giants and humans could live in harmony. In the end, he learned that even among humans, only a small fraction could truly coexist with his people.
He did not harbor such illusions anymore.
"I will help Magnus topple you, then give this world real equality and freedom."
In the future, a mere six-meter-tall Kaido, after eating the Azure Dragon model of the Fish-Fish Fruit, could turn into a dragon hundreds of meters long.
Harald was ten times Kaido's size.
So after eating the Azure Dragon Fruit that Magnus had given him, the dragon form Harald took on now stretched over five thousand meters from snout to tail.
Just hanging there in the sky, he was a living monument to despair.
"A monster…"
"How are we supposed to fight that…"
"One spit from that thing and our whole ship will sink."
On the Marine ships, even the elite soldiers felt their hearts clench.
The well-trained ones held together.
The conscripts from the member nations… did not.
Their mental defenses were already collapsing.
No one had told them this war involved dragon slaying.
"Marcus Mars, fall back."
Imu's face had turned grim as she looked up at the dragon in the sky. Forget Marcus Mars. Even she found the idea of dealing with such a creature alone troublesome.
Because the dragon Harald had become was clearly not just a showpiece. The power radiating from him was enough to threaten even her.
"Demon Summon."
Although she would have preferred to save her strength for Magnus, Imu knew that if she let Harald rampage freely, their morale would crack long before she and Magnus could settle things.
The immense shadow behind her solidified, finally taking on the form of a giant thousands of meters tall.
"Go. Take him down."
At her command, the giant spawned from Imu's own power gave a silent roar and lunged toward Harald.
"Marcus Mars, you handle support."
"As you command."
What was split off was still only a fragment. Facing an enemy who could threaten even her, Imu did not think some simple summoned giant could win easily.
And the World Government did not have only one flying Devil Fruit user.
"Grindwin."
"…Understood."
The tireless workhorse of CP, no matter how reluctant he was, still spread his wings and took to the air as a gigantic hawk.
After making his contract with Imu, he had gained not only immortality, but also access to power that stood at the very peak of this world.
Just barely, but still.
Yet as his massive form swept forward—
He was stopped almost immediately.
"This way is closed."
Two blades in his hands, his body floating thanks to the Float-Float Fruit, Shiki grinned at him from the air.
"A year ago, I was not your match. Now, things are different."
"Let us see how many moves you can last."
In the battle on Osgu Island a year earlier, Shiki had only just reached the threshold of Admiral level. Facing someone like Grindwin, who barely qualified as a proper Admiral class fighter, had already been tough for him, never mind the others.
But after a year of effort, Shiki knew very clearly that while he still could not beat monsters like Rocks and Newgate…
Taking on Grindwin was no longer a problem.
As for Linlin?
He, the Golden Lion Shiki, did not stoop to competing with mere women.
Another top tier fighter.
Seeing Grindwin intercepted, the remaining Four Elders' faces darkened.
Once, their high-end combat power had dominated the seas. Even if you pooled together every strong fighter in the world, they still would not have matched the World Government's total.
But now—
Once again, they felt Magnus's pressure.
There were too many of them.
On Magnus's side alone, among those they knew of, there were Rocks, Newgate, and Harald, all three standing among the best of the best.
On top of that, the "second batch of trainees," Shiki, had already stepped solidly into Admiral class.
And that was not even counting the "first batch," where there were still people like Lipley and Linlin who had not yet lifted a finger.
The former was manageable.
Even with the talent of a giant, given the giant race's slow growth, at most she would become a top-class pirate, maybe something like an Admiral candidate.
But the latter—
Since her first appearance nine years ago, she had already been called a monster.
Now, sixteen-year-old Charlotte Linlin had reverted to her original size. Her towering eight-meter frame stood out even among Magnus's followers.
Her stunning figure drew cheers from many pirates the moment they saw her.
"It is Lady Linlin!"
"Lady Linlin, please step on me!"
"Lady Linlin, let me have your babies!"
Having grown up around Magnus, Linlin often wandered around the outlying isles of Sphinx, and plenty of pirates had seen her.
To them, she was a girl they had watched grow up.
Not only beautiful, but terrifyingly strong.
If not for Magnus towering above her, those pirates would have called her the Pirate Empress already. For now they had given her a different title.
The Pirate Princess.
If Linlin ever went to sea on her own, she would without a doubt become the true Pirate Empress of this age.
"Old man, hurry up and finish this fight."
Linlin smiled as she looked out over the World Government fleet in the distance.
"I cannot wait to get back and start preparing the victory feast."
(End of Chapter)
[Check Out My P@treon For +20 Extra Chapters On All My Fanfics!!][[email protected]/euridome]
[Thank You For Your Support!]