Although Charlotte Linlin was so furious that she had almost lost all reason, her Observation Haki still sharply caught a presence no weaker than Shiki's.
"Get out here!"
"Tenman Daijizai Tenjin!"
Charlotte Linlin controlled the Homie named Zeus, using indiscriminate lightning to attack every living thing within a hundred meters.
Under Zeus' attack, the once magnificent palace collapsed, and a figure moved rapidly through the lightning strikes.
"Break!"
The black figure used the remaining structures that had not yet fallen to dodge wildly, while the black blade in his hand easily split apart the lightning descending from the sky.
"That swordsmanship and aura… so sharp. You are Dracule Mihawk, aren't you?"
"You are the one who killed Katakuri!"
At this moment, Charlotte Linlin seemed to have regained a little clarity.
Even though Mihawk had not fully revealed himself, she still recognized him through a few details.
Seeing this, Mihawk, who had been dodging the lightning, no longer hid.
A magnificent sword beam rose from the palace ruins and shot straight toward Zeus.
The moment Charlotte Linlin guessed Mihawk's identity, she had already summoned Zeus back from midair.
"Very good. Newgate! Shiki! Mihawk!"
"You destroyed my dream! I will kill every last one of you!"
An extremely unpleasant sound, terrifying enough to make people's heads feel as if they were splitting apart, came from Charlotte Linlin's mouth.
Cracks appeared one after another across the pillars still standing around her.
But such an attack had no effect on the three who had already been transformed into Seraphim.
Whitebeard raised Murakumogiri in his hand and casually swung it twice.
The power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit gathered at the tip of the blade before cutting into the air.
Rumble!
The two waves of energy collided, whipping up a violent gale strong enough to easily send people flying.
In the next moment, all four of them moved at once.
Shiki flew into the sky, using his ability to continuously roll up all kinds of giant rocks and smash them toward the ground.
The strongest among them, Whitebeard Newgate, held Murakumogiri and engaged Charlotte Linlin in close combat.
Mihawk gripped the black blade Yoru and moved around the edge of the battlefield, preparing to launch an attack on Charlotte Linlin at any time.
Although Charlotte Linlin had already lost one hand, her strength had not dropped much thanks to the power of the Soul-Soul Fruit.
"Maser Cannon: Three Thousand Leagues!"
Charlotte Linlin combined the powers of the three special Homies, Zeus, Prometheus, and Napoleon.
She created a giant mass of concentrated energy, one that vaguely revealed traces of a female form.
From the moment Charlotte Linlin created it, it chased Mihawk relentlessly.
A casual strike from it reduced large numbers of buildings to ruins.
Even with Mihawk's strength, he could not easily face it head-on.
Rumble!
Amid the thunderous sound, Mihawk led the energy body away from the battle area.
Now, only Whitebeard Newgate, Golden Lion Shiki, and the one-armed Charlotte Linlin remained within the battlefield.
"It is hard to imagine that unruly bastards like you two would be turned into battle machines."
"If you had offered your souls to me back then, you would not have ended up like this."
As Charlotte Linlin spoke with emotion, she used the power of her Soul-Soul Fruit, trying to control the corpses of Whitebeard Newgate and Golden Lion Shiki.
"Linlin, kill me."
During the battle, Whitebeard Newgate suddenly uttered an unbelievable sentence.
At the same time, his movements also showed a trace of hesitation.
Boom!
Charlotte Linlin seized that brief opening. Her left arm was covered in dense Armament Haki as she punched Whitebeard Newgate in the chest.
Whitebeard Newgate also seemed to accept his fate and did not resist.
A teeth-grating sound of bones breaking rang out, and Whitebeard's body flew backward like a cannonball.
Golden Lion Shiki, however, seemed to retain no emotion at all. He only mechanically controlled the giant rocks, continuously smashing them into Charlotte Linlin's body.
Charlotte Linlin's tough defense gave her a chance to breathe, and she began searching for an opportunity to knock Golden Lion Shiki out of the sky.
Unfortunately, the power of her Homie Zeus had already been drawn out, so he could no longer provide her with the ability to fly.
Charlotte Linlin could only rely on her own ability to move through the air.
Her movement speed was far inferior to Golden Lion Shiki, who was flying in the sky.
"Lion Earth Coiling!"
Golden Lion Shiki controlled the giant rocks on the ground, forming an enormous lion head that bit toward Charlotte Linlin in midair.
"Shiki, why can't you just die like Whitebeard?!"
Charlotte Linlin was furious.
However, in a place she could not see, Whitebeard Newgate's corpse had begun to change.
His eyes were no longer the same as before. Instead, they flashed with a mechanical red light.
"Severe damage to unit detected. Activating self-destruct sequence."
"Mission execution ongoing. Target individual detected."
In the next moment, Whitebeard Newgate's body, which had originally been hidden in the ruins, suddenly flew into the sky.
Before the lion's giant jaws controlled by Golden Lion could close, he rushed inside.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep…"
The countdown of the self-destruct sequence rang out frantically.
Charlotte Linlin suddenly sensed something capable of seriously threatening her life.
"Get away!"
Charlotte Linlin grabbed the giant rocks inside the lion's head with one hand and hurled them with all her strength at the charging Whitebeard Newgate.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep… Self-destruct sequence activated."
"May justice descend upon this world."
Boom!
The enormous lion head suddenly erupted with countless powerful energy beams.
Then, as if weathered by time itself, the lion head instantly turned into tiny particles of dust.
The huge shock wave sent Golden Lion Shiki, who had no time to dodge, crashing headfirst into a distant mountain.
The energy body chasing Mihawk seemed to sense its own disappearance.
After letting out an unwilling roar, it helplessly turned into light and shadow.
Mihawk stopped his mad sprint, turned around, and ran toward the direction of the explosion.
The scattered energy waves were not a fatal threat to someone of his level.
At the center of the explosion, Whitebeard's massive corpse could no longer be found.
The only thing left was a corpse that seemed to have been severely carbonized.
Crack… crack…
The standing "corpse" made a faint movement. Immediately after, large pieces of skin fell away.
Even after enduring such a terrifying explosion, Charlotte Linlin was still not truly dead.
However, her current state was no different from death.
The metal bomb Vegapunk had added into Whitebeard's body was something he had successfully developed under Raleigh's suggestion. Even though its size was not large, its power was more than a hundred times stronger than a bomb of the same volume.
Golden Lion Shiki controlled his body and flew out from the distant mountain.
He looked at Charlotte Linlin, who had still not truly died.
Mihawk and Shiki drew their weapons at the same time.
Whoosh!
Two figures crossed through Charlotte Linlin's body.
Mihawk's great blade struck Charlotte Linlin's neck, while Shiki's twin swords slashed across Charlotte Linlin's back, cutting deep enough to expose bone.
Thud.
After losing all support, Charlotte Linlin's body collapsed weakly to the ground.
Shiki and Mihawk stood where they were, waiting for the next order.
Not long after, Issho, wearing a specially made gas mask, controlled a chunk of land and flew over from the sky.
As he walked, he could not help drawing in a cold breath.
The scene he could sense before him was nothing short of hell on earth.
Fortunately, Issho was blind and could not see the true scene. Otherwise, he would definitely have nightmares.
Having lost both eyes and relying only on Observation Haki to explore his surroundings, Issho had become the best person to clean up after the battle.
He could only sense one percent of Totto Land's tragic state.
However, the terrain across Whole Cake Island had almost been leveled, and the pits scattered everywhere told him that this battle had certainly been extremely fierce.
"Where is Whitebeard Newgate's Seraphim?"
After landing, Issho sensed that there were only two Seraphim present and felt very curious. He even thought Whitebeard's Seraphim had betrayed them.
Golden Lion Shiki said calmly, as if nothing had happened, "Newgate's Seraphim betrayed us. He deliberately allowed Charlotte Linlin to seriously injure him. Fortunately, Dr. Vegapunk set a self-destruct sequence inside our bodies."
"He and Charlotte Linlin perished together. That explosion just now was caused by him."
Issho nodded half-believingly.
In any case, Charlotte Linlin's corpse was lying here.
His mission could be considered complete.
The Marines could officially announce to the world that another Three Emperors-level pirate had been beheaded by the righteous Marines.
After Issho took Charlotte Linlin's head away, Golden Lion Shiki and Dracule Mihawk silently lifted Charlotte Linlin's body.
This body was still of great use to Vegapunk.
Perhaps before long, a Seraphim combat robot named Charlotte Linlin would appear in the Marines' battle sequence.
...
After a night of fierce battle, the great pirate fleet led by the Red Hair Pirates had seized a large quantity of urgently needed supplies.
They returned to Kilkil Island with all kinds of ammunition and other resources.
This victory filled the great pirate fleet, which had originally lacked confidence, with great certainty.
Some people even developed a blindly optimistic belief that the Marines were nothing special.
However, after returning to Kilkil Island, the members of the Red Hair Pirates shut themselves away instead.
Even when it came time to distribute the supplies, they only sent Lucky Roux out to represent Red-Haired Shanks in collecting their share.
On the Red Force, Red-Haired Shanks, Beckman, and Yasopp all wore grave expressions.
Although they had technically achieved their strategic objective this time, the result was still far from the battle plan they had originally wanted.
The Marines' supplies were indeed important, but compared to an Admiral-level fighter, they seemed less important.
The thing they could not understand most was their failure to find Douglas Barrett.
Even during the second half of the night, when they searched the entire island for Barrett, they still could not find him.
In the end, they could only kill a group of Marines, take the supplies, and leave the island guarded by the Marines.
Borsalino, who arrived late, and Barrett, who appeared from who knew where, led the fleet in a brutal pursuit of several overly greedy pirate ships.
Only after forcibly sinking three pirate ships did they stop.
"Last night, Bulett must have been somewhere on that island. But he was too damn patient!"
Red-Haired Shanks' eyes were somewhat cold.
If they could not kill Barrett even like this, then the high-ranking officers of the Marines would only become more cautious in the future.
Beckman sighed.
"No choice. The Marines must have guessed our intentions. That is why Borsalino arrived so quickly."
Shanks said in disbelief, "That was Bullett. The man did not even listen to Captain Roger. How could he obey a Marine order and hide on the island like that?"
Shanks truly could not understand it.
Because in his memory, Douglas Bullett was a battle maniac.
As long as it involved fighting, he would always be the first to charge forward, even back when they fought the Whitebeard Pirates or the Golden Lion Pirates.
Bullett had always been the first to rush in.
But now, he had actually hidden himself because of a Marine order. That really did not seem like Bullett's style.
Yasopp had never interacted with Bullett, so his focus was different from Shanks'.
He said in a muffled voice, "Captain, Marine soldiers and us are not on the same level at all."
"On the battlefield, disorganized pirates can only be slaughtered one-sidedly. Even though we acted and increased the Marines' casualties, the Marines still withstood our pressure."
Faced with such Marines, Shanks also felt helpless.
Pirates were mud that could not be helped up a wall. He understood that very clearly in his heart.
But he had not expected that even with such a carefully planned operation, once the Marines entered a combat state, they could still turn the situation around.
Marines in battle formation facing disorganized pirates was simply a massacre.
"The Marines are indeed formidable. We all know that."
"However, the Marines' advantage lies in the fact that their weapons, equipment, and training are stronger than ours. Our advantage is our understanding of the New World."
"In the coming period, not only must we train the pirates under us, but we must also spread them across various parts of the New World. We will resist the Marines' offensive by constantly harassing their supply lines."
After Shanks stated his thoughts, the surrounding crew members all expressed agreement.
Since they already knew there was a problem with the Marines' supplies, they had to stretch the Marines' supply lines as much as possible.
Those islands that had once been extremely important had now become optional.
If the Marines wanted to occupy them, then let them occupy as much as they wanted.
After all, the Marines needed to station manpower on those islands in order to maintain control.
Next, what the Red Hair Pirates needed to do was train the pirates under them while also launching attacks on Marine warships transporting supplies.
Blu blu… blu blu…
After a burst of urgent ringing from a Den Den Mushi, Shanks left the meeting room on the ship and returned to his captain's office to answer the call.
Only a few words came from the Den Den Mushi, yet Shanks' expression changed drastically.
"Red-Hair, the Big Mom Pirates have been destroyed by the Marines. Charlotte Linlin has died at the hands of the Marines."
"Next, the Marines' offensive focus will shift toward your side. Transfer your forces as quickly as possible."
After hanging up the Den Den Mushi, a trace of horror appeared in Shanks' eyes.
He had not expected that before his side had achieved a sufficiently important victory…