"Oh really… then later, we'll see how I finish him off!" Aeridar looked at Marco and snarled.
Ignoring the discussion between Luffy and Whitebeard below, Aeridar deliberately flew backward, retreating to the Marineford port area.
With so many powerhouses appearing at once, it was no longer a good time to continue fighting Whitebeard. If he were to be surrounded, even Aeridar himself would find the situation incredibly troublesome.
Thud!
Aeridar landed next to Hancock.
"Are you alright, Aeridar?" Hancock asked anxiously, her hands frantically patting Aeridar's body, terrified that he might be injured.
"Whoa, Hancock!"
Aeridar quickly restrained her, saying with a wry smile, "I'm fine. You can feel me up later, there are too many people here now."
"Your Empress was just worried!" Hancock blushed, pouting.
"Now, now That's a real shame, ne~"
Seeing Aeridar retreat, Borsalino pursed his lips and said languidly.
Boom, boom, boom, boom… Clang, clang, clang, clang…
The Marines and the Whitebeard Pirates were still locked in battle. Gunfire was incessant, and the clanging of metal was constant.
Everywhere lay severed limbs, blood, and guts. Piles of broken arms and legs. There were bodies blasted in half, corpses with smashed heads, and some so mangled that a complete body couldn't even be put together. Broken guns and snapped swords were everywhere, and blood dyed the ice plain and the sea water crimson.
In the manga and anime, such gruesome scenes were never depicted due to concerns over real-world societal reactions.
But this was a real world. Such horrific scenes were truly unfolding before Aeridar's eyes. Coupled with the monster-level individuals on the battlefield, it was understandable why some Marines couldn't bear it and tried to flee, only to be buried alive in magma by Sakazuki.
Strangely, the Whitebeard Pirates' morale surged due to Luffy's arrival. They quickly regrouped and engaged the Marines.
Having survived countless gruesome battles and wars over the years, Aeridar paid no mind to these bloody scenes. What he cared about were the two individuals who had just appeared before him.
"You bastard, Aeridar! After all these years! I'm going to kill you!"
"That damned guy! How dare you knock me out and let the Marines capture me! This old man is going to flatten you!"
Moria and Chinjao charged wildly across the battlefield, cutting down numerous Marines and heading straight for Aeridar.
"Hmph. Two defeated foes!"
Aeridar sneered repeatedly, not taking either of them seriously. However, a bonfire of frustration surged in his heart. Of the group Straw Hat Luffy had released, two were his personal enemies—this was truly infuriating.
"Hasshoken: Buto!"
A furious Chinjao clapped his hands together, stomped the ground, which instantly shattered, and flew toward Aeridar. He aimed his flat, hardened skull at Aeridar, riding a whistling, fierce gale.
"Today, I'm going to kill you! Brick Bats!"
Moria, equally enraged, roared nonstop. The shadows on the ground solidified and emerged, then transformed into countless dark-purple bats that swarmed toward Aeridar.
"Die! Spiky Shadow Lizard!"
Suddenly, the bat-shaped shadows flying mid-way rapidly gathered together, forming an extremely long and continuously extending jet-black spear that pierced rapidly toward Aeridar's chest.
"Get lost!"
Aeridar roared. The muscles in his arm bulged like coiling dragons, and the veins popped out. He threw a punch into the air at ultra-high speed.
BOOM—
"ROAR!"
In an instant, the air detonated, and a massive, transparent white tiger burst out of the void, roaring continuously.
Impact Cannon: Daytime Tiger!
RUMBLE—
The surrounding ground shook violently. The terrifying white tiger devoured everything in its path, triggering an earth-shattering roar. The visible, hurricane-like shockwave shattered a section of the ground and punched straight through the port embankment.
"Run, run, run, run—!"
"Nani…"
"No, save me!"
"We'll die if we get caught in that!"
"Monster!"
A large number of Marines and pirates were caught in the blast, and the people around were flung backward by the air current. The Marineford plaza ground itself was scraped clean of a layer, crisscrossed with dense cracks.
"Well, now... That's truly over the top, ne What a monster~" Borsalino crooked his neck and drawled.
"Arara, what a reckless fellow." Kuzan scratched his head, looking troubled.
"All pirates deserve to die!" Sakazuki's face turned icy.
Meanwhile, Chinjao and Moria, who had painstakingly reached the plaza, were sent flying back hundreds of meters, coughing up blood, landing back on the ice plain in the bay.
"T-This is…"
"Don Chinjao!"
"And Gekko Moria!"
"They were knocked back just like that!"
The pirates on the ice plain were stunned. One was an old-school great pirate with a bounty over 500 million, and the other was a former Warlord who had escaped from the clutches of a Yonko, Kaido. To be both knocked back together, a distance of at least several hundred meters, was terrifying.
"Damn it! How did this bastard's strength progress so quickly?!"
"Agh... that damn brat! That cursed bastard!"
Moria and Chinjao climbed out of their respective ice craters, wiping the blood from their mouths.
Moria, in particular, had a look of stunned disbelief on his face. He truly hadn't expected the brat from back then to have grown so overwhelmingly powerful.
As for Chinjao, his face was consumed by rage, his sanity almost completely lost to fury.
At this moment, Doflamingo in the bay, after killing a wave of overconfident pirates, saw Crocodile, who was seeking revenge on Whitebeard, sent flying by Diamond Jozu, the Whitebeard Pirates' 3rd Division Commander, right into his path.
"Such a massive body with that kind of speed. I'm impressed!"
Landing on his feet, with yellow sand swirling before him, Crocodile wiped the blood from his mouth, looking at Jozu's massive form with a flicker of disbelief.
Just as Jozu rushed forward again for a second round with Crocodile, Doflamingo, standing behind Crocodile, made his move.
"Fuffuffuffufu~"
A playful expression appeared on Doflamingo's face, and he hooked his middle finger.
The charging Jozu suddenly stopped. Invisible strings pulled at his body, instantly taking him from high-speed motion to a complete standstill.
"Fufufufufu~ I can't believe you actually got out, you crocodile! How was the temperature in the blood pond? I wonder why Aeridar kept your position open. Did he predict this? That would be too much!" Doflamingo squatted on Jozu's back, looking at Crocodile before him with a wicked grin.
"Doflamingo, stay out of this! Are you trying to die?!" Crocodile, bleeding from the corner of his eye and mouth, looked unhappily at Doflamingo.
He was highly irritated at being knocked back by Jozu.
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