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Blowing up the ship to stop the bombardment was akin to the principle of "if you can't solve the problem, eliminate the person causing it", a classic case of taking extreme measures.
As soon as the order was given, Marine soldiers scattered across the massive warship, who had been searching for enemies, immediately dropped their tasks and rushed toward the nearest vessels to evacuate.
"You've really dumped a tough one on me, Rowen," Kizaru pouted, grumbling lazily. "That's one hell of a ship, and now we're just gonna blow it up like that?!"
"There's no other choice… You've realized it too, haven't you, Admiral Kizaru?" While organizing the troops for evacuation, Dante looked back, his voice heavy.
"Naturally. I'm not an idiot," Kizaru shrugged, a faint smile crossing his lips. "If he had time to call us, that means the danger on his end is already handled… and since he hasn't shown up himself, it can only mean one thing…"
"He's seriously injured!" Dante interjected. Otherwise, for something as critical as stopping a cannon bombardment, Rowen would never allow others to handle it alone. After all, his opponent was Patrick Redfield. For him to still be giving clear, forceful orders showed just how inhumanly powerful Rowen was.
"I'll head out first, Admiral Kizaru, Vice Admiral Momonga." With a leap, Dante landed on the Qilin's deck. "If I'm right, he'll need backup right now… and that's a rare situation indeed."
Just imagining that ever-dominant, untouchable Rowen now lying helpless on the battlefield waiting for reinforcements made Kizaru and Vice Admiral Momonga exchange glances, unable to suppress their amusement.
"Pfft!" Both of their lips curled into a smile.
"Vice Admiral, all troops have boarded! Please give your orders!" Soon, a messenger rushed over urgently and saluted, reporting to Vice Admiral Momonga.
"Good. Relay my order: depart immediately!" With a grand wave of his hand, Momonga then looked at Kizaru. "The rest is in your hands, Kizaru."
"Yeah, yeah, safe travels, everyone~"
Meanwhile, on the battlefield ruins, Rowen muttered, "That bastard Kizaru… once I recover, he's dead meat!" He hung up the Den Den Mushi in frustration. The Gorōsei (Five Elder Stars) had just called to harshly criticize the failure to stop the bombardment.
…And Rowen, of course, had fired back without holding back. 'Who's afraid of who?! Don't forget, I've got authority too. And the one ultimately responsible for this mess? Kizaru. No doubt about it.'
After finishing the call, Rowen lay back on a drifting shipwreck, eyes half-closed, taking a rare moment to rest. "That guy Dragon… It was one thing to break out of prison, but to release those kinds of monsters…" He sighed. "Still… in a way, it works out. With this kind of dirt in my hands, they'll never make it to the world stage."
Back then, the Revolutionary Army wasn't secretly cooperating with Akainu like they were now. As enemies of the World Government, they were forced to release a batch of high-profile prisoners. But a crime is a crime; it doesn't vanish just because the sides have shifted.
The escape of Patrick Redfield and the World Destroyer was directly tied to Dragon's jailbreak. Their rampage afterward? The Revolutionary Army could never wash that blood off their hands.
That was why Rowen and Akainu hadn't even bothered trying to contact Dragon this time. They wanted him to pay.
"So much scheming everywhere…" Rowen sighed deeply. As an outsider watching the One Piece world through the Straw Hats' perspective, you'd see freedom and dreams. But once you were inside it, seeing things from the perspective of those involved, it was full of hidden agendas, secret battles, and ruthless power struggles, far crueler than even the so-called ninja world.
"How should I put it… Not bad, 'Soryu (Azure Dragon)' of the Marines. Even Patrick Redfield fell to your hands." Suddenly, a quiet sigh echoed nearby. Rowen's eyes widened in shock as he looked down; a hand had pierced through his chest from behind.
'Creak… Creak…' The hand twisted, crushing his ribs with disturbing ease.
"Gah! Cough cough!!" Blood spewed from Rowen's mouth, but his eyes weren't panicked; instead, they were sharp and icy as he turned to look at the figure who had lifted him into the air.
"And who the hell are you?"
"Me? Just a nameless nobody." A tall, muscular middle-aged man with long green hair slowly emerged from behind a broken plank. His face was gaunt and sharp, with a prominent brow ridge, giving him a rugged and stern appearance.
Looking at Rowen, the man gave a faint smile and said, "I've abandoned my past. Orrick Sama told me to choose a codename for ease of use... so, you can call me Ryokugyu."
The newcomer wore a gray-black suit with a white coat draped over his shoulders, resembling a Marine admiral. But unlike the standard admiral coat, his coat had no "Justice" kanji on the back.
Instead, it bore a twisted, abstract crest, and Rowen recognized it. It was the family sigil of Nibelung Family, to which Orrick belonged. Much like how the mink tribe pledges allegiance to the Kozuki Clan, only a follower may wear such a symbol.
"Ryokugyu?!" Rowen's eye twitched. He hadn't expected that Ryokugyu, who in the original story became a Marine admiral, had now joined Orrick's faction. No wonder, after all these years of asking around, he could never find a trace of this monster, who stood equal with Fujitora.
Noticing Rowen's shifting expression, Ryokugyu frowned slightly. "Looks like I didn't clean up the past thoroughly enough. You've heard of me?"
"You could say that," Rowen answered calmly, then shook his head as if uninterested in saying more. He asked directly, "So? Did you come here just to deliver a message from Orrick?"
"Heh…" With a heavy jerk, Ryokugyu ripped his hand free from Rowen's body. Before the blood could splash, he had already twisted Rowen's arm behind his back. "Stop pretending. I've been observing for a while; you're in no shape to fight anymore."
From his coat, he pulled out a pair of Seastone handcuffs, his expression cold. "So come with me, Soryu (Azure Dragon). Orrick Sama has prepared a lovely vacation villa for you… enough for you to enjoy the rest of your life."
'This is…!!' Rowen's heart skipped a beat. He looked up sharply. "You're planning to… start the war?!"
Both he and Akainu knew just how much influence he had on the coming conflict. And so did their enemies, Orrick and Kaido's coalition. That's why they wanted to eliminate him before the war officially broke out. No, not "before." The war… has already begun!
BUZZ!! BUZZ!! BUZZ!!
With an ear-piercing hum, a series of golden light prisms appeared in the sky. Kizaru turned into particles of light, forming a blazing torrent that reflected between the prisms.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
As the light ricocheted, his speed climbed rapidly. The gathered light particles condensed into a glowing orb, brighter than the sun.
"This is the end, World!" Locking onto the massive ship below, all the prisms flashed at once, and the man in the middle, Kizaru, was launched like an arrow from a divine bow.
"Heaven's Spear!" A dozens-of-meters-wide beam of destruction rained down from the sky. Everything it touched was incinerated instantly. Half a second later,
BOOOOMMMMM!!!
A shockwave blasted outward in a disc-shaped ring, spreading in all directions like the explosion of a high-yield nuclear bomb.
An enormous orange-yellow mushroom cloud rose high into the heavens. Inside the warship, World was horrified. He rushed to open the door, only to find it had been blocked from outside by piles of Marine debris, and the door itself was made of Seastone, trapping him completely.
"NO!!!" Trapped inside the very coffin he'd built himself, World let out a furious, unwilling roar. He sank into the bottomless ocean along with his ship.
Whoosh…
After finishing the attack, Kizaru dodged the whirlpool formed by the sinking wreck and arrived on a nearby Marine battleship. "Ah, I'm exhausted. That ship was seriously tough."
"Thanks for the trouble. Once we're back, everyone can get some rest." Vice Admiral Momonga smiled helplessly and picked up the Den Den Mushi. "Mission complete. I'll report to Rowen. You go rest first."
"Yosh, I'll leave it to you, Vice Admiral Momonga." Kizaru casually stuffed one hand in his pocket and gave a half-joking salute with the other.
But before he could walk away, the Den Den Mushi in Momonga's hand rang first. "Vice Admiral Momonga, has the senior officer returned yet?"
"Hm?" Sharing a confused look with Kizaru, Momonga replied, "No. Weren't you sent to meet up with him, Vice Admiral Dante?"
"Ah… that's a problem." Floating in an aircraft above the battlefield, Dante was hanging upside down by one foot from the cabin door. One hand held the Den Den Mushi, while the other scanned the area repeatedly with a telescope.
"He's gone!!"
(End of Chapter)