Ace heard the commotion from the Execution Platform as well.
He opened his eyes and stared fixedly at that familiar ship. It was his home, and his cherished family was aboard it!
But now, those family members were coming to this dangerous place to save him.
For a moment, all kinds of emotions filled his heart.
Moved, regretful, and self-reproachful...
Sengoku set down the Den Den Mushi he had been using for the broadcast and took the field-command Den Den Mushi from a communications officer, his gaze fixed beyond the harbor.
According to the intelligence they had received, as many as forty-three pirate crews had left the New World. It could not possibly be just the Whitebeard Pirates' four warships.
Sure enough, before long, black dots slowly appeared in his line of sight.
Those black dots rapidly grew larger, eventually merging into a vast mass that covered the sky!
"Damn it, we deployed the wrong formation. I didn't expect them to have all coated their ships and arrived nearby!" Sengoku's expression darkened, though he also felt helpless.
He had actually considered this possibility.
After all, for the Whitebeard Pirates to come from the New World, the only route they could take was through Fish-Man Island after coating their ships.
But considering it and putting it into practice were two different things.
The sea was simply too vast.
And the Marines had no sea-dwelling darlings like fish-men or merfolk among their ranks.
The long-standing conflict between humans and fish-men had left the fish-men deeply hateful toward humans.
Fish-Man Island was also Whitebeard's territory.
Even if Sengoku wanted to search, there was no way he could find those fifty-odd pirate ships in the boundless ocean.
Clang, clang, clang—
On the enormous Moby Dick, the flagship of the Whitebeard Pirates, a giant holding a bisento slowly stepped onto the highest point of the bow. A crescent-shaped white mustache curved upward from his face as he stood facing Sengoku on the distant Execution Platform.
"Gurararara... It has been decades since we last met, hasn't it, Sengoku?"
The newcomer was the man known throughout the One Piece World as the strongest man alive.
"Whitebeard," Edward Newgate, whose bounty stood at 5.046 billion!
Sengoku stared at him coldly, radiating an aura no weaker than his. "Whitebeard!"
"My dear son is all right, isn't he? Gurararara! Wait for me, Ace. Your old man is coming to take you home." Whitebeard looked down imperiously, as if the densely packed Marines filling the enormous Marine Headquarters plaza did not exist in his eyes.
"Stop boasting, Whitebeard!"
Before Sengoku could respond, Akainu, whose rage had long been building like a volcano on the verge of eruption beneath the Execution Platform, finally found an outlet.
He erupted!
BOOM!!!
[Great Eruption]!
Akainu stepped forward. Every part of his body except his legs and head turned into scorching magma.
He raised both hands toward the sky, and magma continuously shot upward from his hands, as though he had created a floating volcano in the air.
That volcano erupted with boundless fury, transforming into countless blazing, impact-packed fire meteors that poured down upon the four Whitebeard pirate ships below.
"Gurararara! Akainu, brat, you're not bad, but you're still lacking!"
Whitebeard laughed, clenched one fist, and viciously punched upward at an angle.
Crack, crack, crack—
The invisible, formless air was actually smashed into spiderweb-like cracks by his fist.
A massive shockwave shot toward the volcano spewing fire meteors in the sky.
—BANG!!!
The volcano was shattered in an instant, breaking into countless fragments that scattered everywhere.
"Admiral Akainu's attack... was dealt with that easily?!" The Marines erupted in uproar.
The three Admirals were their greatest fighting force!
Yet at that moment, one of the fire meteors falling from the sky began to writhe continuously, eventually transforming into Akainu's form!
[Hellhound]!
This was Akainu's fastest technique. It allowed him to rapidly extend his magma-coated arm while coating it in Armament Haki!
Caught so completely off guard, even Whitebeard failed to react in time!
BOOM!!!
Hellhound slammed heavily into Whitebeard's cheek. After piercing through his face, it snapped a mast behind him and blasted straight through the Moby Dick before finally stopping.
"Sakazuki, brat!" Whitebeard roared. His fist, coated in dense Armament Haki and containing overwhelming vibrational power, smashed viciously into Akainu's chest.
Akainu was sent flying from the Moby Dick at the center of the bay into the buildings within Marine Headquarters. Even after crossing several thousand meters, the impact still caused every building near his landing point to collapse!
The power of that one strike was terrifying beyond measure!
As the dust slowly dispersed, Whitebeard's face was revealed.
His cheek, along with nearly one-third of the white mustache on that side, had been completely erased. Beneath it, blackened bone scorched by blistering magma was even visible.
It turned out he had used Observation Haki to detect Akainu's attack trajectory. In that critical instant, he had tilted his head and avoided the fatal blow.
But Akainu's attack had come far too suddenly, and Hellhound had been far too fast, leaving him unable to evade it completely.
In this first clash, both sides appeared to have suffered injuries.
The Marines had temporarily lost an Admiral, while Whitebeard had had nearly half his face directly torn away!
That sight instantly shattered the aura of the "strongest man" around him, greatly boosting Marine morale!
"Go check on Sakazuki immediately! Everyone else, launch a full-scale encirclement and extermination operation against the Whitebeard Pirates!" Sengoku calmly issued his orders for war.
Several field-rescue officers immediately led men toward Akainu's landing site.
Across the Marine plaza, the crescent-shaped fortress, the defensive warships along the perimeter, and every Marine began moving after receiving Sengoku's orders.
On the other side, seeing the Whitebeard they revered—an old man of seventy-two—being ambushed like that, every member of the Whitebeard Pirates erupted as well.
"Despicable Marines, kill them all!!!"
"Kill them! Kill Red Dog!!"
"Charge! Kill them!!!"
"Everyone, stand down!" Whitebeard spat out a mouthful of blood from the uninjured side of his mouth. He calmly looked toward the distant Execution Platform and laughed. "Gurararara! Sengoku, that brat you trained isn't bad! But now, let's see how you handle this move of mine!"
With that, he plunged Murakumogiri into the deck beside him, clenched both fists, and smashed them viciously into the air on either side.
[Sea Quake]!
Rumble, rumble—
Vibrations rapidly spread outward in all directions from his hands.
In an instant, it felt as though the entire world was filled with that thunderous vibration.
"What happened?"
"Vibrations—again with the vibrations!!"