"Th-That's terrifying brute strength!"
The corners of Yaen's mouth twitched slightly as he watched the shocking scene before him, unconsciously holding his breath.
One had to understand that a Marine Warship, known as an "iron behemoth," came with a standard complement of a full thousand Marine Soldiers.
As for the exact tonnage of a Marine Warship, Yaen had no idea. But purely in terms of volume, a Marine Warship was several times larger than Sauron.
Yet Sauron, who was already a Giant, had lifted an iron structure several times larger than himself. His physical constitution instantly reminded Yaen of a certain creature—an "ant."
Could one say this was truly the advantage of the Giant Race?
This innate physical superiority was genuinely enough to make Yaen, with his frail body, green with envy.
The next moment, under Yaen's stunned gaze, Sauron raised the entire Marine Warship high and suddenly hurled it toward another Marine Warship that had been continuously firing at him.
Once the two warships collided, countless Marine Soldiers would inevitably die.
Almost instinctively, Yaen wanted to intervene and stop the two warships from crashing into each other, but at the critical moment, he forcibly halted himself.
The credit for saving the lives of over two thousand soldiers and preventing two Marine Warships from colliding was better left untouched if possible...
As his thoughts raced, Yaen reached out and quickly tugged at Kuzan beside him, reminding him,
"Vice Admiral Kuzan, intervene..."
Kuzan, who had been stunned by Sauron's appearance, instantly came to his senses. With a flash of his figure, he appeared directly in front of the warship plunging down like a meteor.
"Ice Age!"
A chill beyond imagination spread from Kuzan's outstretched hands. In the blink of an eye, it enveloped most of the warship's hull.
Beneath the hull, the sea rapidly froze, and several ice pillars appeared from thin air, supporting the enormous warship in midair.
The soldiers, who had been utterly terrified, looked at the warship suspended in the air and soon noticed Kuzan, half of whose body had turned into ice. They could not help cheering.
"Vice Admiral Kuzan!"
On the shores of Ohara, Sauron looked at that familiar figure and the vast stretches of ice. His expression grew extremely solemn as he muttered,
"Kuzan, you came too?"
Immediately, Sauron came to his senses and turned without hesitation, taking Robin with him as he tried to flee!
As Kuzan's friend, Sauron knew all too well how terrifying Kuzan's strength was. Pure brute force meant nothing before that man.
However, the next moment, Sauron's footsteps halted as he stared at the figure that had suddenly appeared before him.
Compared to the passion he had once displayed, Kuzan's current expression was like ice that had remained frozen for ten thousand years. In his hand, he also held an unfamiliar, handsome young man.
"Kuzan..."
Seeing this, Sauron could not help slowly retreating several steps.
"Sauron, as a former member of the Marines, it would be too disgraceful if you destroyed the Buster Call. Surrender peacefully," Kuzan said coldly, as if there were no connection between them at all.
This made Yaen shoot Kuzan a sidelong glance. He slightly pursed his lips and thought,
Kuzan was clearly still feeling depressed just now over his friend Sauron's defection. Was he one of those tsundere types who were cold on the outside but warm on the inside?
Yet Sauron, upon seeing his old friend again, grew agitated and shouted,
"Kuzan, are you proud of the Buster Call's attack? You've got it backward, haven't you? You should understand this. The World Government is killing one to warn a hundred. It's willing to wipe out all of Ohara just to achieve its goal."
Facing Sauron's questioning, Kuzan said without the slightest change in expression,
"For the development of the world and the stability of the seas, this is unavoidable. Besides, the scholars did violate the World Government's prohibition, didn't they?"
After a pause, Kuzan looked at Sauron's expression, which showed not the slightest regret, and said,
"I understand now, too. Justice changes form according to one's position. So I don't intend to condemn your justice. But if you obstruct Marine justice, then I can only..."
At that moment, Yaen, who had kept his Observation Haki spread almost constantly, suddenly sensed that the trajectory of one cannonball was completely different from the others. Its target was the evacuation ship carrying the civilians of Ohara Island.
Given the power of a Marine Warship's cannonballs, once this one struck, the evacuation ship would instantly become a firework on the surface of the sea, and the civilians of Ohara would be buried forever beneath the waves.
"Sakazuki still chose to do this?"
Having witnessed Sakazuki's simultaneously ruthless and cold-blooded act with his own eyes, Yaen immediately felt a powerful sense of rejection.
This evacuation ship had clearly been arranged by the World Government's CP9 Organization, and the civilians allowed aboard had also been screened by CP9.
To put it harshly, Sakazuki really did resemble a mad dog. Even though its master, the World Government, had not ordered it to bite the evacuation ship, Sakazuki had pounced on it of his own accord.
Almost subconsciously, Yaen wanted to tug at Kuzan beside him...
But the cannonball's speed was far beyond anything the warship thrown earlier could match!
There was no time...
"Scatter, Senbonzakura!"
In an instant, a streak of pink light seemed to appear over the sea. Countless cherry blossoms swept past like a dream, blocking the evacuation ship.
"Boom!"
The next moment, the cannonball struck the cherry blossoms, instantly triggering a massive explosion that sent ripples across the surface of the sea.
The appearance of this cannonball completely stunned Kuzan, the civilians aboard the evacuation ship, and the soldiers on the other Marine Warships.
Amid the terrified cries of the civilians aboard the evacuation ship, who had narrowly escaped death, and the heated discussions among the Marine Soldiers on the nearby warships, Kuzan's expression became especially ugly. His eyes were filled with disbelief.
Clearly, Kuzan had never imagined that the Marines, who represented justice, would fire on an evacuation ship packed with civilians screened by the CP9 Organization.
Sauron, who held compassion for the weak, was even more visibly agitated as he questioned Kuzan,
"Kuzan, is this what you call justice? Are these civilians guilty of anything? You're actually trying to exterminate innocent civilians!"
Kuzan instinctively retorted, "No, I never intended to go this far. This was done by that bastard Sakazuki."
On a Marine Warship in the distance, Sakazuki's resolute, iron-blooded expression did not change in the slightest. His gaze shifted from the vast expanse of cherry blossoms blooming before the evacuation ship to Yaen, standing beside Kuzan on the shore, and he said,
"Where did that brat come from? He actually dared to stop the Marines from firing..."
The adjutant standing beside Sakazuki could not help asking in a low voice, "Vice Admiral Sakazuki, should we continue firing on the evacuation ship?"
Before you continue