It was said that as long as plants still existed in the world, the ability user would possess undying vitality.
Looking at this almost absurdly detailed description of the Devil Fruit ability, Kuzan could not help but marvel once more at the Prophet's power.
The one who countered Aramaki most strongly was probably Sakazuki, the wielder of the Magma Fruit.
But as the wielder of the Ice-Ice Fruit, Kuzan himself was also, in a sense, the natural enemy of natural life.
At the very least, before his absolute zero, plants might not even have the chance to grow or sprout.
"A swordsman, huh… What a nasty sense of humor."
Mihawk had likewise received a photograph of his opponent, but there was very little information attached. Because… the other party was a swordsman.
Looking at the photograph of Momousagi, Gion, he could not help but shake his head—out of pity for her.
This would be an overwhelmingly one-sided battle.
"Whether to kill him or not is left to me?" Fujitora, meanwhile, had been matched against Chaton, Tokikake. His information was similarly sparse.
After all, the number of times those two had actually fought in public was extremely limited.
However, Ren did not think there would be any problem. Although Gion and Tokikake were Admiral candidates and far stronger than ordinary Vice Admirals, as people from the same era as Kuzan, Sakazuki, and Borsalino, the fact that they had failed to become Admirals and had only received the title of Admiral candidate was itself proof that their strength was lacking.
"What about Akainu?"
Kuzan put away the photograph and asked about the man who, in his eyes, had to be taken seriously.
"Dragon of the Revolutionary Army."
Ren gave a simple answer, then said, "If he loses his head and barges into my battlefield, I don't mind beating one more person.
"Beating seven is still beating. Beating eight is still beating. There's no difference."
After answering that, he began assigning the battlefields below the commander-class level. Compared to the top-tier combatants, where every position had to be filled by a specific person,
Ren's side had far more leeway when it came to first-rate fighters. In some places, they were so well supplied that they could even assign two people against one.
The further down the hierarchy went, the more obvious that became.
The current Ren could truly be said to have grown his wings. He had money, and he had manpower.
After finalizing the plan, he also handed out some tools meant to prevent unexpected situations, such as Teleportation Scrolls and emergency rescue items for instant repositioning.
At this point, Cross Guild's grand strategy against Wano was basically complete.
"Next comes the war."
Wano.
After receiving the news, Kaido prepared for battle with the utmost seriousness.
Under his command, the Three Disasters, the Tobi Roppo, the Numbers, the Headliners, the Gifters, and the other forces all made ready to meet the enemy.
However, because of Ren, the Beasts Pirates did not have nearly as many Artificial Devil Fruit users as they did in the original timeline.
Their overall strength was more than a third weaker than in canon.
But because of Big Mom, that missing portion had been filled in again.
Although Totto Land had been seized by Ren, Big Mom herself had not died, and the scale of the Big Mom Pirates was never limited to Totto Land alone.
On other islands ruled by the Queen, there were still forces belonging to the Big Mom Pirates.
They had avoided the war against the Angel Legion and gathered in Wano under Mama's banner.
At the same time, Big Mom spared no cost in using the lifespans of Wano's people to create Homies on a massive scale, forming several enormous Homies legions.
This was also one major reason the resistance army had appeared.
Under the pressure imposed by Cross Guild from the outside world, the two Emperors and their forces had entered a state of tight integration.
"Hey, Kaido."
Big Mom asked, "How do you think that guy Ren will make his entrance?"
Glug, glug, glug…
Kaido was taking great swigs of liquor. Hearing her, he lowered the jug and drunkenly said, "If it were just him alone, he'd probably come from the sky.
"But this looks like a large-scale war. They should attack from the front. Given the special nature of his armies, they should be able to cross this high wall."
As he spoke, he looked toward the distant horizon. Even from the edge of Wano, one could see a vast stretch of blue sea.
But it was not seen from the perspective of a coastline. Rather, it was seen from far above.
Because the height difference between the current Wano and the sea below was roughly two thousand meters!
After Wano had experienced Ren's forced opening of the country, the levels of the inner and outer seas had basically evened out. In exchange, this alternative geographical advantage had been created.
Densely packed batteries had been deployed along the high cliffs, ready at any moment to carry out the textbook example of "shooting downward from high ground and turning idiots into targets."
Of course, Kaido did not think Ren would truly be helpless against this cliff face.
That man had far too many unbelievable tricks.
"Mamamama— Is that so?"
Big Mom's smile was filled with killing intent. "I can't wait to give him a surprise.
"I truly want to see what kind of expression he'll make when he discovers what he has to face."
"…Boring."
Kaido did not echo her words. Although he had agreed to join forces and participate in this plan, deep down, he still yearned for a one-on-one battle with Ren. To fight, to kill, and then obtain the result.
Rather than relying on this kind of method. It was only because ambition had suppressed his emotional side that Kaido was still carrying out the plan.
No matter what, they had to completely strangle Ren!
Boom—!
Below the cliff, the sea suddenly surged with waves that smashed against the rock wall that had once been submerged beneath the ocean.
The waves became faster and faster. More and more violent!
"Hm?"
Kaido's drinking paused. Then he transformed into an azure dragon and soared into the sky. After sensing for a moment, he received his answer.
"A tsunami? No… It seems to be…"
At the limit of Kaido's vision, layer upon layer of waves suddenly emerged. When first seen, they were already on the scale of a supermassive tsunami.
But they were still growing higher, still becoming more violent, to the point that the sea behind the tsunami unnaturally sank downward.
That was absolutely not a natural tsunami, nor was it caused by some attack.
It was a Devil Fruit ability!
Far beyond the horizon, over a thousand nautical miles away, Ren was using the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, the Float-Float Fruit, and his own Blazing Sun Furnace to push the sea into a tsunami from the very beginning, making it grow higher, more surging, and increasingly unstoppable.
And within that roaring tsunami, a vast, pitch-black warship was traveling through the seawater.
The repair work led by the Revolutionary Army, consuming immense manpower and resources, had finally produced results and now made its debut here.
Its name—Pluton!
Above Pluton, Judgment followed close behind. Nami controlled the Weather Clouds, forming thunderclouds that covered hundreds of kilometers.
Within the clouds, tens of thousands of angels advanced through thunder, wind, and rain.
"It's started! It's started!"
In the middle of the angels, Morgans, who had come to obtain first-hand information, was filming excitedly.
His current situation was actually very dangerous. He was inside a giant lightning-proof steel compartment being carried by more than a dozen angels. The slightest mishap would leave him without even a corpse.
But for the sake of first-hand and incomparably precious material, Morgans had absolutely no desire to go back.
Come on, just look at that colossal battleship structure cutting through the tsunami.
That was one of the three legendary Ancient Weapons—Pluton!
A person might indeed have only one life, but the chance to witness Pluton in action might also come only once!
Compared to the madness of the newsman, the atmosphere inside Pluton was grave.
One Revolutionary Army technical shipwright after another hurried everywhere, inspecting the operating state of the ancient weapon.
Lindbergh sat inside the main control room, his furry face filled with anticipation and fanaticism.
This ancient weapon, abandoned for at least eight hundred years, had finally been restored to a barely usable state through the combined efforts of Lindbergh the inventor, the Revolutionary Army's many technicians, the vast resources supplied by Tesoro, and Vegapunk's satellites.
Of course, one thing that had to be mentioned was the "flame seed" energy source provided by Vegapunk.
Yes, Pluton and Uranus were the same. Both required an almost infinite supply of energy before they could display their full power.
In Ren's speculation, perhaps the correct sequence should have been to obtain the flame seed energy source from the Mechanical Giant, use it to activate Pluton, and then fight Uranus with it.
But no matter what, it was impossible to recreate that sequence, and there was no need to.
The energy furnace that Vegapunk had built from a bit of leftover scraps was already enough to make Pluton move.
At this moment, under Lindbergh's control, Pluton was already prepared to fire.
In truth, this thing was not much different from Uranus. The only difference was that because it did not need to bear the consumption of flight, the caliber and output of its cannon were even greater than Uranus's.
A supermassive tsunami far beyond Water 7's Aqua Laguna, yet still worthy of being called the Gods of Water, carried Pluton forward toward the distant cliff face.
Ren hid within the clouds, sensing the presences inside Wano.
"Interesting. Everyone who should come has come?"
He let out a cold laugh, then first used an Enhancement Card item before transforming Space-Time: The Creator into Temporal Mist and scattering it outward.
Before the real battle began, he had upgraded Space-Time: The Creator once again. Although there had not been a major change in its effects, the time consumption for form integration and other aspects had been reduced tremendously, to the point that it could almost be ignored.
Golden mist quickly spread toward the enemy's position.
In Ren's vision, the land of Wano had become a vast highland, at least two kilometers above sea level.
However, the supermassive tsunami he had raised was climbing step by step, continuously narrowing the height difference between the two sides.
Thunderclouds and pale golden mist together shrouded the Wano coastline atop the highlands.
On Kaido's side, they also discovered that unique, enormous warship, but they did not recognize it as Pluton.
As time flowed on, everything reached the crucial point.
"If you want to land, you'll have to get past me first!"
Kaido transformed into an azure dragon. Opening his mouth, he unleashed a long-charged Blast Breath. The dazzling beam lit up the gloomy sky, like a sharp sword stabbing straight forward.
It was at this very moment, inside Pluton's main control room, that Lindbergh's wild laughter rang out.
"Fire!"
A beam even more radiant than Blast Breath, surpassing even the Super Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon Ren had used when opening Wano, erupted from Pluton's main cannon.
The dark-red pillar of light expanded in a radiating form. Very quickly, its diameter reached a terrifying ten kilometers, and the energy it carried even astonished Ren.
It was as though a dark-red divine spear had stabbed out from the sea, seeking to pierce through all of Wano!
Kaido's Blast Breath was utterly meaningless before it. In the blink of an eye, it was swallowed and erased. The pillar of light continued advancing at an astonishing speed.
The red "spear" pierced through the towering cliff face, vaporizing every substance it encountered along its upward diagonal path, until it punched clean through.
A dazzling red pillar of light burst out from within the earth, shooting straight toward the sky!
Boom—!
The pillar of light vanished in the blink of an eye. In its place came an incredibly terrifying explosion. Waves of flame layered and converged, forming a massive fireball sixty kilometers in diameter.
It was so enormous that it connected heaven and earth, as if a blazing sun had appeared to display its might.
It was so terrifying that everything touched by its power was evaporated completely, leaving only an empty void behind.
Thus, everyone who witnessed this scene subconsciously held their breath, trembling before this almost world-destroying spectacle.
A diameter of sixty kilometers.
In the world of One Piece, that could basically be considered the area of a super-large island.
Given the average technological level of the current One Piece world, the natural resources and land area possessed by a super-large island were roughly enough to sustain tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, enough to be equated with a "powerful kingdom."
And now, with a single shot from Pluton's main cannon, a sixty-kilometer-wide hollow had been blasted out.
Ren had no choice but to act, controlling that gigantic fireball and twisting it upward.
In the next instant, a spear of fire pierced the sky.
It blasted open a hundred-kilometer-wide hole in the clouds, revealing beyond the heavens—the boundless universe!
'Did it punch through the atmosphere?'
Ren's eyelid twitched. Then he opened communication through a Den Den Mushi. "Do not use Pluton's main cannon again. I still have a use for this place."
Wano was very large. Although it could not compare to a place like Alabasta, which could practically be called a continent, it was still much larger than an ordinary super-large island.
"It's precisely because you still have a use for it that I fired at this angle. Otherwise…"
Lindbergh did not continue.
If that cannon had been fired directly at Wano's land, at the very least, one entire region would have been erased, and the other regions would have fallen into a state where they were on the verge of sinking.
Even so, the area ravaged by the main cannon still suffered massive secondary disasters.
Forests sixty kilometers away were burning, turning into a sea of flames. The earth split open with tens of thousands of cracks, their depths unknown.
The raging shockwave flattened everything around it, clearing out a vast blank zone.
As for the Beasts Pirates who had originally established a defensive line on the cliff face… they were basically gone.
Of course, Kaido had not placed all his forces there.
Anyone who knew about Ren's battle with Red Hair, as well as his previous feats, would understand that Ren was also someone with large-scale destruction methods.
They also had to consider the possibility that Ren would not come from this side, but would instead descend from the sky somewhere else.
So Kaido's deployment was relatively scattered. Only a portion of his main force had been stationed here.
He simply had not expected that what arrived would not be Ren's large-scale area attack, but Pluton's main cannon!
As for why it was only "basically" gone… that could only be because Kaido and Big Mom really had run fast.
"Land. The ground battle after this is up to you."
Ren raised a hand, causing Space-Time: The Creator to reintegrate. Then he transformed into golden light and charged forward.
During this process, the Float-Float Fruit controlled the supermassive Gods of Water, sending it surging up the slanted passage that had been opened and onto the land of Wano.
(End of Chapter)