-Broadcast-
Caesar Clown watched Godzilla crawl away through the breach, and the mad scientist's negative emotions reached their absolute peak. The solution was obvious: push everyone around him into harm's way to stop his experimental subject from escaping Punk Hazard.
He literally kicked several experimenters toward the gap, boots connecting with ribs and spines. "What are you all standing there for?! Did I feed you for nothing?! Get out there and capture Godzilla! NOW!"
Suddenly, a large number of experimenters with zero combat training were forced to pursue the direction Godzilla had taken. They didn't understand that this was an invisible road to death. Even if the monster didn't kill them directly, the extreme radiation levels along its path would cause ordinary humans to die in agony over the following hours.
Vice Admiral Vergo received the emergency report and immediately mobilized G-5 branch Marines to the scene—sending them without protective gear, expecting their flesh and blood to somehow stop an unknown monster. He also ordered Marine warships in the base harbor to provide fire support, cutting off the creature's escape route to open water.
The monster must not be allowed to reach the sea.
Armed personnel converged on Godzilla's position with remarkable speed. Artillery emplacements swiveled to track the crawling creature. Rifles took aim. On Vergo's order, they opened fire.
Shells arced through the air and detonated against the monster's bulk with satisfying explosions. Bullets stitched across its hide, penetrating deep into flesh and fat.
The destructive effect was surprisingly effective. The monster that had escaped the laboratory appeared massive, but its surface tissue wasn't particularly durable. Artillery shells created craters of bloody flesh. Bullets burrowed into fat layers. It seemed like nothing more than meat waiting to be butchered.
Black and red fluid spread across the ice in expanding pools. Godzilla's body showed horrific wounds—entire sections of flesh blown away, ribs visible through gaps in tissue, one eye socket leaking viscous fluid.
Yet it continued crawling toward the sea with single-minded purpose, cloudy eyes fixed on the horizon.
"Another monster from the laboratory," one Marine commented while reloading. "But this one's pathetic! Easier than shooting targets at the practice range!"
"Right?" his companion agreed, firing another burst into Godzilla's flank. "Thing's tenacious though. Lost what, half its blood? Body's practically falling apart, but it just keeps crawling."
"If Vergo wasn't paying triple hazard bonus, I wouldn't be here," a third Marine muttered. "This whole island gives me the creeps."
The G-5 branch Marines had a reputation for tough, unconventional operations. They possessed a kind of pirate beauty—rough, pragmatic, valuing practical interests above military discipline. The gangster atmosphere was quite serious, making them alternatives within the Marine structure.
Since the Battle of Marineford had sunk Marine Headquarters and devastated the organization from top to bottom, a large number of elite officers at middle and lower levels had died. Despite apparent victory, the reality was strategic retreat—protecting only the most important locations while adopting a laissez-faire approach to distributed bases. Basically ignoring them when possible, providing no funding when requested.
With high-level Marine leadership still in chaos, the current Fleet Admiral having only temporary authority, even basic pensions for fallen sailors were difficult to distribute. Regular salaries for middle and lower-level personnel? The Marshal's treasury couldn't cover it. The entire Marine stank of poverty.
Power vacuums inevitably attracted other forces to fill the void. Vergo—ostensibly a Vice Admiral—was actually a spy sent by Donquixote Doflamingo. Turning the unattended Punk Hazard into an experimental base had been simple.
The branch Marines were perfectly happy working for the wealthy Vice Admiral Vergo. They didn't care where his money came from—as long as there was money, they could be mobilized to do anything. Including blocking Godzilla's path today.
Unfortunately for them, some people had the life to earn money but not the life to spend it.
"Wait..." A sharp-eyed Marine sergeant squinted at the monster. "Is its skin... changing color?"
Godzilla's hide was shifting from red to black. The soft tissue that had been so easy to penetrate was hardening, compressing, reorganizing at the molecular level.
"Keep firing!" Vergo ordered through the communication system. "Don't let it adapt!"
But adaptation had already begun.
Godzilla was constantly bombarded with artillery fire, and on the surface appeared to be blown apart. But the organs inside its body continuously supplied energy, and the injuries were actually triggering its next evolution.
The spikes along Godzilla's dorsal ridge began growing—extending upward, sharpening to points. The fat on its thighs solidified into dense muscle. Its entire body structure was changing, optimizing for something beyond mere survival.
"Why does it feel like this thing's getting harder?" a Marine asked nervously, watching his bullets ricochet off skin that moments ago they'd pierced easily.
Under hundreds of watching eyes, Godzilla attempted something impossible.
It tried to stand.
Two thick legs pushed against the ground. The creature's weight shifted as it experimented with balance. The swollen flesh compressing, streamlining, as unnecessary mass was reabsorbed for energy. The tail extended behind it—thirty meters of powerful muscle providing counterbalance.
At this moment, Godzilla no longer sought merely to reach the sea. The monster, having evolved intelligence, wanted to deal with the small insects at its feet.
"It's... it's actually standing!" someone screamed into their radio. "How is that body standing upright?!"
Two small but functional forelimbs emerged from folds in Godzilla's chest—claws that could grasp, tear, manipulate. The creature rose to its full height on powerful legs, towering fifty meters above the ice, tail swaying gently to maintain equilibrium.
And at the tail's base, hidden from view, new organs were forming. A second mouth taking shape, preparing for widespread devastation.
Artillery shells struck Godzilla's evolved skin—now hardened into something resembling obsidian—and simply sparked against it, creating black smoke but no damage. Physical projectiles had become useless.
It was time for the ultimate life form to counterattack.
Trafalgar Law stood at the laboratory breach, watching purple light begin glowing along Godzilla's dorsal plates. His sixth sense—honed through years of danger—screamed warnings.
Something very bad is about to happen.
When Godzilla entered this stage, it opened its mouth in a display even more terrifying than what Momonosuke had witnessed in the laboratory. Purple light gathered in the monster's maw, intensity building to critical mass. By the time the Marines surrounding it wanted to retreat, it was far too late.
Godzilla's scream shattered windows across Punk Hazard—a sound that made human ears bleed, that resonated in the chest cavity like physical impact.
Then came annihilation.
Purple plasma beams erupted from the monster's mouth with the force of divine judgment. The atomic breath swept horizontally across the battlefield—a wall of concentrated death moving at the speed of thought.
Everything the beam touched simply ceased to exist. Melted, exploded, vaporized. Human bodies evaporated immediately under such ultra-high temperatures—no time for screaming, no time for pain. One moment Marines stood firing their weapons. The next moment they were carbon shadows on scorched earth.
But this time, Godzilla wasn't limited to a single attack vector.
Its flexible tail whipped forward, and a second purple beam erupted from the mouth-organ that had formed at its base. Two atomic breath attacks now carved through Punk Hazard simultaneously, changing directions independently, seeking targets with terrible intelligence.
Artillery emplacements exploded as the beams passed through them. Buildings collapsed into molten slag. Marines tried to run and died mid-stride, their bodies flash-converted to superheated gas.
Even the Marine warships in the harbor became victims. The tail's beam swept across the water, cutting through steel hulls like they were wet paper. Ships detonated spectacularly as magazines ignited, sending shockwaves across the bay.
The experimental complex where Caesar Clown had conducted his research was not spared. The atomic breath penetrated walls, sliced through reinforced structures, ignited everything flammable. Explosions propagated through the facility in cascading chains of destruction.
Fortunately, Trafalgar Law stood next to the mad scientist at that moment. He used his Ope Ope no Mi to teleport them both away, narrowly avoiding the subsequent energy assault.
They materialized on a distant ice ridge, overlooking the carnage.
Punk Hazard's ice island was now engulfed in smoke and fire. Hundreds dead. Infrastructure destroyed. An entire Marine base reduced to ruins in under five minutes.
Caesar Clown stared at the devastation—and began laughing.
It started as a chuckle. Then a giggle. Then full-throated, hysterical laughter that echoed across the burning landscape.
"It's PERFECT!" Caesar spread his arms wide, tears of joy streaming down his face. "ABSOLUTELY PERFECT! Godzilla is the ultimate biological weapon! THIS is what I've pursued my entire career! THIS is my masterpiece!"
Caesar Clown had been studying this ancient creature for six months—perhaps waiting for exactly this day, this scene. The monster he'd extracted from ancient ice had just demonstrated power beyond his wildest projections.
Law stood beside the cackling scientist, expression carefully neutral despite the horror churning in his gut. He watched Godzilla standing in the sea of fire, continuing to spray atomic beams across the island in sweeping arcs, methodically destroying everything that remained.
Law couldn't imagine what disaster would befall the world if this monster was mass-produced. If Caesar succeeded in replicating Godzilla's biology, in creating an army of such creatures...
The thought was apocalyptic.
"You're insane," Law said quietly, though Caesar was too busy laughing to hear. "Completely, utterly insane."
Godzilla's twin beams finally ceased, energy reserves temporarily depleted. The monster stood motionless in the center of destruction, smoke rising from its open mouth, purple light still glowing faintly along its dorsal plates.
It had evolved from a wounded, crawling creature into something that could destroy a fortified island in minutes. And given time, given more threats to adapt to, it would evolve further still.
Kozuki Momonosuke had released something that might not be possible to recapture. Something that shouldn't exist in the modern world.
An ancient terror, now adapted for the present era. And it was learning. Growing stronger. Becoming more dangerous with every passing moment.
Law teleported again, putting more distance between himself and the awakened monster. Caesar's laughter followed him across the ice.
Behind them, Godzilla turned its massive head toward the open sea and began walking. No longer crawling. No longer wounded. Moving with terrible purpose toward deep water.
Where it would disappear.
Where it could continue evolving.
Where no one would be able to stop what it might become.
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