"Could it be because Lord Jack was not even worth mentioning?"
The moment that thought appeared, a thunderous crash exploded across the deck.
It was the sound of flesh slamming into steel.
The bat-winged man who had been trembling a second ago suddenly had his head seized by a hand thicker than his waist.
Jack's enormous body had not even fully risen. Sitting there, he merely lifted one arm and hoisted the man into the air.
"L-Lord Jack..."
The bat-winged man's limbs struggled uselessly, and a broken plea squeezed from his throat.
"Not worth mentioning?"
Jack's metal jaw reflected the cold daylight, and his voice sounded as though it had been forced out from between his teeth.
"Are you saying that I, Jack the Drought, am not even worth being mentioned by that Marine trash?"
Crack!
A crisp sound of breaking bone rang out.
There was no scream, because the man's vocal cords and neck bones were crushed at the same time.
Blood dripped through Jack's fingers, pooling red across the deck.
With a casual swing, he flung the corpse away like a torn sack. It slammed into the mast, then slid limply down.
The deck instantly fell silent.
Every pirate froze where they stood, even holding their breath instinctively, afraid that they would be the next one to have their head crushed.
Jack's chest rose and fell violently. Hot breath poured from his nostrils like two streams of white steam.
The faxed photograph had been crumpled into a ball of wastepaper in his fist.
A Marine who had appeared out of nowhere had not only killed members of the Beasts Pirates and destroyed one of their gathering points, but had even ignored him, one of the Three Calamities stationed nearby, and directly issued a challenge to Lord Kaido.
This was not simple provocation.
It was naked disregard.
A contempt carved straight into the bone!
"Men!"
Jack suddenly stood up, his mountain-like figure casting a shadow over half the deck. His roar drowned out the sound of the waves.
"Full speed ahead! Target, Oles Island's sea route!"
His blood-red eyes swept across the deck, filled with violent madness.
"Find that bastard Zaraki! Search every island between Oles and the New World entrance! Tear through every stretch of sea if you have to! I'm going to personally twist off his limbs one by one, then hang his head from the bow and show him who... is really not worth mentioning!"
"ROAR!"
The pirates' suppressed emotions erupted all at once, and they let out beast-like howls.
The mammoth-headed ship suddenly turned, leading the massive fleet behind it like a herd of enraged steel beasts, crushing forward through the sea.
...
At the same time, Marine Headquarters, Marineford.
Inside the meeting room beside the Fleet Admiral's office, the atmosphere was suffocating.
Around the oval conference table sat the core officers of the Marines.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku the Buddha, Great Staff Officer Tsuru, Admiral Sakazuki, and several Marine Headquarters Vice Admirals were present. Sunlight streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, yet it did nothing to ease the tension in the room.
At the center of the conference table lay a piece of top-secret intelligence that had just been sent back from the front line.
An aerial photograph, along with a few short lines of text.
In the photo, the central district of an island had been carved open by a long trench.
The cut was so clean that even through the blurry image, everyone could see just how terrifying the force behind it had been.
"According to the description given by the sole survivor on Oles Island, as well as the analysis of the residual energy at the scene..."
The Vice Admiral in charge of the intelligence report had a dry voice.
His Adam's apple moved with difficulty.
"We can confirm that this was caused by War Demon Zaraki using..."
He swallowed.
"A single slash."
Those words placed a heavy pressure on everyone in the meeting room.
Everyone present was powerful in their own right.
They knew very well what it meant to carve through an island district like that with a sword.
That was not ordinary destructive power anymore.
And the one who had done it was one of their own Marines—an unstable special envoy under Headquarters observation, a young monster whose official status was still tangled in politics, evaluations, and the Five Elders' watchful eyes.
"Hmph. What a grand display."
The one who broke the silence was Sakazuki, his voice low and heavy like flowing magma.
He crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, his gaze cutting toward Sengoku at the head of the table like a blade.
"Is this your plan, Fleet Admiral Sengoku?"
From the beginning, Sakazuki had been suspicious of this young combatant who had seemingly dropped from the sky.
Too young and too mysterious.
And growing far too strong, far too quickly.
Now, it seemed this combat power had already gone out of control and become a bomb that could explode at any moment.
"My plan?"
The veins at Sengoku's temples throbbed.
"I only sent him along the first half of the New World route to invite a candidate for the Seven Warlords!"
"Who the hell could have predicted that he would run into the Beasts Pirates' territory, carve open their island district with one slash, and call out Kaido by name?!"
The Fleet Admiral's furious roar echoed through the conference room, making the teacups hum.
The Vice Admirals present fell silent, their faces full of astonishment.
What?
This was not the Fleet Admiral's order?
They had thought this was some secret operation meant to pressure a Four Emperor's network.
They had not expected it to be nothing more than Zaraki acting entirely on his own again.
"I'm afraid the situation is even more troublesome than simply challenging Kaido."
Vice Admiral Tsuru, who had remained silent until now, swept her eyes across the room with a gaze that seemed able to see through everything.
Then she slowly pushed another piece of intelligence to the center of the table.
"This is the latest report. After Fire Fist Ace failed to challenge Whitebeard, Whitebeard himself forcibly kept him aboard his ship. Edward Newgate seems to be... very fond of that young man."
Everyone frowned more deeply.
Whitebeard and Ace?
What did that have to do with Zaraki?
"Staff Officer Tsuru, the current problem is that lunatic Zaraki..." Sakazuki began impatiently.
"The problem is exactly there, Sakazuki."
Tsuru interrupted him calmly.
"If Zaraki continues on his original route, he will enter Whitebeard's core patrol area. And the Five Elders have long been wary of the fact that someone so uncontrollable, and with destructive power Marineford cannot quietly control, has appeared within the Marines."
The air in the meeting room seemed to grow colder.
Everyone present was sharp enough to understand. Tsuru had already made the point clear.
"You mean..."
Sengoku's face darkened instantly.
"They want to kill him with a borrowed knife now?!"
"That is very possible."
Tsuru sighed softly.
"They may 'accidentally' reveal Zaraki's movements to Whitebeard. With that man's personality, do you think he will sit still while a Marine runs wild in his territory? And more importantly..."
Tsuru's gaze grew deeper.
"With Zaraki's personality, what do you think he will do when he meets Whitebeard, the man known as the strongest man in the world?"
An answer surfaced in everyone's minds, making their hearts turn cold.
He would draw his blade.
He might even take the initiative to cut at Whitebeard.
At that point, the conflict would expand from the Beasts Pirates to the Whitebeard Pirates.
It might even ignite two Four Emperor crews at the same time and completely overturn the balance of the world.
"Bastards!"
Sengoku slammed his fist onto the table.
The hard ironwood surface instantly cracked in a spiderweb pattern.
"I've already sent Yamakaji at full speed toward the Alans Sea Region."
Sengoku took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
"Order him to stop Zaraki at all costs before that bastard comes into contact with Whitebeard or Kaido's forces!"
The entire conference room fell into dead silence.
Everyone understood just how difficult that order would be to carry out.
They had to intercept, somewhere on the vast sea, a monster capable of carving open an island district with a single slash, whose movements were unpredictable and whose instincts seemed to pull him toward every disaster on the sea.