Sengoku stared, his analytical mind trying to process the phenomenon.
He speculated that it might be due to individual differences in constitution—despite the extreme brightness of the light, he personally didn't feel any direct physical discomfort, not even a slight pain in his eyes.
Meanwhile, Garp, standing not far away, had also noticed the unnerving light.
Out of pure caution, he quickly backed away, moving to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his old friend.
"Sengoku, did you see that? That thing…" Garp frowned, his voice laced with a deep and uncharacteristic concern.
"I don't know what the hell it is, but staring at it for more than a second makes my eyes feel like they're boiling."
Hearing this, Sengoku furrowed his brow ready to dismiss it.
"Really? I don't feel any discomfort at all."
To prove his point, he deliberately stared up at the blue orb, blinking a few times.
He felt nothing unusual.
Aside from the almost painful brightness, there were no other physical reactions.
Garp initially thought Sengoku was messing with him, but then he caught the reflection in his friend's glasses—an eerie, pulsating blue light.
A sudden, terrible thought clicked into place.
"Sengoku, your glasses," Garp said, his voice dropping to a low growl.
"Take them off."
Sengoku was about to argue but saw the deadly seriousness in Garp's expression and calmed himself.
He slowly pushed his spectacles up onto his forehead.
He tried looking up at the sky again, only to be hit with an immediate, searing pain that shot through his optic nerves.
It felt as if a thousand needles made of pure light had been stabbed directly into his eyes.
He recoiled with a grunt, stumbling back a step.
"That is… indeed strange," Sengoku muttered, his voice filled with a newfound unease.
Then, a startling thought flashed through his mind like lightning tearing through a midnight sky, jolting him to his core.
The sheer scale, the warning from Jozu, the nature of the light… it all came together in a horrifying conclusion.
"From quantity comes quality," he whispered, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
"That bastard… is he planning to use this to blind everyone on the island in a single attack?"
The moment the idea was spoken aloud, it hung in the air like a death sentence.
Garp's expression turned utterly grim.
He knew Sengoku wasn't one to exaggerate in the heat of battle.
If he said it, he believed it.
"The situation is far more serious than we imagined," Garp said solemnly.
The two legends exchanged a glance, seeing the same cold dread reflected in each other's eyes.
If Sengoku was right, they had only seconds to prevent an unimaginable catastrophe.
At that exact moment, Vice Admiral Tsuru rushed over, her usually calm face was a mask of tension.
Her voice was sharp with urgency.
"Sengoku, we have to act now! That blue light is extremely dangerous. I've confirmed it—prolonged exposure will instantly and permanently destroy a person's vision!"
Sengoku's heart sank like a stone.
Even Tsuru, the great strategist, had reached the same conclusion.
Realizing the severity, he didn't waste another second.
He stood tall and shouted with all the power his lungs and Haki could muster.
"ATTENTION, ALL PERSONNEL! SEEK COVER IMMEDIATELY! DO NOT LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE BLUE LIGHT! SHIELD YOUR EYES! FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN IRREVERSIBLE VISUAL DAMAGE! THAT IS AN ORDER!"
Upon hearing the Fleet Admiral's frantic command, every soldier and officer present finally grasped the true nature of the threat.
Without hesitation, they sprang into action, scrambling desperately for cover.
A wave of pure panic washed over the Marine forces.
Some dashed into nearby buildings, others dove behind trees and rubble, while many simply dropped to the ground, burying their faces in their arms, doing anything to avoid looking at the sky.
Yet, just as the Marines scattered like ants, Jozu's triumphant mocking laughter rang out from above.
"Hahaha… Figured it out, did you? A little too late for that!"
With that taunt, he slowly raised the intensely glowing blue sun in his hand, aiming it directly at the heart of the island, the most densely populated area, the very symbol of the World Government's power.
"Diamond Art: Blue Enchantress!"
BOOM!
It was not a sound, but an eruption of pure existence.
A blinding blue beam burst forth like a collapsing dam, its torrential force utterly unstoppable.
The light, as if a piece of the heavens had been torn away and weaponized, carried boundless destructive energy, instantly illuminating the entire sky and plunging the world into an ocean of blue.
"DON'T LOOK! CLOSE YOUR EYES!" Sengoku roared, straining his voice to warn those closest to him.
But the deafening shriek of the beam tearing through the atmosphere drowned out his words.
Most never heard his final warning.
Drawn by the sudden, cataclysmic spectacle, nearly every soldier on the island instinctively turned their gaze toward the source of the light.
In that instant, their world went black forever.
Then, the supermassive explosion struck.
The piercing blue light flared to its absolute peak, a radiance so intense it felt as though countless suns had converged into a single point before detonating.
The entire world seemed to tremble under this force, as if time itself had frozen in that moment of absolute, blinding power.
A colossal, silent blue mushroom cloud rose ominously, ascending slowly into the sky.
Marineford, the fortress that had stood for centuries, was utterly engulfed by the overwhelming shockwave.
It didn't crumble; it didn't explode.
It simply disintegrated, erased from existence without a sound.
The once-sturdy structure now lay in ruins, a gaping, smoking crater where it once stood.
Moments later, the physical shockwave erupted outwards, sweeping across the entire area with the force of a hurricane.
Those who had been blinded by the flash had no time to react and were instantly thrown from their feet, their bodies colliding with the earth with dull, sickening thuds.
Screams of agony rose as the violent vibrations ruptured eardrums, adding deafness to their blindness.
The battlefield was transformed into a living hell.
Sengoku's expression was grim, his brows tightly furrowed as beads of cold sweat covered his forehead.
He knew that against such a devastating superattack, conventional defenses were utterly useless.
A sense of profound helplessness and cold rage filled his heart.
"Damn it… Damn it all!" he cursed under his breath.
This wasn't just a flashbang.
This was an entirely different beast.
The blue beam that had caused this catastrophic destruction wasn't just a trick of the light.
It was a focused energy attack with the destructive output of hundreds of Pacifista Laser Cannons firing at once, a power far beyond anything they could have possibly anticipated.
-----------------------------
Read 45 chapters ahead and support me on patreon.
patreon (.)com/Newbietranslator