Redfield and Linlin rode the storm, their attacks biting harder as Satan and Quetzalcoatl flooded the sky with thunder and wind.
A flash of steel cut through the rain.
Brook caught the Seven Star Demon Sword as it snapped back into its blade form, then looked down at the battlefield with cold focus.
He did not have the luxury of waiting for Imu to show up and ruin everything.
He needed these top Navy Admirals, now.
Boom!
Another pair of escort warships were punched into the sea under the combined rampage of World and Linlin. The moment they broke apart, dead souls rose like mist and drifted toward Brook in hungry streams.
Below, Kong and Sengoku were roaring orders, but it did not matter. They could barely protect themselves.
Kong was getting smothered.
Redfield alone could already keep him pinned, and once Shiki joined in, the two of them fought with pure killing intent. Kong could only defend, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth as his cloak shredded into strips. Even his hard Armament could not keep up when Conqueror's pressure and relentless blades hammered him from both sides.
Sengoku was in no better shape. Kaido and Oden tore into him without pause. The golden Buddha's defense and recovery were monstrous, letting him hold the line, but even he was being driven backward.
Roger and Rayleigh, on the other hand, were still holding back.
Brook could not be bothered watching their "friendly" exchange with Garp.
His eyes shifted.
Zephyr.
Newgate had Zephyr suppressed, yet Newgate was still fighting without the final edge. No killing intent. No urgency.
Brook's pupils narrowed, a flicker of bloodlust rising.
Fine.
He would start with the weakest.
The wristband on his arm lit up. A void door opened like an eye.
Brook stepped through.
And appeared behind Zephyr.
The Seven Star Demon Sword in his hand flared with Underworld ghost energy and Armament Haki, both twisting together into a chilling, black edged glow. He brought it down in a single, merciless arc at the man known as the Master of Armament.
Zephyr was already losing to Newgate.
Now he was struck by Brook from behind.
Even a monster could not endure that.
The slash carved a brutal diagonal wound across Zephyr's back, from shoulder to waist. Flesh tore. Blood sprayed. For a heartbeat, the cut was so deep the outline of bone and spine flashed beneath the armor darkened skin.
"Newgate," Brook said, voice sharp as steel, "Imu is coming. Put your pity away."
This was not a sparring match. Not a test of pride.
This was life and death.
"I know," Newgate answered.
The faint crease of displeasure he had shown at Brook's sudden strike vanished immediately. He understood. If they wasted time now, and Imu arrived while the Navy still stood, the next battle would be even worse.
Brook turned his gaze back to Zephyr.
Even after that slash, he still spoke.
"Surrender, Zephyr. I want to see you in the new navy. Keep your justice, protect the weak, but do it under a world that doesn't kneel to Celestial Dragons."
Underworld ghost energy crawled along the blade's edge, and the ominous, tainted blood aura of the Seven Star Demon Sword seeped into Zephyr's wounds. His mouth and nose bled. His face went paper white.
He forced Life Return through the Rokushiki, trying to clamp the wound shut, trying to stop the bleeding.
But the ghost energy kept eating at him. The evil presence in the sword's power gnawed at his vitality like rot.
"Justice," Zephyr rasped, fists still shining black, "doesn't yield."
"Then you can preach it in the Thunder Prison on Eighteen Hells Island," Brook replied calmly.
He did not have time for speeches. Imu was on the move.
Brook lifted the Seven Star Demon Sword.
"Soul Slash, Hell Ashura!"
A massive black demonic shadow rose behind him, towering in the storm. In Zephyr's eyes, Brook vanished.
The next instant, pain stabbed straight into Zephyr's soul.
His vision spun. Darkness swallowed the edges. The thick Armament coating on his body collapsed like ash, and the legendary instructor dropped to one knee, then toppled forward, unconscious.
"Take him to the ship," Brook ordered.
Newgate nodded once.
Brook's eyes flicked to the other battlefields. Another void door opened, and he disappeared again.
The moment Zephyr fell, Kong and Sengoku erupted in fury.
So did their instincts.
If Brook could do that, then none of them were safe. Not for a second.
Their distraction cost them. Their opponents hammered them back again, harder.
Newgate lifted Zephyr's heavy body and returned to the flying Pluton. Seastone cuffs and shackles went on first. Then a quick treatment, blood crystal dandelions forced between Zephyr's lips, keeping the old warrior alive.
Newgate stared down at him, expression complicated.
This was a righteous Marine.
If he could be turned, if he could one day stand for a different navy, then perhaps this world still had a future that wasn't drenched in rot.
"Hahaha! Kong!" Shiki's twin blades screamed louder, fiercer. "Stop struggling. Joining our Government is your only way out!"
His and Redfield's attacks intensified again. They wanted the Fleet Admir captured before Brook returned, otherwise it would be embarrassing.
Two against one, and it was still taking time.
That thought stung both of them.
Kaido and Oden felt the same. Their killing intent surged, every strike aimed to end Sengoku's resistance.
Roger and Rayleigh watched Brook vanish once more, and both of them finally sobered.
Their brows tightened.
"Garp," Roger said, breathing hard, "join the Universal Government. There's a new navy there too. No Celestial Dragons. If Brook decides you're the target, you'll either die or get crippled. I'm not saving you from that."
Rayleigh's eyes were sharp. "Even your son Dragon left the Navy. You've been carrying that weight alone for years. You're the natural enemy of the gods, stop serving pigs in silk."
He paused, then added in a lower voice, "If you surrender, we've done our job. If you don't…"
They had not killed or captured anyone at this level yet.
And Rayleigh had promised Roger something more valuable than pride.
He needed results.
Garp grinned, teeth bared.
Even with Roger and Rayleigh pressing him, even with bruises blooming across his face, he looked almost… relieved.
The anger inside him had finally found a place to breathe.
"Are you two," Garp said, voice rough and amused, "trying to teach me how to live?"
--------------
Even Garp was starting to fear the Brook who had vanished without a trace.
He traded blows with Roger and Rayleigh, but his eyes kept flicking across the battlefield, always listening, always sensing, waiting for that void gate to open behind his neck. Kong, Sengoku, and Garp all knew the same thing.
No one had any idea who Brook would cut down next.
That uncertainty gnawed at them.
Being forced to stay on edge while already fighting one against two was its own kind of torture. Their nerves were stretched so tight it felt like every cell in their bodies was screaming.
A howl of wind split the storm.
Under the combined pressure of Redfield and Shiki, Kong finally faltered.
A thin, vicious arc of sword light, crackling with lightning, tore across his left cheek.
Redfield's noble blade carved a grotesque wound from beneath Kong's left eye down toward his ear. Flesh curled outward. Bone showed through. Blood sprayed and ran in hot streams, and even a pale line scored across the cheekbone itself.
"Jihaha!" Shiki cackled, eyes gleaming. "Kong! Even the Five Elders can't stop me and Redfield together. Stop struggling and go down already!"
His twin swords rose and fell again, chopping with frantic brutality, refusing to give Kong even a breath.
Around them, the battle at sea was collapsing.
Aside from Kong's massive Fleet Admiral class flagship, every escort ship had already been sunk by Linlin and World. Marines plunged into the water by the hundreds, swallowed by waves and wreckage.
On Sengoku's side, there were no speeches.
Kaido and Oden were locked into savage close combat with the golden Buddha, a brutal clash of awakened Mythical Zoans. Their recovery was terrifying, their bodies too stubborn to fall, and their blows heavy enough to split the sky.
When Sengoku watched the Hell Pirates slaughtering his subordinates, something hard and furious ignited inside him.
He would not surrender.
A government built by pirates, even if it paraded a so called new navy, was still a world ruled by blood stained hands. In his eyes, that was sin piled higher than the Celestial Dragons' throne.
High above, on the flying Pluton, Hiruba's voice cut through the thunder like a knife.
"Warning!"
Imu was coming.
Brook, hidden within a green space, had already chosen his prey.
The moment the alarm sounded, Kong and the others felt their hearts twist. Their nerves snapped tighter, because they understood what that warning truly meant.
The real killing intent had arrived.
A void gate opened.
Not near Kong.
Not near Garp.
It opened behind Sengoku.
"As I thought," Brook's voice drifted out, calm and cold. "I'm still most interested in Devil Fruit users."
Brook burst from the gate and went straight for Sengoku, who was already pinned between Kaido and Oden.
Kong was doomed, sooner or later. Garp was being left untouched for Dragon's sake. Sengoku was the one piece Brook wanted.
The three Mythical Zoans, Kaido, Oden, and Sengoku, were all too tough in a straight brawl. They were pounding each other like giants, but it barely drew blood.
It was almost ridiculous.
Brook even had the absurd thought of three late game tanks in some arena, smashing each other until sunrise, with no one actually dying.
The instant the void gate appeared, Sengoku's Great Buddha form reacted on instinct. Danger sense flared. His entire golden body was wrapped in thick Armament Haki, layer after layer, forcing absolute defense.
He could not dodge Brook's speed in that massive form, and Kaido and Oden had already sealed his escape routes.
So Sengoku chose to endure.
Brook's Seven Star Demon Sword, wrapped in Armament, Underworld ghost energy, and a strange dark aura, drove into the back of the towering golden Buddha.
The sword force pierced through.
It punched out through Sengoku's chest.
Sengoku's pupils shrank, and blood exploded from his mouth.
Then the most terrifying part began.
Brook's dark matter coiled around the golden Buddha like living chains, disrupting the awakened form itself. Sengoku's transformation flickered, unstable. Without the Buddha's monstrous recovery, the wound would turn fatal in moments.
"Brook! Die!"
A roar of killing intent slammed into the battlefield.
Imu's aura arrived first.
Then came the attack.
A tiny, terrifyingly solid wave of destruction energy tore through the air, breaking the sound barrier like it was paper. It felt as if it sliced space itself, shooting straight for Brook's head.
For a heartbeat, Brook considered using Sengoku, now forced back toward human form, as a shield.
Then he felt the nature of that strike.
This was the kind of attack that could hit twice, even through a body.
He did not gamble.
Brook twisted away, forcing his body out of the fatal line by a hair.
In the next instant, Imu and the Four Elders swept in at impossible speed, abandoning ships entirely to reach the battlefield faster. They had come in person, just to save what was left of the Navy's high command.
Imu's arrival shattered Brook's plan to finish Sengoku cleanly.
Brook could only deepen the damage, driving the Seven Star Demon Sword's power through Sengoku's organs, then kicking Sengoku hard toward Imu, using the wounded Admiral as a moving obstacle to break Imu's rushing momentum.
At the same time, Redfield moved like a viper.
Before the World Government side fully arrived, he forced another brutal exchange and left Kong even more battered. If the fight exploded further, Kong would only be dead weight.
Brook steadied himself, Seven Star Demon Sword in hand, its edge stained with Sengoku's blood.
The blade drank it, absorbing it instantly.
Brook's gaze sharpened.
Was Sengoku dead?
He could not tell yet.
But he did not have time to confirm.
"Yo ho ho! Imu, you're fast."
Brook's voice carried a deliberate ease, but his mind was already racing.
This was the New World, not Mary Geoise. Imu's power was suppressed here, even if only slightly. That meant Brook had the confidence to stall, to drag the fight out just long enough for the Five Hell Kings to surround and butcher the Four Elders.
Imu hovered above the wreckage, eyes scanning the sea.
Only one warship remained intact.
Black Arm Zephyr was nowhere to be seen.
Imu's expression darkened with rage.
The World Government's top tier strength was no longer enough. Not compared to the Hell Pirates.
Then Imu saw Kong, barely held upright as the Four Elders dragged him back.
And he saw Sengoku, dying in his arms.
Imu's eyelids lowered.
In that narrow expression, for the first time, there was the hint of retreat.
"You win this war," Imu said, voice low and tight with humiliation. "Release Zephyr and every captured Marine. In return, I will acknowledge your right to rule the North Sea and the West Sea."
His gaze hardened.
"Refuse, and summon that Hell God right now."
The air chilled.
"Let's gamble. See if it's still watching the gate, and see who it chooses. Or I can fight you to the death. I am confident I can kill you."
It was the largest concession Imu had ever spoken.
Because he knew the truth.
If he truly fought to the death, Brook would die too.
But the God of Hell was a blade hanging above both of them, and neither could predict where it would fall.
Whoever was chosen would decide the war in a single, brutal moment.
Imu's offer was not mercy.
It was fear.
Brook's laughter rang out, bright and sharp.
"Yo ho ho! You're not that strong in the New World."
His tone turned hard.
"You want to take your fleet and crawl away, go ahead. But my prisoners are mine. Don't even dream about it."
Brook's eyes flashed.
"And don't ever step into the New World again. The North Sea and the West Sea are my territory too."
Imu's jaw tightened.
Brook was not intimidated.
Brook also wanted to attack, right now, right here.
But he was not foolish enough to corner a wounded beast and force a death match when he still had years to grow stronger, while Imu was already chained to a throne of decay.
The World Government was declining.
Its collapse was only a matter of time.
.....
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