Chapter 242: A Summit War Without Regrets! Black Flames Repel the Admiral and a Retreat with Laughter
Upon hearing Whitebeard's "Final Captain's Order," heart-wrenching cries erupted from the pirate camp across the entire plaza.
Marco and the other Division Captains had hot tears welling in their eyes.
They gritted their teeth, suppressing the grief in their hearts as they brandished their weapons to direct the main force to retreat quickly toward the warships anchored outside the bay.
Whitebeard's massive body was already covered in wounds of all sizes, and blood had stained his white Captain's coat red.
Yet, like an insurmountable ancient demon god, he left his broad back to all his "sons."
Alone, like a towering mountain, he stood firmly in front of the 100,000 Marine elites and the three Admirals.
"Murakumogiri" traced lethal arcs through the air.
Accompanied by deafening roars, the power of his vibrations swept through like a wind through fallen leaves, sending waves of Marines who tried to cross the line into the air.
Under Sabo's forceful pulling, Ace followed the pace of the main force.
He looked back frequently, his eyes filled with tears of frustration and pain.
But in his heart, he understood Pops' resolve better than anyone; this was a path to survival paved with his life.
Ace bit his lip, enduring the sorrow as he sprinted toward the outer port along with Luffy and Sabo.
Tatsuya, who had previously fainted from exhaustion, was also injected with special Tension Hormones by Ivankov.
With this external force, Tatsuya forced his last shred of conscious will to hold on, following the retreating team with somewhat unsteady steps.
Seeing the three brothers about to escape the encirclement, Admiral Akainu's cold face was clouded with gloom.
He knew that if he let these individuals with sinful bloodlines leave Marineford alive today,
The supreme Absolute Justice of the Marines would vanish, becoming a total laughingstock to the entire world.
Akainu exerted force through his feet, shattering the ice.
He skillfully bypassed the edge of Whitebeard's destructive firenet and locked his gaze onto Ace's back, issuing a most poisonous and heart-piercing taunt:
"Running away with your tails between your legs as soon as you're rescued—what a bunch of total cowards!"
"But that's no surprise; like Captain, like crew."
"After all, in the end, Whitebeard is just a 'loser' belonging to a bygone era!"
Hearing these words, Ace's sprinting footsteps came to a sudden halt.
His body froze in place as if struck by an electric shock.
"Ace! Don't stop!"
"Don't listen to him, he's provoking you!"
Despite Sabo and Luffy's anxious shouts trying to stop him, Ace still slowly turned around.
In an instant, his entire body erupted in soaring flames of rage, and his bloodshot eyes stared fixedly at Akainu nearby as he roared:
"What do you know!"
"I won't let you insult Pops, who created this era for us!"
Ace completely lost his reason, roaring as he threw a massive Fire Fist directly at Akainu.
"A fool who doesn't know his place."
Akainu let out a disdainful sneer, his right arm instantly turning into rolling magma as he met Ace's flames head-on.
Faced with the cruel and absolute hierarchy of Devil Fruits, ordinary flames simply could not compete with magma that could burn everything.
Boom!
The moment the two forces collided, Ace's flames were instantly swallowed whole by the dark red magma.
The scorching heat directly penetrated the fire's defense, severely burning Ace and sending him flying back like a broken kite to crash onto the ice.
At this critical moment, Luffy—who had repeatedly overexerted his body and suffered multiple fatal injuries—finally reached his absolute physical limit.
Just as he wanted to rush up to help, his vision went black.
All the strength in his body seemed to be drained instantly, his legs gave way, and he fell heavily to his knees on the cold ice.
The Vivre Card belonging to Ace also quietly slipped from his chest and fell to the ground.
"Dragon's son, you are the greatest threat that absolutely cannot be left alive today!"
Akainu's sharp gaze instantly captured Luffy's state of exhaustion, and the killing intent in his eyes surged wildly.
He decisively abandoned the fallen Ace, bypassed the defensive line, and turned his right arm into a giant magma fist roiling with lethal heat.
With a cold determination to kill, Akainu lunged like a hungry wolf at its prey, aiming straight for the defenseless Luffy's chest!
"Die! Straw Hat Luffy!!"
"Luffy!!!"
Seeing this scene, Ace and Sabo's eyes nearly split from strain, their hearts seemingly stopping.
The two of them desperately lunged toward Luffy, wanting to use their own flesh and blood to block this fatal blow.
Sizzle—!!!
At this life-or-death moment, a piercing sound of thunder exploded in mid-air!
Forcibly overdrawing the last shred of Spiritual Energy in his mind, Tatsuya's eyes were blood-red.
He forcefully hurled a spear woven of black and red!
This spear arrived first despite being launched later, like a bolt of lightning tearing through space.
The spear was tightly wrapped in violent Haki, blue Lightning Release, and the inextinguishable black flames of Amaterasu, carrying a sharpness that could pierce through anything as it aimed straight for Akainu's right arm that was striking at Luffy.
However, at the fatal moment before the spear could hit,
The terrifying combat instincts Akainu had forged through countless life-and-death battles erupted.
Relying on his top-tier Observation Haki and beast-like intuition, he sensed the lethal threat contained in this strike.
With a strange posture that almost twisted his body, Akainu forcibly retracted his forward momentum and kicked off the ice, dodging to the side at high speed.
Although Tatsuya's desperate strike—capable of piercing an Admiral's defense—missed because of Akainu's dodge and failed to tear off his arm,
At the moment the spear brushed past,
The "Amaterasu" black flames radiating from the blade clung to Akainu's right shoulder and chest like a shadow.
Sizzle—!
The eternal pitch-black hellfire immediately began to burn fiercely on Akainu's body.
Even for an Admiral with a top-tier Logia magma constitution, he clearly felt a soul-piercing pain in the face of this divine technique that burns all.
Akainu's originally cold face changed drastically, and a pained groan escaped his throat.
To suppress this strange and inextinguishable black flame,
He had to abandon his killing blow on Luffy and retreated several steps in a disheveled manner.
The moment Akainu retreated in pain from the black flames, leaving a fatal opening in his defense,
A sharp light simultaneously erupted in Ace and Sabo's eyes as the two seized this fleeting opportunity.
"Fire Fist!"
"Dragon's Claw!"
One from the left and one from the right, two figures struck at once.
A violent, scorching giant fist of fire and a sharp Dragon's Claw wrapped in deep, dark Haki attacked simultaneously.
Carrying all the brothers' anger and strength, they slammed squarely into Akainu's defenseless chest.
Boom—!!!
Two powerful forces overlapped and exploded.
The arrogant Marine Admiral let out a scream and was sent flying dozens of meters by the two brothers' joint attack, crashing heavily into the thick ruins in the distance, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The moment the crisis was resolved, the Mangekyo pattern in Tatsuya's eyes instantly dissolved, returning to a dull, pure black.
The backlash from forcibly waking up and releasing his ocular technique submerged him like a tsunami.
Tatsuya felt his vision go completely dark, and his bones felt as if they were falling apart;
Like Luffy on the ground, he fell onto the cold ice with a thud, completely losing consciousness without another sound.
"Ah! Crimson Lotus BOY!"
Following behind, Ivankov saw this and clutched his head, letting out an exaggerated scream.
"Didn't I already warn you not to make another move!"
"Forcibly breaking through the hormone limits will definitely leave serious aftereffects on your body!"
Looking at Tatsuya and Luffy, the two "great heroes" lying unconscious on the ice,
Sabo and Ace slowly stood tall and looked at each other.
Their faces were covered in black soot and red blood, looking quite disheveled, but the corners of their mouths turned up at the same time.
Then, the two brothers faced the cold wind and burst into laughter together.
The laughter was clear and heroic, filled with the sense of survival after a brush with the Shinigami's scythe and that inextinguishable bond of hot-blooded brotherhood.
"There's really no helping this guy."
Ace gave a light chuckle, leaned over, and with a swift movement, hoisted the unconscious Luffy onto his broad shoulders.
Sabo quickly went to Tatsuya's position and took Tatsuya's arm from the flustered Ivankov.
He steadily propped the unfathomable yet loyal Vice Captain onto his back.
"Let's go, Ace! Ivankov! Let's take them home!"
"Yeah, home!"
The two brothers faced the smoke drifting through the air and the deafening sound of gunfire, their faces wearing unrestrained, spirited smiles.
Without looking back, they set off, sprinting toward the main force of warships desperately waiting outside the bay!
"Hey! Slow down, wait for me! Luffy BOY! Sabo BOY!"
Ivankov shouted from behind while desperately following with comical steps.
On this battlefield at the summit, filled with despair and death,
The backs of these figures of the new era appeared so dazzling and unstoppable against the backdrop of fire and smoke.
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