Pangu City — Hall of Power
The mirror-smooth marble floor reflected the magnificent murals of the domed ceiling above, yet the vast hall itself was steeped in an oppressive, suffocating silence.
The remaining four of the Five Elders—
the Environmental Warrior God, Marcus Mars Saint;the Agricultural Warrior God, Shepherd Ju Peter Saint;the Legal Warrior God, Topman Warcury Saint;and the Financial Warrior God, Ethanbaron V. Nasjuro Saint—
all stared grimly at the image projected in midair by a special visual Den Den Mushi.
Within the image, Jaygarcia Saturn Saint, transformed into a colossal Ushi-Oni, was being mercilessly crushed at the center of a vast crater by the gigantic "Heavenquake · Stellar Ring."
Terrifying, high-frequency vibrations and tearing forces relentlessly ground away at his supposedly indestructible awakened beast body.
The regeneration of black mist had clearly fallen behind the rate of destruction. That massive form was becoming visibly shattered—flattened—before the naked eye!
Even through the image, Saturn Saint's agonized roar carried a sense of powerlessness and fury that chilled the air.
As long as he could not break free, this Ushi-Oni—put another way—even if it could not truly die, was nothing more than an endlessly rotating millstone, doomed to be worn down without reprieve.
The sight pushed the expressions of the four Five Elders to their ugliest extreme.
They knew all too well that Saturn Saint, as the Warrior God of Scientific Defense, derived his true strength not from frontal combat, but from his immortality, his bizarre abilities, and his technological might.
Pure, head-on battle had never been his forte.
Among the Five Elders, the one universally acknowledged as the strongest in direct combat—the only one truly adept at it—was the Financial Warrior God, Ethanbaron V. Nasjuro Saint, bearer of the First-Generation Kitetsu.
That Saturn Saint could be suppressed so thoroughly, trapped and repeatedly ground down with no way out… this was something none of them had anticipated.
Just then, standing off to the side in a marshal's coat with a seagull perched atop his hat, Sengoku let out a soft chuckle, breaking the suffocating silence.
"Heh heh… If this keeps up, I'm afraid things won't end well," he said calmly, though a trace of unmistakable amusement slipped into his voice."If the honored Elders permit it, I could go speak with Gern right now… and attempt a 'peace talk.'"
That near-taunting suggestion stabbed into the hearts of the four Five Elders like a sharpened thorn.
They knew exactly what Sengoku was after. This man was blatantly trying to use Gern as leverage—pressuring them through his hands in order to extract greater authority and bargaining power!
And yet, maddeningly enough, they found themselves backed into a corner.
As they looked at Sengoku's smile—outwardly respectful, yet unmistakably distant—their expressions darkened until they looked ready to drip with water, the discomfort akin to having swallowed filth whole.
Ever since Gern Reginald Sigmar, that anomalous rising star within the Navy, had begun his ascent, they had felt it clearly—
the Navy, that massive war machine, was slipping further and further out of their control.
At first, it was Kong. Strong, yes—but still operating within acceptable bounds.
So they had carefully elevated Sengoku instead: the one who seemed the smoothest, the most balanced, the most aligned with the interests of the World Government.
The intent had been twofold—check Gern's growing defiance, and tighten their grip on the Navy.
But now?
Sengoku had changed as well.
The scene before them proved, with cruel clarity, the very maxim they had once used to convince themselves to raise Sengoku to power in order to restrain Gern:
Power is a wonderful thing. No one is ever willing to share it.
Now, that truth had returned like a perfectly aimed boomerang, striking them squarely across the face.
Sengoku had tasted the apex of authority.
He was no longer content to remain a remotely controlled puppet-marshal.
Nor did he wish to "share" that power with them anymore.
And Gern's current upheaval had become the perfect opportunity for Sengoku to bargain.
Ethanbaron V. Nasjuro Saint's hand silently rested upon the hilt of the First-Generation Kitetsu at his waist. A flash of icy killing intent surfaced—then slowly faded as his grip loosened.
Not yet.
The air in the hall seemed frozen solid, filled only with Saturn Saint's unwilling roars and the ceaseless hum of the vibrating stellar ring.
"Buru, buru, buru!"
Suddenly, the sharp ring of a Den Den Mushi shattered the oppressive silence.
Topman Warcury Saint, standing closest, frowned deeply and snatched up the receiver.
Before he could even speak, a voice exploded from the other end—panicked to the brink of distortion, so loud that even the others in the hall could faintly hear it.
"N–No, this is bad! The southern side of the Land of the Gods is under attack! I–It's that Fish-Man adventurer—Fisher Tiger!He… he broke through the weak point in the defenses and is freeing all the slaves! The slaves… the slaves have completely revolted!!!The lords—the Celestial Dragons—there are already casualties! They have nowhere to run!Requesting immediate support from the God's Knights or CP0! Please suppress the rebellion!!!"
Click!
The transmission cut off abruptly, as though the chaos on the other end had grown even worse, forcibly severing communication.
But the report itself hit the four Five Elders like another massive hammer blow.
Their faces instantly shifted from iron-gray to a mixture of disbelief and incandescent fury.
"What?!" Shepherd Ju Peter Saint shouted. "Fisher Tiger?! A mere Fish-Man dares to attack the Holy Land?!"
"Freeing slaves… rebellion… Celestial Dragon casualties…" Marcus Mars Saint repeated the key phrases, each word making his blood pressure spike higher.
To the north, Gern—the Navy's strongest force—had stormed in like a sharpened blade, plunging straight into their heart and suppressing even Saturn Saint's Ushi-Oni form until it could barely resist.
And now, from the south, a Fish-Man had seized the opening and ignited the tinderbox of a slave uprising.
The entire Land of the Gods—the core residence of the World Nobles—had fallen into an unprecedented nightmare: attacked from north and south, beset by enemies without and chaos within!
And most critically of all—
in order to stop Gern, that true tiger, nearly all of the elite forces of the God's Knights and CP0 had been tied down on the northern defensive line.
There was no strength left to spare—none at all—to reinforce the south and deal with Tiger and the rebelling slaves.
Were they really to stand by and watch those lowly slaves run rampant through their "divine land"… even harming the exalted Celestial Dragons?!
Almost instinctively, the four Five Elders' gazes snapped once more toward Sengoku.
At this moment, the only force that could be mobilized quickly—and that possessed the strength to suppress the chaos in the south—was the Navy.
Yet beneath those four gazes, heavy with urgency, command, and last-ditch hope, Sengoku simply… looked away.
As though he had suddenly developed a deep fascination with the murals painted across the domed ceiling.
He even took his time adjusting the seagull hat atop his head, then spoke in a calm, detached tone—one that made it sound like none of this concerned him in the slightest.
"Fisher Tiger…""…has nothing whatsoever to do with the Navy."
The words were light, almost casual—
yet they fell like icy water, extinguishing the last flicker of hope in the Five Elders' eyes.
And with that single sentence, he drew a clear, unmistakable line—between himself, the Navy, and this entire affair.
In that moment, the Five Elders finally understood with absolute clarity:
The Navy—the blade they had once believed to be their sharpest weapon—had completely slipped from their grasp.
And now, its edge was beginning to turn… back toward them.