With several agile leaps and quick maneuvers, Akainu successfully intercepted Squard in a relatively secluded spot.
Squard's expression was slightly solemn, yet without a hint of panic. He stood in a textbook iaido stance, carefully guarding against the threat Akainu posed.
Akainu relaxed his arms at his sides, lowering his stance as much as possible to reduce any show of aggression.
Smiling faintly, he said,
"Great Whirlpool Spider, strictly speaking, you and the Navy are not enemies."
"Your real enemy should be Whitebeard."
Squard gave no reply. Instead, he lowered his body a fraction further, clearly preparing to strike.
Seeing this, Akainu slowly opened both hands, lowering his threatening posture even more.
"Looking at you… you don't seem to hold any resentment toward Ace?"
"Don't forget — it was Ace's father, Roger, who wiped out your former crew!"
"Yet Whitebeard kept Ace's true identity from you all this time, shamelessly using your strength to help rescue him!"
"Don't you think… that's going too far?"
Squard's hand left the hilt of the longsword at his waist and instead gripped the massive cleaver strapped to his back.
The perfectly poised iaido stance for a sudden draw was naturally broken.
His long tongue flicked inside his mouth before he nodded and said,
"It is going too far."
Akainu's heart leapt with satisfaction. He took a step back and shifted his body to the side.
"Then I—"
Before the words were out, a streak of black lightning flashed past his eyes!
It was so fast that even Akainu — who prided himself on overwhelming opponents with sheer speed — almost failed to react in time.
If he hadn't immediately transformed his entire body into magma, that slash wouldn't have merely passed through his magma form… it would have taken his life outright!
To think he had been caught off guard and struck by someone like Squard — a so-called third-rate pirate — Akainu was instantly furious.
"You bastard… you've succeeded in making me angry!"
With a cold growl, the magma covering his body began to boil violently, his presence becoming utterly terrifying.
Yet Squard merely curled his lip in disdain and strode right past him without so much as a glance.
Such blatant disregard made Akainu's fury explode.
His left arm swelled, instantly morphing into a vicious magma hound's head, snapping down toward Squard.
But the moment he exerted force — Akainu finally noticed something was wrong with his body.
He tried to correct himself, but it was far too late.
His upper body split diagonally from chest to abdomen, sliding apart.
In that instant, every scrap of information Akainu knew about Squard flashed through his mind.
A burning question surged within him:
Since when has this man developed his Armament Haki to the point it can harm a fully elementalized body?!
Has Roya's training of his subordinates truly become this terrifying?!
With a heavy crash, half of Akainu's body hit the ice below.
For a Logia user, such a wound was not truly fatal — it would only cost some life force to fuse his halves back together.
But the soul-piercing chill of the ice beneath him completely stripped away his will to fight.
From the strange, low-angled view of his body sprawled on the ice, he watched Squard's figure grow smaller in the distance.
The man's voice lingered in Akainu's ears:
"What you said… I already knew long ago. That's why I swore myself to my Lord's banner — even going so far as to serve as his blade slave!"
"Because I want, one day, to defeat Ace openly, with my full abilities — not just fight him to a draw in hand-to-hand combat. Do you understand?!"
Akainu froze in shock.
Only after a long moment did he lift the magma hound's head and bite into his own thigh, dragging his half-body toward the corner.
This war… he had already lost.
Squard cutting Akainu in two happened in the blink of an eye, so very few noticed. Sengoku, overseeing the battlefield, was one of the few who did.
The astonishment in Sengoku's heart had reached an unprecedented level.
Now, as he watched Roya taking step after step forward, he felt as though each footfall landed on his own chest, making him more and more suffocated.
He tugged hard at his collar to let in more fresh air — only to realize, with a shock, that his loose collar made no difference at all.
At that moment, Roya's half-smiling eyes locked directly with his.
Sengoku's heart skipped a beat, and he instinctively looked away. It was only then he realized — he had already grown so fearful of Roya that he dared not meet his gaze.
When he forced himself to look back, Roya's eyes now held only scorn and contempt.
A violent gust of wind roared past, finally snapping Sengoku out of his tangled thoughts.
Startled, he turned — just in time to see a massive blue-green bird flying past him, heading straight toward the already half-collapsed Marine Headquarters building.
It was Marco the Phoenix, taking the initiative to strike at the recently recovered Aokiji.
Ice and fire clashed in an instant, erupting into a fierce battle!
From Aokiji's left fist, a massive ice bird burst forth, charging straight at Marco's phoenix form.
At the same time, Aokiji exhaled a freezing breath, condensing it into a razor-sharp longsword in his right hand.
He knew well that the blue-green flames surrounding Marco's phoenix form had no burning property — they were pure healing energy.
If his left-hand ice bird could greatly reduce Marco's speed and maneuverability, then Marco would be unable to avoid the ice blade that followed.
Even if it couldn't kill Marco, it would burn through his regeneration and force him off the battlefield.
Aokiji swung his right arm — the ice blade following close behind the ice bird.
But unexpectedly, Marco — who had been charging in at full speed — suddenly halted in midair.
With a graceful half-spin, he slipped right past the ice bird.
Moreover, beyond his healing flames, a thin golden sheen coated his phoenix form.
Armament Haki!
Armament Haki wrapped around the healing flames of his phoenix form!
With this dual defense of fruit ability and Haki, the ice bird's freezing chill had no effect whatsoever.
The real shock came next — from a dead stop, Marco instantly accelerated back to peak speed!
Having misjudged the situation, Aokiji found it far too late to change tactics.
Marco's talons — massive bird claws formed from his transformed legs — came crashing down toward Aokiji's head and chest!
Phoenix Talons!
With a thunderous crash, Aokiji — who had just crawled out of the rubble — was instantly driven back into it under Marco's overwhelming blow.
Seconds later, a phoenix wreathed in blue-green flames laced with golden light shot skyward from the debris.
Another of the Navy's Admirals… defeated.
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