Aokiji and Fujitora were still drowning in crushing guilt and pain.
Meanwhile, the elite officers who had regrouped aboard the Pluton under Roya's command stood in shock and fear, staring blankly at the remaining eleven colossal beasts.
Those monsters were now tearing apart and devouring the carcass of the one whose core stomach sac Roya had just ripped out.
Although its most purified life-essence storage organ was gone, a body stretching for kilometers still contained a vast ocean of life energy.
Such a feast was something the other eleven would never pass up.
In fact, to snatch the choicest portions, they had already fallen into vicious infighting!
This brutal spectacle of devouring and tearing at their own kind struck the marines, who had only just suffered devastating losses, like another hammer blow straight to the heart.
On top of their shock, a suffocating despair—that these enemies could never be defeated—began to eat away at every man's spirit.
More and more marines collapsed to their knees like Aokiji and Fujitora, eyes glazed, awaiting the cold verdict of death.
The instant Roya landed, he felt the crushing weight of their emotions.
With a flick of his hand, he hurled the still-oozing black stomach sac down before them.
The grotesque organ writhed like a beating heart, drawing the men's hollow stares toward it.
One pair of vacant eyes after another slowly focused on the black sac.
Roya unleashed his Observation Haki, weaving it into his voice, and thundered:
"Stand up! This defeat is not the fault of a single one of you—it was the enemy's trickery!"
"You've never faced such a form of battle before, and yet you fought without fear of death. In my eyes, that is already a great victory!"
"Remember this lesson—steel yourselves, and fight again!"
"They fooled us once! Do you really think they can fool us every time?!"
"Now, use your heads! Tell me—how do we bring down the eleven beasts that are left?!"
Under the calming weight of Roya's will, the marines' shattered spirits began to settle.
And with his final challenge, all the pent-up despair inside them suddenly found a release, their scattered willpower drawn together around one burning purpose.
Aokiji and Fujitora exchanged a look—then sprang to their feet.
Behind them, the surviving marines erupted in cries of vengeance and defiance.
"Justice will prevail! Avenge our fallen brothers!"
"Fight them! Worst comes to worst, we die—what's there to fear?!"
"Yeah! To hell with it—if I can't fight it from the outside, I'll rip it apart from inside its guts!"
"Vice-Captain, go rip a cannon off the ship—I'll ram the whole damn thing into one of their bellies!"
Fervor is contagious. The loudest, most unyielding officers shouted first, and in moments the battle spirit of the entire force was ablaze once more.
Roya's personal slaying of one of the giants had already shattered the marines' mental shackles—that these beasts were "invincible."
Now, though barely thirty thousand men remained, their morale surged to a new peak.
Just then, amid the pack of giants savagely feasting on the corpse, a sudden change erupted.
The squat, thick-legged beast that Kizaru had desperately assaulted earlier suddenly arched its waist, its hulking body springing from the ice like a coiled spring.
In midair, its spine snapped sideways, bending nearly double.
The bizarre movement instantly drew every eye.
Roya swept it with his Haki—and a satisfied smile tugged at his lips.
After enduring Squard's repeated brutal strikes, Kizaru had finally shaken off his lazy habit of coasting through battle. What looked like a pointless suicidal charge before… had in truth carried him right to the cusp of transformation!
As the beast bent double, a violent surge of force detonated against the most overstretched, fragile point of its waist—
Its supposedly unbreakable hide split open in an instant!
Kizaru's lean, lanky form flashed free from the rupture.
But he made no move to escape. Instead, he bent down, clamped one hand on the torn edge of the hide—
—and sprinted toward its head.
The beast's flesh, which no weapon had pierced before, now peeled in his grip like paper, ripping away in great, ragged sheets that exposed a mess of bone spurs and writhing muscle tendrils.
The shattered bone spikes protruding everywhere, the skewered bundles of muscle still impaled like kabobs on bone spears—
—all proved how Kizaru had already ravaged its insides beyond recognition.
That the beast could still fight for scraps of food in such a state? No wonder Kizaru chose to flay it alive!
His sudden ferocity was like a shot of adrenaline for the reinvigorated marines.
Especially Sentomaru, who let out a wild howl and charged straight at the beast.
Hundred of thousands of marines followed suit, roaring as they surged forward!
But this time, no one foolishly dove into the wound to die. Instead, they unleashed every weapon at their disposal, tearing the rupture wider and wider from relative safety.
If these monsters craved life-essence so desperately, then the marines would strip their bones clean!
Kizaru tore the path open, elite officers poured in behind him, and within minutes they had dissected nearly half the beast's massive frame.
Every lurking trap of bone spikes, spears, and writhing muscle was hacked apart at the roots.
The black stomach sac that directed the behemoth's every move was suddenly laid bare.
With a piercing roar, Roya streaked in like a meteor.
His Haki solidified into a colossal hand, snatching the stomach sac whole, binding it, and flinging it onto the Pluton's deck.
Deprived of its core, the giant husk collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
Tens of thousands of elite marines raised a deafening cheer!
This time, without Roya's aid, by their own strength alone, they had slain the very beast that had once devastated them!
"Justice will prevail!"
Kizaru bellowed, already hurling himself toward another monster.
As expected, the rest of the giants split into two groups.
Some remained to gorge themselves on the first carcass Roya had slain.
The others turned their sights on the beast just brought down by the marines.
Aokiji and Fujitora quickly followed after Kizaru's lead.
And Aokiji, never missing the chance to needle him, shouted aloud:
"Hey, old man! Mind telling us how you pulled that off first? You can't hog all the good stuff for yourself!"
Please drop some power stones supper me at my
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