The blazing magma surged like a raging sea of fire, rolling forward with enough heat to melt almost anything in its path.
Against it came Magellan's dark poison cloud, spreading through the air like an unnatural fog. It carried both a bone-deep chill and lethal toxicity, leaving the atmosphere itself saturated with the presence of death.
The moment those two forces collided—
SSSSSSSS—!
It was like pouring water into boiling oil.
Large amounts of poison evaporated the instant they touched the extreme heat, burning away into thick clouds of acrid smoke.
Within moments, the sky was filled with fumes carrying the combined stench of sulfur and venom, the dark haze twisting overhead like something alive.
Bullet had already realized how troublesome Magellan's poison could be.
That was precisely why he was using the magma surrounding his colossal body as a barrier, trying to burn away the poison before it could reach him.
If he could simply incinerate the cloud faster than Magellan could produce it, then the giant body created through the Clank-Clank Fruit would remain safe.
At least, that was the idea.
But Magellan's poison was not nearly so simple.
Even as most of the cloud was vaporized by the magma, tiny portions of far denser, darker venom survived.
Those droplets moved almost like living things.
Rather than throwing themselves directly into the hottest sections of magma, they slipped through gaps in the blazing defense, avoiding the most intense heat as they crawled toward Bullet's enormous body.
Like leeches searching for exposed flesh, the poison latched onto joints, seams, and areas that had not yet completely recovered from the earlier Poison Dragon attack.
Sss… sss…
Quiet corrosive sounds began coming from the gaps between Bullet's armor plating.
The noise was far less dramatic than the earlier clash.
But to Bullet, it was much more dangerous.
He felt it immediately.
A cold, stubborn, invasive force was attacking the connections holding his fused body together.
The Clank-Clank Fruit had bound metal, stone, magma, and countless pieces of debris into a single massive structure.
Now Magellan's venom was seeping directly into those connections.
Tiny fractures began forming.
More importantly—
the poison was not stopping there.
It continued forcing its way deeper, penetrating through layer after layer of fused material as it tried to reach Bullet's actual body.
"Damn it!"
Bullet growled.
For the first time, he could no longer simply ignore the venom.
He was forced to divide his attention.
More Haki surged through the colossal body.
At the same time, additional magma flowed toward the contaminated areas, raising the temperature and trying to burn the poison away from within.
Armament Haki and magma worked together, suppressing and expelling the venom that had already penetrated his defenses.
The effort was costly.
Even Bullet's breathing became heavier as he continuously fed more power into the giant.
Magellan saw it.
And for the first time since Bullet tore apart his Poison Dragon, a cold smile appeared on his pale face.
He had been right.
Bullet was not immune.
Not even close.
He could resist the poison.
He could burn away most of it.
He could repair the damage it caused.
But all of that consumed strength.
And if Magellan continued flooding him with poison at sufficient concentration, especially poison designed to infiltrate rather than simply overwhelm him from the outside—
then Bullet could still be restrained.
Eventually, perhaps even brought down.
"Let's see how long you can keep that up!"
Magellan gritted his teeth.
He was already paying a heavy price himself.
His body ached from exhaustion, and maintaining attacks on this scale was draining him rapidly.
But none of that mattered anymore.
The Marines had already suffered one humiliating defeat.
He refused to let Marineford fall again.
"The Marines cannot afford another defeat!"
His expression hardened.
"Bullet…"
"Today, you're staying right here!"
Magellan forced even more power from his body.
"Corrode!"
The air warped.
More poison clouds began gathering overhead.
They rolled together like enormous black-purple waves, thickening with every passing second until the stench alone became suffocating.
Magellan intended to turn the entire area around Bullet into a sea of poison.
A net with no gaps.
A battlefield where every breath, every movement, and every attempt to repair his fused body would cost him more strength.
He would drown Bullet in venom little by little.
Wear him down.
Corrode him.
Drag the seemingly invincible monster into exhaustion.
And it was working.
Magellan's poison had successfully tied Bullet down.
The venom continued creeping through the giant's fused structure, forcing Bullet to dedicate more and more of his attention and power to suppressing the contamination spreading toward his real body.
For the first time since the colossal destroyer had appeared—
Bullet could no longer devote all of his strength to destroying Marineford.
...
The Marines immediately seized the fleeting opportunity.
It was like catching sight of a sliver of dawn in the middle of darkness. The fire of resistance flared back to life in their eyes.
"Attack! Everyone, give it everything you've got!"
A Marine commander roared until his voice cracked, the order ringing across the battlefield and snapping countless soldiers out of their despair.
"Support Admiral Magellan!"
Another officer's shout followed immediately.
The Marines who had been battered apart by Bullet's earlier attacks but could still move gritted their teeth against the pain and forced themselves upright once more.
Even some of the soldiers who had nearly broken under the pressure managed to gather their courage. Under the direction of their officers, the scattered formations rapidly came together again.
Captains and commanders reorganized what remained of their troops.
Then the Marines launched another desperate assault.
"Ice Spike Spears!"
One Marine using a simulated freezing ability leaped into the air and thrust both hands forward.
The temperature around him plunged.
Dozens of razor-sharp spikes of ice burst from the ground and shot toward Bullet like arrows, their surfaces gleaming with bitter cold.
"Flame Impact!"
Another ability user stepped forward and drove both palms out.
A massive burst of fire surged from his hands like a roaring dragon, rolling toward the colossal destroyer in a wave of heat.
"Rock Cannon!"
Nearby, another Marine raised both arms.
The surrounding stone cracked loose from the ground.
Chunks of rock lifted into the air, gathered together under his control, and compressed into enormous projectiles before hurtling toward Bullet like meteors.
And those were only a few of them.
Ice.
Fire.
Stone.
Shock waves.
Barriers.
Blades.
All manner of simulated abilities poured toward Bullet from every direction.
Individually, none of them amounted to much against someone of his level.
Most would barely qualify as an irritation.
But hundreds of attacks landing together were a different matter.
Especially the freezing attacks.
Combined with Magellan's poison, they created a constant barrage of cold and corrosion that interfered with Bullet's magma and forced him to spend more energy maintaining his colossal body.
His expression darkened.
Then his eyes narrowed.
Among the chaos, he spotted several Marine officers moving differently from the rest.
Their eyes were pitch-black.
Strange dark ripples twisted around their bodies.
And instead of attacking from a distance, they were quietly trying to close the gap.
Bullet instantly understood.
'Dark-Dark Fruit users.'
They had taken serum designed to simulate the Dark-Dark Fruit.
If even one of them managed to touch him with Black Vortex, his Devil Fruit abilities could be temporarily suppressed.
And if that happened while he was maintaining this enormous fused magma body—
the entire construct might collapse at once.
That would leave him exposed in the middle of Marineford.
"You think you're getting close to me?!"
Bullet's roar shook the fortress.
"Dream on!"
His magma-filled eyes blazed.
"Every last one of you can die!"
The colossal destroyer's entire body shuddered.
The ground trembled beneath it.
Yet Bullet did not move even a single step.
He had no reason to.
Through the Clank-Clank Fruit, his feet had already fused directly into Marineford's foundations.
He was rooted into the fortress like an enormous tree embedded in bedrock.
Unless someone possessed enough force to tear the island itself apart beneath him, dragging him from his position would be nearly impossible.
That also greatly weakened one of the Dark-Dark Fruit's most troublesome properties.
Its gravitational pull might drag ordinary opponents toward the user.
But Bullet, fused directly into Marineford itself, might as well have been a mountain.
Trying to pull him across the battlefield with gravity alone was almost meaningless.
So Bullet changed tactics.
Instead of wasting time blocking individual attacks with his fists, he raised both enormous arms toward the sky.
The motion alone sent violent gusts sweeping across the plaza.
"Meteor Volcano—"
Magma surged through the giant's arms.
Then both limbs erupted like twin volcanic craters.
"Heavenfire Burns the City!"
Countless masses of dark-red magma blasted upward.
Each was nearly the size of a building.
They screamed into the sky like a reverse meteor shower, trailing fire and molten rock behind them.
The air warped from the heat.
The magma projectiles continued rising until they reached their peak.
Then—
instead of simply falling wherever gravity carried them, they changed direction under Bullet's precise control.
Every burning mass turned toward the Marine positions below.
Toward the soldiers trying to close in.
Toward the officers attacking from range.
Toward anyone still fighting.
And then the sky began raining fire.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The magma barrage crashed down across Marineford in an indiscriminate saturation bombardment.
Each impact erupted like artillery fire.
Stone shattered.
Flames exploded outward.
Molten rock spread across the battlefield.
The Marines' renewed assault had barely begun—
and Bullet answered by turning the entire sky above them into a weapon.
...