On the surveillance ship, the other marines weren't faring much better than Smoker—some of them outright pissed themselves on the spot.
Smoker, ignoring his own loss of composure, snatched up a Den Den Mushi and frantically shouted,
"This is Smoker, commander of Surveillance Fleet No. 101! We've spotted an unidentified warship near the Holy Land of Mary Geoise! Requesting immediate reinforcements! Requesting reinforcements!"
From the other side, the Navy Headquarters dispatcher replied with a tone of clear disdain:
"Vice Admiral Smoker, please handle the vessel yourself. The Reverie is about to begin, and our escort duties are at full capacity. We have no spare warships to send. That is all."
Smoker's temper instantly flared. He roared back,
"You bastard! That warship is at least a kilometer long! I've only got three surveillance ships here—how the hell am I supposed to deal with it?!"
"Are you trying to send us to our deaths, you idiot?!"
The dispatcher scoffed,
"It's just a warship, Vice Admiral Smoker."
He paused for a beat, then asked uncertainly,
>"Wait a moment—Vice Admiral Smoker, did you just say… one kilometer?"
Smoker bellowed,
"That warship is a full kilometer long! Any one of its cannons could swallow you whole! Did you hear me clearly, moron?!"
Now certain Smoker wasn't joking, the dispatcher hastily said,
"Vice Admiral Smoker, I'll report to Admiral Kizaru immediately—please hold position and maintain contact!"
Slamming the Den Den Mushi back into place, Smoker grabbed the mast to steady himself and hauled himself upright.
With a sharp wave of his hand, he barked,
"Spread out as much as possible, but keep tailing it!"
"And keep your wits about you! Don't you dare get blown to pieces in one shot!"
The three surveillance ships spread apart into parallel lines, trailing the Pluton from a cautious distance.
Meanwhile, at Navy Headquarters, the dispatcher came sprinting at full tilt, bursting into Kizaru's office after only a token knock.
"Admiral Kizaru—big trouble! Vice Admiral Smoker reports a one-kilometer-long super-warship sighted near Mariejois, requesting reinforcements!"
Then he caught sight of the tall, imposing figure in the room—a man the Navy hadn't seen in over a month.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku—you're back!"
Snapping to attention, the officer gave a perfect salute, excitement brimming in his voice.
Sengoku gave a small nod.
"At ease, Lieutenant."
The officer blinked, relaxing slightly, thinking to himself,
Sengoku seems calmer than before… but there's an even greater presence about him now. The Navy is lucky to have him back.
Since Kong's death in the Punk Hazard explosion, the Navy had been leaderless and in near-paralysis. Sengoku's return was, without doubt, a massive morale boost.
Kizaru glanced at him.
"A kilometer-long warship… Fleet Admiral, care to join me for a look?"
Sengoku thought for a moment.
"If Smoker was able to spot them, that means they've already spotted him as well."
"The fact there's been no report of engagement yet means they're at least not openly hostile—for now."
A smile touched his face.
"Frankly, the only person I can think of who'd make such a grand scene… is Roya."
Kizaru's shoulders eased.
"If it's Lord Roya, then that's a relief."
Sengoku nodded.
"Still, let's go have a look—just in case."
With that, he strode out of the operations room, Kizaru and the dispatcher following with renewed energy.
In the shadows at the end of the hallway, Green Bull emerged from his hiding place, watching their backs with a slowly twisting, feral grin.
Roya, of course, had already noticed Smoker and his three surveillance ships trailing behind. He knew full well it was his own World Conference summons that had led to heightened patrols in the waters around Mary Geoise. Even strong New World vice admirals like Smoker had been recalled to headquarters' waters to stand by.
According to Lucci's report, Sengoku should already be back at Navy HQ… Might as well take this chance to meet him in person, and give him some carefully chosen intel on the alien Harvesters.
If anyone among the native humans of this world was qualified to take part in decision-making against the alien Harvesters, Sengoku ranked near the top.
The Pluton reached the coordinates of the mutated monster and stopped.
Facing in Smoker's direction, two or three nautical miles away, Roya projected his voice straight into the vice admiral's mind:
"Smoker, tell Sengoku to come here and meet me."
Hearing a voice suddenly echo in his consciousness, Smoker jolted in shock—then quickly recognized it as Roya's.
Only then did he understand that the terrifying warship he'd been watching so nervously was in fact Roya's brand-new flagship. Relief washed over him, and the knot in his chest finally loosened.
He was just wondering how to call back across the distance when the deck shuddered violently, nearly knocking him off his feet.
"Vice Admiral Smoker! Undersea earthquake detected! Magnitude extremely high—could trigger a massive tsunami at any moment!" a marine reported.
Before the words were even finished, Smoker saw towering walls of seawater—hundreds of meters high—suddenly rise in every direction, completely encircling the ship.
It was as if a massive chunk of the seabed had suddenly vanished, the ocean unable to rush in fast enough to fill the void, creating this terrifying spectacle.
Before Smoker could even feel fear, the walls of water crashed inward. The pressure beneath the ship blasted upward like a colossal geyser, catapulting the surveillance vessel more than two hundred meters into the air.
We're finished!
The freshly lit cigars he had only just gotten back into his mouth tumbled away again.
Then the crushing sensation of free-fall swallowed everything.
The howling wind in his ears told him the entire ship was plummeting at an utterly unnatural speed—far beyond normal gravitational acceleration.
Twisting in midair, Smoker saw that the "sea" waiting below them was no sea at all, but a gaping black vortex at least twenty meters wide.
A violent suction roared from its depths, dragging all three surveillance ships into a perfectly vertical plunge.
In the blink of an eye, the other two ships were swallowed one after another—like hotdogs down a gullet.
At the brink of death, Smoker bellowed and used the ever-increasing pull beneath him to his advantage, kicking hard off the mast.
The diagonal force sent his vessel momentarily skidding free of the vortex's direct pull, spinning it into a sideways roll.
By the time they hit the vortex's rim, the ship's deck lay parallel to its surface—allowing the bow and stern to just barely slip free of complete annihilation.
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