Watching Vice Admirals Tengu and Kappa die before their very eyes was an excruciating experience for Sengoku, Garp, and Zephyr.
The distance between them was merely a few kilometers, yet it felt like an insurmountable chasm.
All because two barriers blocked their path, rendering them utterly powerless to alter the fate of the Vice Admirals.
"Damn it, damn it all!"
"You wretched members of the Rocks Pirates, every last one of you deserves to die!"
"The Navy and the World Government will never let you get away with this! Damn you!!!"
Sengoku stood in the sky, tears streaming down his aged face.
Witnessing the Navy's previous generation of elders perish before him was an unbearable cruelty for those who took pride in the Navy.
Beside him, Garp and Zephyr wore equally grim expressions.
Especially around Garp, crimson lightning crackled and surged, rippling through the air in waves.
Yet, unfortunately, these spatial disturbances were swiftly contained by a far greater force before they could extend far.
Within a two-kilometer radius of the trio, the space was riddled with dense, intricate fractures, forming an inescapable encirclement.
Beyond this barrier, four massive water lions stood at four strategic points, tightly surrounding them.
With such double insurance measures in place, what could Sengoku and the others possibly do?
"Great Buddha: Shockwave!"
"Fist Bone · Fist of Fury!"
"Crushing Wave Fist!"
Driven by rage, Sengoku and his companions unleashed their most powerful attacks in a desperate attempt to shatter the encirclement.
Their fierce assaults did manage to clear a path, erasing the fractured space and obliterating one of the water lions head-on.
The sheer fluidity of the effect would have drawn admiration even from Louis XVI.
Regrettably, within mere seconds, the water lion regenerated completely.
"Air quake~"
Whitebeard slammed his fist into the space before him, causing countless new fractures to spread and reform the encirclement around the trio.
"Damn you, Shiki and Whitebeard! You deserve to die!!!"
Sengoku watched in fury, his eyes nearly bursting with rage.
These two despicable foes refused to engage them directly, relying instead on underhanded tactics to trap them in an inescapable predicament.
"Jeehahaha! Sengoku, Garp, Zephyr—the Navy's three rising star Vice Admirals—how does it feel?"
"Watching two old-timers die right in front of you—isn't it just thrilling? Jeehahaha!"
High in the sky, an exuberant Shiki laughed mockingly, taunting the trio.
It was his collaboration with Whitebeard that had thwarted the Navy's three rising stars, leaving them completely immobilized.
After all, Shiki's Float-Float Fruit and Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit were far too overpowered in group battles.
Especially in a naval engagement with no land in sight, their advantages were magnified to the extreme.
The previously uninhabited island had long since been submerged by the sea during the earlier clashes.
As for the warships and even pirate ships?
The massive clashes generated violent gusts of wind, pushing everything dozens of kilometers away.
The Navy personnel who remained conscious could only watch the battle from afar, powerless to intervene.
Under such absurd circumstances, even an abnormal monster like Garp would find it difficult to change anything.
This wasn't entirely due to a gap in strength, but rather the result of how abilities were utilized.
The warships and pirate ships had already been pushed dozens of kilometers away by the previous onslaught.
The situation was hard to alter, let alone reverse.
After finishing his taunts, Shiki turned to look at Whitebeard beside him.
"Newgate, this is our first collaboration after so long. Your strength has improved."
"Gurararara, Shiki, if even you've progressed, of course I wouldn't fall behind."
Whitebeard was equally spirited.
Today marked the first time their four top officers had engaged in this kind of cooperative combat, and the results were unexpectedly effective.
"I never expected Brian and Linlin to take down two Admirals so quickly."
"Time spares no one in the end. Even former Admirals eventually grow old."
Though Whitebeard was only in his thirties at this point, he inexplicably felt a sense of powerlessness as he spoke.
In the face of time's passage, no strong individual could remain completely unmoved.
Otherwise, why would countless top-tier powerhouses have pursued immortality over the years?
Only eternal life could allow one to forever look down upon the mortal world.
Especially immortality that maintained peak strength—this was their ultimate pursuit.
When one's power reaches a certain level, it becomes truly difficult to accept the complete decline that comes with being unable to resist time's erosion.
This gap could even be enough to erase a strong individual's warrior spirit.
Tengu and Kappa were among the victims affected by this very disparity.
Over centuries, only the World Government's final boss, Imu, had achieved true immortality in the entire world.
As for the rest? One could say none had succeeded.
The Five Elders didn't count—their immortality was merely an alternative form dependent on Imu.
With their lives completely in Imu's grasp, they could no longer be considered genuine top-tier powerhouses.
This further proved the rarity of true immortality.
Of course, Whitebeard at this time still had great confidence in his own strength.
He was still young. Though he occasionally sighed in reflection, he quickly snapped out of it.
Besides, his pursuit wasn't immortality, but rather a large family of adopted sons.
"Gehahahaha, with this, our original battle plan is completely accomplished."
"Still not satisfying enough though. Too boring."
"Newgate, how about we call Brian and Linlin and keep all the marines here?"
"If we really pull that off, the Navy and World Government would completely lose it. That gets me even more excited."
"Gehahahaha, ah, ah~"
"Just thinking about that scene is making me climax~"
With two Admirals dead, Shiki still felt unsatisfied.
Even though they had successfully blocked Sengoku's trio and achieved remarkable results,
to Shiki himself, these achievements were utterly insufficient.
Without concrete heads of powerful opponents, it wasn't enough to demonstrate the terror of the great Shiki-sama.
When Morgans publishes the news reports later,
wouldn't the main focus still be on the Admiral heads taken by Brian and Linlin?
Then how much newspaper space would the great Shiki-sama actually occupy?
How could this possibly match the status of the great Shiki?
Not fun, not fun at all.
What if not just two Admirals, but all the Navy present were annihilated in the New World.
Especially if Garp, Sengoku, and Zephyr—the three super rookies everyone could see were destined to take over the Navy—all died in the New World.
Then the Navy would truly be crippled.
If things really reached that point, the world would undoubtedly descend into chaos.
For a mad pirate, nothing could be more entertaining than this.
Faced with this insane plan proposed by Shiki.
Whitebeard's expression shifted slightly.
He was tempted!!!