As Sakazuki caught Marco's leg, a lithe figure slipped through the chaos of the battlefield.
"One-Sword Style: Moon Rabbit!"
A clear, sharp shout rang out. By the time the sound reached Marco's ears, the leg Sakazuki had seized had already been severed.
At the same moment, Gion appeared at Sakazuki's side. Her sword, Konpira, was still stained with flickering blue flames.
With a casual flick of her wrist, she shook the blade, scattering the burning blue fire onto the ground.
Even with one leg cut off, Marco was largely unharmed. He flapped his wings and rose into the air. The severed leg lying on the ground was quickly consumed by blue flames, leaving nothing behind.
At the same time, intense blue fire surged from the stump of his leg, rapidly regenerating into a brand-new, perfectly healthy limb.
"Ow… that actually hurt," Marco muttered, puffing his cheeks slightly as he hovered in the air.
Gion smiled as she looked at him.
"This is only the beginning. It'll hurt even more later. As a swordsman, I love opponents like you. The kind who just won't die no matter how many times I cut them."
Nearby, Sakazuki had already fully returned to his normal form. He rolled his shoulders and tilted his neck from side to side.
"Thanks, Gion."
"No need. Leave the Phoenix to me. You handle the other one," Gion replied openly.
Sakazuki had no objections. From that brief exchange, he had already confirmed that Kozuki Oden was a truly formidable opponent. Taking him down would require time, and having Marco interfering nearby would only make things troublesome.
Before long, the battlefield was engulfed in chaos. Blue flames flared, sword slashes flew, magma erupted, and the fighting became a complete mess. Marines in the vicinity pulled back to create some distance, then quickly rejoined the fray, clashing fiercely with waves of charging pirates.
...
On another part of the battlefield, Smoker slammed Pavlik, an independent captain under the Whitebeard Pirates, to the ground. Thick white smoke poured from Smoker's hand, surging straight into Pavlik's nose, ears, mouth, and even his eyes.
Moments later, Pavlik's limbs twitched a few times before he went completely still.
Smoker finally released him. With his other hand, he swung the Seastone jitte outward, smashing the head of a pirate who had lunged at him.
Brains and blood splattered all over Smoker, but he didn't care. He was already drenched in blood, and there was a fresh wound torn open across his chest. Fortunately, it wasn't too deep.
"Life Return…" Smoker muttered under his breath.
The gaping wound slowly began to writhe and contract, gradually closing up. It wouldn't heal completely right away, but it greatly reduced the strain on his body.
"What did you do to Pavlik, you bastard?!"
Just as Smoker took a brief moment to steady himself, a pirate wielding a long blade cut down a Marine captain and charged at him with savage momentum, slashing straight at Smoker.
The attacker was none other than Squard, another independent captain under the Whitebeard Pirates, known as the Maelstrom Spider.
His swordsmanship was fierce and relentless. Smoker, already in poor condition, was forced back several steps. Each time his jitte clashed with Squard's blade, violent vibrations rippled through the weapon, sending sharp pain through Smoker's palms.
In just a moment, they exchanged dozens of blows. Smoker gained two more wounds in the process. It had to be said, Squard truly lived up to his reputation as someone who had once fought the Roger Pirates and survived. Among the independent captains, his strength was unquestionably top-tier.
He was in a completely different league from Pabrik, whom Smoker had just taken down.
Compared to Squard's ferocity, Smoker, despite being a Logia user and having been trained by Ortoren and others to be far stronger than in the original story, was still at a disadvantage. Injured and lacking the raw power to match Squard, he was steadily driven back, unable to hold his ground.
But just as Smoker once again blocked Squard's long blade with his jitte, the corpses scattered across the battlefield suddenly moved.
Or rather, they began to tremble.
In the next instant, massive amounts of blood burst out from those bodies. As the blood was drawn out, the corpses rapidly withered, turning into dried husks.
The blood then gathered together, forming a surging torrent that rushed straight toward Squard.
Squard reacted instantly. He swung his massive long blade, nearly twice the length of an ordinary sword, in a powerful windmill arc. Wrapped in Haki, the slash smashed apart the incoming blood.
But at that exact moment, a figure moved with blinding speed. Using Soru with pinpoint precision, it slipped past the whirling blade and closed the distance in an instant, appearing right in front of Squard.
The one who arrived was none other than Rob Lucci, draped in the Marines' coat of justice, Captain's insignia gleaming on his shoulders.
"Shigan: Hell Thrust – Ippon Kanshi!"
Lucci was simply too fast. For a brief instant, Squard had no chance to dodge. Still, as a great pirate who had roamed the New World for many years, Squard's eyes flashed with ferocity. He let out a roar as a massive surge of Haki gathered over his chest and heart.
In the next moment, Lucci's finger, reinforced with Haki, struck straight at Squard's chest. The two forces of Haki collided head-on. Pain flickered across Squard's face as Lucci's sharp fingernail could be seen piercing through his defense, barely breaking through to flesh.
But it lasted only a split second.
Squard immediately realized just how terrifying this man's strength was. The resistance from his Haki had bought him that tiny window of time, and he did not hesitate to take it. His footing slid backward as he used the explosive force of Lucci's attack to retreat rapidly, opening up distance between them. His long blade came up in front of him, guarding his body.
"A Marine Captain!?"
Only now did Squard clearly see the insignia on Lucci's shoulders, disbelief written all over his face.
Is this really the kind of power a Captain is supposed to have?
Lucci didn't answer him. Instead, he glanced at his finger, lightly stained with blood, and muttered to himself with a trace of regret.
"Even though the Admiral taught me everything about Ippon Kanshi and personally guided me on combining it with Shigan… when it comes to raw power, I'm still nowhere near him."
That was no exaggeration. The Ippon Kanshi Lucci had just used was a secret technique personally passed down to him by Ortoren.
However, he had only learned it after arriving in the New World. His proficiency and its true destructive power had yet to fully mature. Otherwise, that single strike should have been enough to kill Squard on the spot.
After briefly criticizing himself, Lucci turned to Smoker, whose breathing and presence had finally steadied.
"You alright?"
"I'm fine…" Smoker rolled his shoulders. "Just a momentary lapse. He caught an opening, that's all."
At the same time, Smoker realized something was wrong. Earlier, he had charged too aggressively and pushed deep into the pirates' formation. There were few Marines around them now. Instead, pirates had gathered on all sides, forming a loose encirclement.
Just then, the Ice Witch, Whitey Bay, stepped forward, standing opposite Lucci and Smoker. A long blade radiating chilling frost rested in her hand. She glanced toward the nearby Maelstrom Spider, Squard, and sneered.
"A Rear Admiral and a Captain pushed you this far? Squard, it seems your strength has declined quite a bit over the years."
Whitey Bay was no ordinary opponent. Though she looked like a woman in her twenties, she had long mastered the art of preserving her youth. Back in the early days of the Whitebeard Pirates, she had already served as a captain, fighting alongside Newgate himself. At that time, Marco and Jozu were still nothing more than apprentice crewmen.
Later, she stepped down from her captain position and formed her own pirate crew as an independent captain, yet she continued to revere Whitebeard as her father. One thing was certain—her strength was unquestionable.
Among all the independent captains affiliated with the Whitebeard Pirates, Whitey Bay was the strongest. Even when placed among captain-class officers, she stood firmly at the very top.
This time was different from facing Squard. Both Lucci and Smoker wore grave expressions. From the Ice Witch before them, they felt the unmistakable aura of a true powerhouse, an oppressive pressure that bore down on them.
"The intel never said… she was this strong," Smoker said heavily. "Just her presence alone is enough to make me feel pressured."
Smoker's own strength was nothing to scoff at. Anyone capable of weighing him down with sheer presence alone was without exception a top-tier fighter—figures like Gaban, Gion, or Isshō.
That alone was enough to prove that even if Whitey Bay was slightly inferior to monsters like Isshō, she had undeniably stepped into the realm of the very strongest.
Just as Smoker and Lucci braced themselves, preparing to fight together—
A surge of flame suddenly roared past from behind them, engulfing several pirates. Screams rang out as the burning men rolled across the ground, desperately trying to put themselves out.
A moment later, steady footsteps approached.
A figure came to a stop behind Lucci and Smoker, his gaze fixed on Whitey Bay and Squard as he spoke in a deep, calm voice.
"What do you think you're doing to my adorable subordinates, pirates?"
"Vice Admiral Momonga!?" Smoker exclaimed in surprise and relief as he turned around.
That's right.
The man who had appeared was none other than Vice Admiral Momonga.
The moment Momonga entered the battlefield, the ease vanished from Squard and Whitey Bay's expressions. Both of them turned serious at once.
The Whitebeard Pirates might not be famous for their intelligence network, but they weren't blind or deaf either. Over the past two years, Momonga's performance in the New World had been nothing short of outstanding. His fearsome strength was no exaggeration.
What's more, Momonga was now widely acknowledged throughout the New World as a true all-rounder—a rare individual capable of wielding multiple Devil Fruit abilities.
Just because he had been breathing fire a moment ago didn't mean that, in the next instant, he couldn't unleash a torrent of freezing water.
They had no choice but to be cautious.