Chapter 233: The Fortress of Absolute Justice! One Hundred Thousand Elite Troops and the Trembling Marineford
The camera slowly zoomed out, passing through the thick, oppressive lead-gray clouds, revealing the full, magnificent view of Marineford, the entire Marine Headquarters, a giant island shaped like a crescent moon, laid bare before the world.
The sky was overcast with thick clouds, the dim light seemingly signaling the arrival of the apocalypse.
Even the howling sea breeze carried an intensely suffocating aura of slaughter.
There was less than three hours remaining until the public execution of Portgas D. Ace, the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, known as Fire Fist.
On the distant Sabaody Archipelago, the area in front of the giant Den Den Mushi projection screens was already packed with people.
Countless reporters clutching cameras, pirates hiding in the shadows, and anxious civilians all held their breath.
They stared fixedly at the military fortress on the screen, which represented the supreme authority of the World Government.
At this moment, the gears of the entire world seemed to have been pressed with a pause button, ceasing their rotation and quietly awaiting the storm that would surely go down in history.
"Clatter... Clatter..."
Accompanied by the heavy and harsh grinding sound of Sea Stone shackles.
A battered and bruised Portgas D. Ace was escorted step by step up to the execution platform at the highest point of the Marineford plaza by two executioners wielding long-handled blades.
The cold wind blew through his black hair as Ace knelt powerlessly on the execution platform.
He lowered his head, looking down at the massive, imposing military formation that resembled a Great Wall of steel, biting his lip tightly.
There was no fear of the impending death in his eyes.
They were filled only with deep regret and self-reproach for implicating his beloved Pops and all the comrades with whom he had shared life and death.
To face Whitebeard, who reigned supreme over the New World and was known as the "Strongest Man in the World."
The Marine Headquarters had set a net from which there was no escape on the Crescent Moon Bay plaza of Marineford.
They had assembled a full one hundred thousand absolute elite troops, urgently drafted from branches all over the world!
In the waters outside Marineford, fifty heavily armed, massive warships were connected end-to-end, forming a giant semicircular encirclement, standing ready.
Along the plaza's defensive line, countless cold, pitch-black heavy cannons were lined up in a row.
The pitch-black muzzles pointed directly at the sea, ready at any moment to unleash a devastating torrent of steel.
One hundred thousand Marine officers and soldiers, draped in white coats emblazoned with the word "Justice," stood in a forest-like formation, holding various weapons and muskets.
The entire plaza was silent; every elite soldier maintained a high level of restraint, even in the rhythm of their breathing.
All of Marineford was permeated with a nearly suffocating sense of tension.
Below the execution platform, led by powerful Marine Headquarters Vice Admirals like Momonga, Onigumo, and Doberman.
They had grim expressions, their hands resting on their sword hilts, forming a dense and solid second line of defense, like an unbreakable iron wall.
And at the very front of the plaza, the first line facing the sea, stood a few unique figures who seemed out of place compared to the uniform Marine formation around them.
They were the world-renowned "Shichibukai," forcibly summoned by the World Government.
The Worlds Greatest Swordsman, "Hawkeye" Dracule Mihawk, stood with his arms crossed, eyes closed, resting, as if the monstrous killing intent surrounding him had nothing to do with him.
The Pirate Empress Boa Hancock slightly lifted her exquisitely beautiful chin, her expression haughty and cold.
Yet, her beautiful eyes betrayed a hint of distraction.
"Tyrant" Bartholomew Kuma stood in place, expressionless, holding a Bible in his hands, like a cold, soulless machine.
"Moonlight" Gecko Moria stood with his huge belly thrust out, his expression dull.
Beside them, Doflamingo, wearing a pink feather coat, pushed up the red sunglasses on his nose and let out his signature unruly laugh.
"Fufufufu..."
The corners of Doflamingo's mouth curled into a crazy arc, fearing nothing but a world at peace.
"This rampage of the era is truly becoming more and more interesting."
However, just as he was laughing wildly, a piece of information seemed to flash through his mind.
The veins on his forehead twitched, and his eyes instantly turned cold and filled with murderous intent.
Doflamingo gritted his teeth and whispered viciously in a voice only he could hear:
"Crimson Lotus Victor... to dare kill my people..."
"If you dare to appear here, I will make sure you die without a burial place."
Looking further up, sitting on three specially made chairs directly below the execution platform were the three Admirals representing the highest combat power of the Marine Headquarters: "Akainu" Sakazuki, "Aokiji" Kuzan, and "Kizaru" Borsalino.
They simply sat there in various postures.
But the terrifying pressure belonging to top-tier powerhouses was like a stabilizing needle for the sea, as if injecting the strongest stimulant into the one hundred thousand elite Marines present, making the morale of the entire fortress as solid as gold.
At this critical moment, with the eyes of the world upon them.
A top-secret Den Den Mushi in the arms of Fleet Admiral Sengoku on the high execution platform suddenly let out a frantic and urgent "Brrr-brrr" sound.
Sengoku furrowed his brows and turned around calmly.
With his back to the plaza below and the broadcast cameras, he answered the call.
From the receiver came the terrified report from Impel Down Vice Warden Hannyabal, who was weak to the extreme:
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku... Impel Down... Impel Down has fallen!"
"Warden Magellan is seriously injured... The heinous criminals of the Level 6 Infinite Hell have been released..."
"'Crimson Lotus' Victor, the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army, has taken... taken Straw Hat and Sand Crocodile and escaped with a warship!"
The moment he heard this news, Sengoku's pupils suddenly contracted, and the veins on his forehead bulged.
Impel Down had been breached!
Heinous criminals had escaped!
Straw Hat and Crimson Lotus!
Every word was like a heavy hammer, smashing fiercely against his heart.
However, Sengoku took a deep breath.
In front of the broadcast with countless eyes from all over the world.
He relied on his iron will, honed from years of holding high office, to suppress this earth-shattering piece of bad news that could have caused panic throughout the entire army.
"Snap!"
Sengoku crushed the remains of the Den Den Mushi in his hand.
His face was ashen, and he forcefully suppressed the turbulent waves in his heart.
Then, he turned and walked with steady steps back to the microphone at the front of the execution platform.
Sengoku picked up the special loudspeaker and scanned the one hundred thousand elite Marines below with eyes like torches.
Then he raised his head and, facing the broadcast cameras of the whole world, announced with resounding clarity that earth-shattering secret that the World Government had kept tightly hidden for over twenty years:
"Today, in this place, the death of Portgas D. Ace here carries significant meaning!"
Sengoku's voice echoed like thunder over Marineford:
"Portgas D. Ace..."
"Your biological father is none other than... the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger!"
Once these words were spoken, it was as if a heavy nuclear bomb had detonated in the deep sea.
Ace, kneeling on the execution platform, gritted his teeth tightly, closed his eyes, and said nothing, yet his body trembled uncontrollably.
The one hundred thousand elite Marines below seemed to have been hit by a binding spell; they were all dumbfounded, their faces full of disbelief.
The reporters in front of the broadcast screens on the Sabaody Archipelago were like madmen, frantically pressing the shutters of their cameras, the flashes connecting into a single sheet of light.
At this moment, the entire world fell into an unprecedented, violent tremor and a noisy uproar.
"The bloodline of the Pirate King actually still exists in this world!"
However, just as the whole world was immersed in the huge shock brought by this earth-shattering secret and had not yet recovered.
On the sea directly in front of Marineford, in that Crescent Moon Bay originally tightly surrounded by fifty warships, the water suddenly began to churn and boil violently.
Huge whirlpools and bubbles surged on the sea surface, like boiling water.
In that thick sea mist, a massive, suffocating, pitch-black shadow was rising crazily from the depths of the sea with an unstoppable, majestic momentum!
—The overlords of the New World, the Whitebeard Pirates, have arrived!
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