At the thought, Luo Tian took a deep breath.
At the other end of the deck, Rocks seemed to sense something and glanced over.
Their gazes met in midair.
Rocks said nothing, only giving a slight nod.
Luo Tian used Space Leap and appeared beside Golden Lion Shiki in an instant.
"Hm?! What are you doing here, kid?" Shiki glanced at him, but kept his eyes fixed on Zephyr.
On the Warship, Zephyr's expression turned grave.
This was trouble.
In a one-on-one fight, he didn't fear Golden Lion, and he was confident he could keep Luo Tian in check.
After all, according to the intelligence, although the kid's Devil Fruit ability was bizarre, his raw strength was still far from the top tier.
But if he had to face both of them at once...
Luo Tian grinned. "Shiki! Leave Zephyr to me! Go take the Heavenly Tribute!"
"What?!"
Shiki froze, then his eyes flashed with excitement.
Right! As long as he touched the Treasure Ship, the Float-Float Fruit would let him lift it into the air and carry it away.
By then, even if Marine reinforcements arrived, they wouldn't be able to get it back.
And Luo Tian was holding Zephyr off to create an opening for him!
Luo Tian could also use spatial buoyancy, so why wasn't he going after the Heavenly Tribute himself?
For one thing, he felt his control over buoyancy wasn't as refined as Shiki's.
After all, spatial buoyancy was only one branch of the Space-Space Fruit's many abilities.
For another, fighting was way more fun than stealing.
"Got it!" Shiki nodded firmly, wasting no time.
He unleashed the Float-Float Fruit's power at full force. His body became a golden streak of light and shot toward the distant Treasure Ship like a meteor.
"Not so fast—!!"
Zephyr's expression changed drastically.
If the Heavenly Tribute was stolen, not only would the encirclement plan fail completely, but the Marines' honor would be trampled as well.
Even worse, the Celestial Dragons in the Holy Land would never let it go. Marine Headquarters would be put under unimaginable pressure.
He couldn't let the pirates succeed!
Zephyr stepped on the air with Geppo and shot forward like a cannonball, hot on Shiki's heels.
His Iron Arm hardened with Armament Haki once more. Even if he had to withstand Shiki's slashes with "Iron Body: Empty Wood," he would stop him.
But the instant he took to the air—
"Spatial Imprisonment!"
The next moment, Zephyr's charging body felt as though it had plunged into a swamp.
"What?!"
Shock and anger flashed in Zephyr's eyes.
He unleashed his full strength, muscles bulging as he tried to break free of the invisible restraint.
But every burst of strength felt like a heavy punch landing on cotton.
Luo Tian drew the Supreme Grade Blade "Black Dragon" and swung down with his right hand.
"Slash Wave—Heavenfall!"
The slash wasn't a straight line. Under Gravity Manipulation, it bent like a living thing, accelerating along a trajectory so strange it was impossible to predict.
Zephyr's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
He couldn't dodge it.
Then—
"Black Arm: Absolute Defense!"
Zephyr compressed all his Haki, forming a flowing Haki armor over his body.
At the same time, he crossed his fists in front of his chest, tensing his muscles to their limit.
He chose to take the hit head-on.
Boom—!!!
The slash struck.
A blinding white light erupted where Zephyr stood. The shockwave spread in a sphere, blasting the Warship's main mast apart and tearing up the deck plank by plank.
The Marines' cries were swallowed by the explosion.
"Vice Admiral Zephyr—!"
"Impossible... How could Vice Admiral Zephyr..."
"Shut up!" roared a blood-soaked Rear Admiral, cutting down a pirate charging at him with one slash.
"Vice Admiral Zephyr would never lose to pirates! Fight to the death! Give your lives for justice!"
"Fight to the death—!!"
Their grief became strength. The Marines erupted with astonishing fighting power, clashing with the pirates even more ferociously.
Elsewhere, the battle between Sengoku and Whitebeard had already turned the world upside down.
Whitebeard bent one knee and reached out with his right hand. A translucent, quivering sphere of light spun rapidly in his palm, swelling larger.
His Observation Haki was fully unleashed, locking onto the golden Buddha charging toward him from a hundred meters away.
Sengoku likewise pushed his Devil Fruit power to its limit.
The golden Buddha's fifteen-meter form swelled again, reaching twenty-five meters.
The energy shockwave in his palm no longer burst outward. Instead, it contracted inward like a black hole.
Both men were gathering their strength. The next attack would decide the victor.
"Great Buddha: Secret Technique: Soul-Subduing Palm of the Pure Land!"
"Tremor-Tremor: Secret Technique: Heaven-Shattering Roar—!!"
They unleashed their attacks at the same time.
The golden Buddha palm thrust forward, its imprint breaking free and becoming a tangible giant palm a hundred meters across.
Whitebeard threw a punch, and space shattered like glass.
Whoosh—BOOM!!!
A perfectly spherical depression, three hundred meters in diameter, appeared in the sea.
The water around its edge rose like walls, forming a hemispherical barrier.
Within the walls of water, two figures stood proudly.
Elsewhere.
Zephyr had just burst out of the smoke from the explosion. When he saw Golden Lion Shiki closing to within a hundred meters of the Treasure Ship, he started to rush over and stop him.
Luo Tian teleported in front of him.
"Get out of my way—!!"
Zephyr roared and threw the strongest punch of his life.
He held nothing back. Armament Haki, Six Powers Secret Techniques, and the strength of a body honed for more than a decade all converged into a single point.
The air compressed before his fist, solidifying into a cone-shaped vacuum tunnel.
Luo Tian's expression didn't change. He raised his right hand and spread his five fingers.
"Shinra Tensei—"
Just as Zephyr's iron fist was about to hit Luo Tian in the face—
The air froze.
No—the entire space within three feet of Luo Tian had become an absolute zone.
An invisible barrier abruptly unfolded like an inverted bowl.
Zephyr's iron fist stopped just three inches from Luo Tian's nose, unable to advance any farther.
Humm!!!
The next instant, the invisible barrier unleashed a terrifying repulsive force.
"What?!"
Zephyr had no time to react—no, he was unable to react at all.
Even though his Observation Haki had warned him of danger, his body was powerless against repulsion on a spatial level.
One moment, his fist had been stopped three inches from Luo Tian's face. The next, he was flying backward a hundred meters!
"Pfft—!"
Blood sprayed from Zephyr's mouth, tracing a jagged red line through the air.
It felt as though an invisible, ten-thousand-ton hammer had smashed into his chest. If not for his Haki protecting him, that blow would have left him gravely injured!
"Cough... cough..."
He twisted his body in midair, then unleashed seven consecutive sonic booms with Geppo beneath his feet, barely managing to halt his backward flight.
"He can actually repel every external force..."
Zephyr wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, his gaze as hard as iron.
Luo Tian gave Zephyr no time to think. He tapped the air with his foot and closed in like a ghost.
There were no afterimages, no sonic booms—only the eerie sensation of space drawing nearer.
His blade flashed like a Crescent Moon, aimed straight at Zephyr's throat!
But Zephyr was, after all, a top Marine fighter who had seen countless battles.
At the critical moment, his blackened iron fist shot out as if he had predicted the attack, striking the side of the blade with pinpoint precision.
He didn't meet the blade head-on. Instead, he knocked the slash off course!
Then his fists came in a sudden, dense downpour!
"Six Powers Secret Technique: Hundred Fist Chaos!"
This was Zephyr's unique martial art, born from perfectly combining the speed of Soru, the piercing power of Finger Pistol, the sharpness of Rankyaku, and the hardness of Tekkai.
Black fists rained down from every direction.
Each blow had enough power to smash a steel battleship.
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