New World, the first half, the waters near Hawaii Island.
This sea was only fifty or sixty nautical miles from the Valley of Gods, yet today it felt like the center of the world. The air was tight with killing intent, the kind that made even the waves hesitate.
The Hell Pirates had come in force, rushing to retrieve the Second Generation of Hell who had secretly slipped back into the Grand Line. The World Government refused to let them through, and on top of that, they wanted to seize the Pluton replica ships.
Ever since the battle over ancient weapon fragments, both sides had gained pieces of terrifying power. The World Government obtained fragments of Pluton, while the Hell Pirates briefly seized remnants tied to Uranus.
Now, scientists on both sides were working like mad.
Even Government warships had been upgraded, tougher hulls, heavier guns, far deadlier firepower.
Vegapunk had also succeeded in developing a simplified version of Uranus' energy transmitter, a system capable of producing laser like energy waves. Combined with the Pluton main cannon and the golden electromagnetic gun, the Pluton replicas had become monsters.
That was the foundation that let the Hell Pirates hold their New World territories without being swallowed.
Across the sea, advanced warships rained bombardment onto the Pluton fleet in the sky. But in the blink of an eye, Navy ships began to break apart and sink.
The Hell Pirates' technology still stood above the World Government.
So the World Government did what it always did when cannons failed.
Their top combat power launched into the air, closing the distance and dragging the battle into brutal close quarters to erase the gap between fleets.
"This time," Figarland growled, eyes greedy, "we seize one or two Pluton replicas before Shiki arrives. We take them back for research."
Four of the Five Elders had personally come, along with three Knights of God. Their peak combat strength now surpassed the Hell Pirates, especially with Shiki absent.
If one Elder punched into the Pluton fleet and started carving, they could snatch a ship right out of the sky.
Peter's voice was colder, more cautious.
"Kaido and Oden have also grown. Don't underestimate them. The Hell Pirates are unreasonable. Each of them is like a favored child of the era, their talent is frightening, and their strength keeps rising."
Mars, the long haired Elder, smiled faintly.
"Then let me handle the two of them. I'm curious how much they can do without their Devil Fruit advantages."
Ethanbaron glanced at the three Knights of God beside him.
"Sagon, Sabos, Mitaro. Your task is simple. Capture Shakky, Borsalino, Stussy, and Crocus. Sooner or later, we will obtain the technology that restores Devil Fruit powers."
His eyes narrowed.
If they defeated the Hell Pirates, they would seize the Devil Fruit recycling technology.
And even if they could not defeat them, they still had another option.
Use the captured Second Generation of Hell as bargaining chips and force Linlin to trade that technology.
There was a reason Imu and the Five Elders did not simply march into the latter half of the New World and crush everything.
They could not.
For special reasons, they were unable to enter the second half at will. Especially near the final island, their unique Devil Fruit abilities were cursed by the New World itself, by Mother Nature.
Eight hundred years ago, Imu destroyed the massive kingdom of the New World. He did not only wipe out islands, he shattered the magnetic field itself, twisting the sea into chaos and birthing extreme weather that struck without warning.
And with that destruction came punishment.
The closer Imu approached the final island, the weaker his power became. It felt as if he had stepped into the sea. His abilities were sealed, his strength drained away, until he could barely even stand.
That was why Imu and the Five Elders rarely entered the New World, and almost never stepped into its latter half.
It was a land the World Government could not conquer. Not only because of violent weather and weak economics, but because those special Devil Fruits were cursed by Mother Nature itself.
Only Uranus, had ever allowed Imu to make the whole world tremble. Even Elbaf, deep in the New World, had once been forced into silence by that fear.
Imu had spent enormous effort reclaiming Uranus, and now he was searching for a way to repair it.
In the original era, an ancient kingdom on Ruskaina, the island where Luffy trained, was destroyed overnight by an unknown force. In the future, the kingdom of Lulusia on the Grand Line would also be erased by Imu using Uranus.
That was the weapon that let him rule.
Inside the Pluton fleet.
"Wow, how scary," Borsalino drawled, his face looking as if he might faint at any moment, yet his eyes held no real fear. If anything, there was heat there, the thrill of battle. "Shiki senpai isn't here, so I have to deal with a Admiral level Knight of God?"
He was twenty eight this year. His fighting ability was not weak. Even if he could not defeat a Navy admiral, he could still remain untouchable.
Under Redfield's guidance over the years, he was not inferior to Kaido or Oden, who both held the qualifications of Conqueror's Haki. At least in speed, he was the strongest.
Unlike Sakazuki, who joined the Navy at twenty three and still had not obtained the Magma Fruit, Borsalino had joined the Hell Pirates at ten and had held the Glint Glint Fruit for more than a decade.
He could crush Sakazuki as he was now.
"Knights of God?" Shakky's voice was pure murder. "I'll kill them."
Her aura spread like a blade.
Her relationship with Brook had barely entered its sweetest days before the World Government tore them apart. She had not even been able to give him a child.
That hatred had never cooled.
Stussy's anger was just as sharp. Brook's imprisonment meant her daughter, Katifa, grew up without a father. She did not even have a real memory of him.
Of all Brook's children, Katifa had suffered the most.
Redfield's gaze stayed steady, voice firm.
"Kaido, Oden. Can you two hold one of the Five Elders until Shiki arrives?"
They wanted to wait for Shiki, but they were racing to return to the Grand Line and rescue the children. Now the World Government had launched first, forcing them to fight.
But then, Brook's Den Den Mushi message arrived.
Everything changed.
The Second Generation of Hell had already been rescued by Brook.
Now, all they had to do was stall, hold the line, and wait for Shiki and Brook to arrive.
Then they could hunt the Five Elders down.
"Worororo!" Kaido laughed wildly, veins swelling across his body as the excitement surged. "I was planning to take down a Knight of God, but now I'm facing the Five Elders, the highest authority in the world. That's even better!"
"Ha! No problem!" Oden roared.
He drew his two half step black blades, Enma and Ame no Habakiri. His arms bulged to twice their size, his focus sharpening until the world narrowed into one thing.
The coming clash.
-------------
The Five Elders only needed to hold the Hell Pirates in place. As long as the Navy captured the Second Generation of Hell, the World Government would have the leverage it needed to walk into this war with confidence.
But not long after the battle began, the Navy finally managed to send word. The mission had failed. The children had escaped.
Unfortunately, by then the Five Elders and the Knights of God had already punched straight into the Pluton fleet. The signal officers simply could not get the message to them in time.
Ethanbaron, bald and cold, gripped the Supreme Grade blade, the Shodai Kitetsu, and once again faced Redfield.
A duel between a peak swordsman and a peak ability user, both of them monsters among monsters, both of them masters of all three forms of Haki.
Peter, the blond Elder, once again collided with Linlin.
And once again, he stole her Soul Soul power.
Not only that, he slipped close enough to the battlefield between Redfield and Ethanbaron and even took a version of the Thunder power as well.
None of the stolen abilities were as complete as the original Fruits, but Peter did not need them to be. He fused Soul and Thunder together, pushing their destructive force higher and higher, suppressing Linlin through raw ability output.
"What exactly is your power?!" Linlin roared.
Peter laughed, refusing to answer.
"Doesn't your Soul Soul power let you play with lightning and fire too? The power of the gods is bottomless. The stronger the world's imagination and desire, the stronger the Devil Fruit becomes!"
He spun and drove a kick into Linlin's shoulder. The impact rang out like steel being struck.
"Your Iron Balloon mutation is getting stronger," Peter sneered. "You should have been the World Government's strongest CP0. Damn you, Carmel!"
His tone twisted with old resentment.
Back then, Mother Carmel sold five year old Linlin to the World Government, but an accident followed, and Linlin became a pirate instead.
And Carmel vanished without a trace.
"How could I ever be the World Government's dog!" Linlin's eyes burned.
Napoleon, her Emperor Blade, surged with Conqueror's Haki and cleaved down at Peter, only to be caught by his pitch black Armament coated right arm.
Peter's grin widened.
"When we catch your children, we'll see how stubborn you stay."
Linlin's nostrils flared.
She wanted to tear him apart.
But her children were already returning, and so was her man.
In the end, they would see who laughed last.
Nearby, Figarland, bald and expressionless, once again clashed with Newgate.
Newgate already knew his Tremor Tremor power could not decide this fight, not against someone who could ignore it, so he met Figarland head on with blade work and Haki alone.
For years, Newgate had been sharpening his Conqueror's coating for this exact moment. To collide, fist to fist, without flinching.
Their blows crashed together, flesh and bone and willpower grinding, every impact stirring bloodlust in the air.
On another front, Mars, the long haired Elder, struck Kaido and Kozuki Oden with his Devil Fruit power the moment they engaged.
Their abilities were stripped away. Kaido was forced out of his half dragon state. Oden's natural advantage vanished with it.
But the two of them had already climbed to the summit of physical combat.
Kaido gripped his kanabo. Oden raised his twin blades. The two charged Mars like a storm given shape.
The Hell Pirates' Phantom Beast Duo might bicker every day, but in battle their coordination was terrifying. Together, they actually held back Mars's crushing assault.
A scream of pure hatred tore across the sky.
Shakky exploded into full beast form the instant she moved, entering an awakened vampire state. Blood colored auspicious clouds coiled around her like a crown.
She shot toward the Knight of God, Sagon.
"You ruined my happiness, you lapdog of the World Government!" she snarled. "Go to hell!"
Blood red pupils. Fangs. Claws. Red lightning snapping along her limbs.
Her blood patterned flesh wings blurred into afterimages as she appeared right in front of Sagon.
Even Shakky, who was considered the least talented among the top monsters, had mastered Conqueror's coating over these eight years.
That alone proved how deep her hatred ran.
Anyone who could use Conqueror's coating was a true world class powerhouse.
Even Sagon did not dare underestimate the vampire queen. He needed to capture her alive, exactly as the Five Elders demanded.
Rumor said a Celestial Dragon patriarch was obsessed with the vampire ability that could grant immortality.
Borsalino, the Yellow Flash, chose his battlefield wisely.
He led the Knight of God, Mitaro, away from the center.
Of course, that raised an ugly question.
Why did he have to deal with the one who felt like the strongest?
Because Mitaro was a famous master of physical combat, and that meant one thing, he could not touch Borsalino's speed.
Still, there was no choice. Shakky was determined to kill one of the Knights of God, so they used a simple trade.
Strongest horse versus weakest horse.
Borsalino would stall the strongest with speed. Others would kill where they could.
Stussy locked onto Shabos.
She recognized him. A Knight of God drawn from CP0.
Because Rocks and Brook had slaughtered more than half of the Knights of God in the past, almost wiping them out, the Celestial Dragons had spent recent years rebuilding the organization in the most humiliating way possible.
Picking the tallest from the short ones.
Selecting the strongest CP0 agents and force training them into new Knights of God.
Fisher Tiger watched the battlefield with a heavy gaze.
Newcomers were surpassing him one after another, and now it was hard for him to even keep his spot in the second tier.
So he returned to where he belonged.
The sea.
Once again, he became a ship destroyer, ripping through the World Government's advanced warships one after another.
Hiruba, the God of Snipers, piloted a specially modified weather ship and drifted along the outer edge of the war zone, calmly sniping CP0 agents.
He even landed shots on a Knight of God, supporting Shakky and Stussy from afar.
Above, the four fallen angels, Abefu and Aroan, led the aerial troops into the fight.
Zombies poured onto the battlefield.
Aroan controlled skull dragons, his Bone Control Fruit development reaching a frightening level.
He could even seize control of enemies by injuring them until bone was exposed.
It was becoming a nightmare ability.
Alice unleashed the Growth Fruit, scattering endless vines across the battlefield to restrain foes.
Jennie, empowered by the Strength Fruit, smashed flesh into pulp with each hammer swing.
The three swordsmen of Ashura Doji's family entered the war, while Ashura Peng'nan took to the sea, hunting for the chance to break through into a true great swordsman.
Among the Wano samurai they led, even Shimotsuki Toramaru, patriarch of the Shimotsuki clan, had joined the fight.
Affiliated pirate groups poured in as well.
The World Pirates.
The Ewald Pirates.
The Golden Pirates.
The Happo Navy.
Even Daenerys Targaryen, the Mother of Dragons, transformed into a white dragon and led four dragons of different colors into battle.
The Hell Pirates had gathered their strength once again, forcing the CP organization into another massive blood transfusion.
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