Massive sea clouds pressed down upon the ocean, blotting out the sky.
By this point, Roy had already achieved his goal.
From beginning to end, his clash with Queen had merely been to obtain a Seraphim test subject through legitimate means.
Now, with the vessel transporting the test subjects having already been partially destroyed by Queen,
and the plague virus raging across the sea,
according to Roy's plan, at most seven or eight people aboard the warships and transport vessel would survive.
Under such circumstances, Roy had ample reason to quietly pocket one Seraphim test subject.
After all, the Navy warships and transport vessel had been attacked by Queen, one of the Beasts Pirates' Three Calamities.
Therefore, a few reasonable losses were naturally within an acceptable range.
Even if the World Government flew into a rage afterward over the partial failure of the mission,
Roy was confident that he could preserve his life through the authority in his hands and the forces behind him.
Now that he had achieved his goal, Roy naturally could not allow Queen to continue destroying the transport vessel.
As the sea of clouds overhead suddenly crashed downward,
its overwhelming momentum made it seem as though the sky itself had fallen.
"What?!"
"How is an attack on this scale even possible?"
The sight before him made Queen's eyes bulge wide.
He had never expected Roy to pull something like this.
The earlier probing attacks had already allowed Queen to grasp some of the properties of the clouds in the sky.
These clouds appeared completely harmless to ordinary people, but to Devil Fruit users, they were practically a natural enemy.
At this moment, what Queen saw falling from the sky was not clouds.
It was clearly an entire ocean!
"Brat, you got me today. Damn it, I'll definitely get even."
"Brachiosaurus Missile."
With unwillingness in his eyes, he fired another powerful missile toward the transport vessel below.
He looked up at the cloud layer descending ever faster from the sky.
By now, more than half of the pirates aboard the pirate ship Queen had brought were dead.
It was rather ironic. Most of those dead pirate subordinates had died from Queen's plague virus, while only a small portion had died from the poisonous rain Roy had brought down.
"Jet Wings."
Queen's heavily modified body transformed into his strongest human-beast form.
In Queen's eyes, the pirate ship below no longer had any value.
A pair of gliding membranes extended from Queen's back, while his tail transformed into propulsion equipment.
The sea clouds in the sky were drawing ever closer to the surface.
Queen had no choice but to flee.
No matter how freakishly modified his body was, as a Devil Fruit user, he could not directly overcome the ocean and the clouds containing Seastone particles.
His instincts told him that if he remained here any longer, he might truly suffer a humiliating defeat.
As the fat Queen fled rapidly toward the waters beyond this battlefield in a comical manner,
Roy, standing high in the sky, waved his hand. A spear forged from iron clouds and sea clouds shot toward the direction Queen was fleeing.
At the same time, the missile Queen had fired before escaping was about to strike the transport vessel.
A massive shield made of iron clouds rose directly in front of the transport vessel.
Boom!
Just as Cole believed that he and everyone else were about to die,
the violent explosion made his increasingly muddled mind clear up somewhat.
"Is that Lord Roy?"
Within his blurred vision, Roy's figure condensed upon the deck.
"Oh, not bad. You're actually still alive. Looks like your physical constitution is decent. If you survive, then from today onward, your life belongs to me."
Roy looked with slight surprise at the fat official struggling against death on the deck.
Wearing a gas mask, Roy directly tossed a life-saving medicine exclusive to CP9 at Cole's neck.
This medicine could burn away a person's vitality to achieve a temporary healing effect.
Roy glanced at Cole, who convulsed violently before losing consciousness after receiving the injection.
Then he turned to look at the other World Government members and Marines struggling against death.
Roy still had several doses left, but he clearly had no intention of using the remaining medicine on them.
As for whether those people lived or died, Roy felt that it depended solely on their luck.
The reason he had used the medicine to save Cole's life
was, first, because Cole was the man with the highest rank in this transport fleet after Roy himself.
Second, Roy needed someone with a certain degree of status to share part of the responsibility for this pirate attack.
Clearly, Cole was currently the best candidate.
At the same time, Roy hoped to recruit Cole and plant a nail within the World Government's transportation department.
He scanned the entire transport vessel with the Echo Map.
After Roy confirmed the location of the surveillance Den Den Mushi hidden inside the cabin,
the explosion Roy had deliberately controlled earlier had blasted a huge breach into the transport vessel's hold.
Gray-white mist had now enveloped the entire transport vessel and the warships.
"Thread Cloud."
A tough, transparent cloud manufactured in the sky islands through special techniques directly bound one of the six iron chests in the hold and pulled it toward the sea through the blasted opening.
Splash!
The massive object fell into the water.
Roy manipulated the Thread Cloud to bind it again, then sent it into the sky on an island cloud.
As Roy breathed a sigh of relief, the mist covering the sea began rising back into the sky.
"As expected of one of the Three Calamities of a Yonko pirate crew! You fat bastard got lucky this time. Next time, I'll drown you with sea clouds!"
Through his perception of the mist, Roy sensed that Queen had already escaped this sea area.
Neither side had gone all out in this battle.
Roy still had many abilities he had not used, and Queen was the same.
In this collision, only their subordinates had been injured.
The big shots on both sides had merely expended a bit of strength.
As the thick fog and clouds dispersed,
several warships flying the World Government's flag appeared on the distant sea.
"Damn it, a real man should slash himself a few times."
After the cleansing by the mist, the plague virus aboard the ships had already dissipated.
He drew his sword and made a few cuts across his shoulder and several other nonfatal areas.
Squelch!
Blood splattered across the deck.
After checking his complexion in the mirror a few times,
Roy unhesitatingly dialed the Den Den Mushi to contact Spandam.
Before you continue