Seawater surged back in, throwing the surrounding waters into chaos. Warships pitched with the wind, several nearly capsizing.
"What is going on?" Sengoku barked, his gaze dark and severe.
Faces tightened all around as dozens of Marines released their Observation Haki, senses sweeping down into the deep. Countless perceptions crossed and widened. In the next instant, expressions froze, then turned to panic.
Unnoticed, their entire fleet had been encircled. Beneath the hulls, who knew how many colossal Sea Kings lurked. Maddened, they rammed the ice from below with the weight of the ocean on their backs. In moments, ice hundreds of meters thick fractured into a web of cracks.
"How can there be this many Sea Kings?" Vice Admiral Tsuru's eyes widened. "Our keels are lined with Seastone. How are they even sensing us!"
"Damn it. What is happening!"
Panic rolled through the seventy or eighty ships. Some sailors stumbled to the rails and peered down, only to see the sea swarming with enormous shadows.
"C… Captain!"
"The water is packed with Sea Kings, huge ones!"
As everyone reeled, the sea before the fleet heaved. One after another, massive Sea Kings broke the surface, their tails slapping the water. Hundreds of tons of seawater came crashing over a nearby battleship. Wood screamed as the hull twisted, then broke apart. Marines hurled themselves overboard, dropping like dumplings into a boiling pot.
They hit the water.
Cries for help erupted everywhere.
One, two, three… ten, fifty…
Sea Kings blanketed the entire horizon, each radiating a suffocating, predatory aura. Steel Bone Kong, Sengoku, and Garp all felt their scalps prickle. None of them had ever witnessed a migration like this.
The herd sealed the area completely. The fleet could not move an inch.
One giant among them, at least a kilometer long, rose with such force that it lifted the sea by hundreds of meters. A wall of water a small-scale tsunami roared toward the fleet.
Compared to the Sea Kings, the battleships were paper-thin and pitifully fragile.
"W… what? Why are so many Sea Kings appearing all at once?" Kong's face changed, a sharp sense of danger flaring in his chest.
Rakuya stood poised above the void, watching coldly.
Thunder growled. Lightning split the sky. Wind and rain pounded the sea until it boiled.
The Sea Kings charged the ships.
They attacked in unison.
Boom. Boom.
Warships rocked violently in the troughs.
Several saber-toothed sharks knifed beneath the surface, ramming for the keels. Break a ship's belly and it could no longer sail; it would die where it floated.
Ordinarily, Seastone linings masked a ship with the "scent" of the sea, causing most Sea Kings to ignore or avoid it. Today, that effect had simply vanished.
Sea Kings surfaced everywhere at once and tore into the fleet.
Kong opened his mouth to issue an order, but a thunderous impact rose from below. The flagship heaved, then lurched.
In the span of a breath, the whole ship tilted. A violent surge punched through the keel, flooding compartments in an instant.
"Bad news, Fleet Admiral! The bottom's been bitten through. We're taking on water fast!"
A seaman scrambled up, pale and shaking.
Kong's expression went stone-dark. "Kuzan!"
"Ice Age!"
Understanding at once, Kuzan thrust both arms forward. Cold roared out. The rising flood froze solid. In a heartbeat the battleship welded to the ocean itself, and even the Sea Kings below were caught in the spreading ice.
Rakuya's eyes glinted. "You can freeze seawater, Kuzan. But can you freeze a thousand-meter wave?"
At that, every head tilted up.
"Rakuya! What are you trying to do!"
"What am I doing?"
Rakuya gave a thin laugh and lazily pointed to the side.
Every Marine turned. Far off, a towering tsunami, a full kilometer high, came howling in, bearing down with annihilating force.
Eyes widened. Sakazuki's face went black. He vaulted to a deck and thrust both fists skyward.
"Meteor Volcano!"
A volley of magma colossi erupted and hammered into the incoming wall of sea. Vast sheets of water flashed to steam.
Kuzan stepped onto the surface and unleashed another blizzard of cold. Ice raced outward in every direction, locking hundreds of meters of ocean solid. The kilometer-high wave glazed over as frost climbed its flanks and seized it whole.
Within seconds, the world before them turned to ice and snow.
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