Summit War 7

The shockwave was no longer a transparent ripple, but a solidified wall of gas visible to the naked eye, sweeping out with overwhelming force—what was lifted from the ground was not rubble, but whole slabs of rock;

The air, compressed to its limit, rebounds, producing a piercing pop.

The force of this action pushed the water at the head of the bay into a semi-circular opening, revealing the crushed coral reefs and fish and shrimp that couldn't escape.

The entire Marineford tilted slightly under the impact before crashing back down.

Whitebeard has retired.

Seventeen steps in total, each step leaving a deep crater in the ground that reached up to his ankles.

He barely managed to stop his retreat by plunging the hilt of his sword Murakumogiri, into the stone slab behind him.

Heavy breathing surged from deep within his chest, only to be forcibly suppressed. His fingers gripping the hilt of the knife trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the instinctive spasms of the muscles in his arm after enduring that level of impact.

He raised his head and looked at the person standing motionless in the distance, head down.

This old guy is still exactly the same as he was back then.

This wasn't the first time Garp had taken a punch—back on the Rocks ship, in countless encounters in the New World, he'd taken them far too many times.

Every time, it's like this: no Devil Fruit power unleashed, no fancy technique names, just a pure Haki to its extreme.

This punch was heavier and less sharp than it had been back then, but the power was still there, and that unreasonable force that could pierce through mountains was still there.

"Gurgle gurgle..." He chuckled softly, raising his hand to wipe away a trace of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

Holding off two Admiral is about the limit for me.

He could withstand Akainu and Aokiji attacking together, but he couldn't defeat them.

But Garp is different.

Garp doesn't need to restrain anyone—this old man is the kind of person who can achieve decisive results against Admiral.

It's not about suppressing or stalling; it's about killing on the spot.

On this vast ocean, besides himself, perhaps only this old man with his head down and no words, and the captain who has been dead for decades, could do this.

Garp stood still, ignoring the cheers around him.

He lowered his head, staring blankly at his still slightly trembling fist.

No one saw the expression on his face, but the marines in the square didn't care.

All they saw was Whitebeard retreating, all they saw was Garp's fist slamming down, all they saw was the naval hero, whose story had been passed down by countless veterans for over a decade, proving to everyone today, at this moment, in the most indisputable way that the legend was not a lie.

"Vice Admiral Garp!" The shouts started from the front row, then spread to the second and third rows, sweeping across the entire square like rolling thunder.

The officers who had been knocked to the ground by the shockwave got up, and the recruits who had been knocked unconscious by Conqueror's Haki and then woke up also started shouting. The shouts rose higher and higher, drowning out the distant artillery fire, the fighting on the ice, and the howling wind over Marineford.

It wasn't excitement, it was fervent faith.

Naval hero.

This name was etched into the bones of every marine after the Battle of God Valley.

Most of the soldiers standing in the square at that time were not even born yet, but they grew up listening to Garp's stories—the old man who chased down the most vicious criminal of the Great Pirate Era with his bare hands, cornered Roger countless times, but was always tricked by fate at the last moment.

He is a living legend, the navy's last line of defense, and a name that instructors mention with the utmost pride when every new recruit enlists.

At the other end of the plaza, the pirates standing on the ice, wielding scimitars and covered in blood, had completely different expressions on their faces.

The hands of several captains on the outer perimeter were trembling as they gripped their knives. It wasn't from fatigue, but from a chilling, ghostly coldness that seeped into their very bones.

The legendary figure, Demon Garp, the monster who chased Roger all over the world, sent Golden Lion to Impel Down, and joined forces with Roger to wipe out the entire Rocks Pirates at God Valley.

Many young pirates have always thought that those stories are exaggerations, myths made up by the Navy to glorify themselves.

But now they've seen it with their own eyes.

That monster is real.

He's old, his hair's all white, but that punch he just delivered almost sent the World's Strongest Man shoving into the sea.

On the Execution Platform, Ace knelt there, the Seastone shackles digging into his wrists. The cuts had long since scabbed over and then been worn open again, repeatedly, until they stuck to the shackles.

He felt no pain. The shouts of battle, the sounds of cannons, and the clashing of blades from the square seemed to come through a thick layer of water, muffled and indistinct. His eyes were fixed on the two figures facing off below.

One was an old man who had dragged him out of the bandit den in Dadan Mountain when he was a child and raised him with his fists and rice crackers.

One was his godfather, who allowed him, a demon bloodline despised by the whole world, to experience what "home" felt like for the first time.

The two were dozens of meters apart, the Conqueror's Haki still crackling in the air, the stone slabs beneath their feet shattered beyond recognition.

The reason they are standing here is because of him. Because he ignored Natsu's advice and stubbornly pursued Teach on Banaro Island.

What did Natsu say to him back then—"You'll die." He didn't hear her.

He considered himself the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, the Devil Fruit User, and Portgas D. Ace. He could not tolerate the traitor who murdered his comrades going unpunished.

He is not afraid of death.

Now, he's not afraid of dying, but he's afraid of living to see this scene.

"If only I had died in Banaro back then." He lowered his head, tears falling onto the stone slab of the Execution Platform, leaving small, damp welts.

"Someone like me shouldn't have lived. Pops... old man..."

Marco relentlessly clung to Aokiji in the western sky, the Phoenix's flames shattering again and again, only to reignite time and again.

His gaze pierced through the ice shards and smoke, landing on the imposing Murakumogiri, his chest heaving violently.

Even though he had idolized his Pops for most of his life, he knew in his heart that Garp was a monster on par with Roger, a legend in itself.

"Newgate, I'm so sorry," Garp said, his head bowed, his voice hoarse like sandpaper scraping against sheet metal, "I have to...stop you."

Whitebeard raised the back of his hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth, glanced down at the still-spreading crimson mark on the back of his hand, and suddenly threw his head back and burst into laughter.

"Gururu! Garp, do you think I'm the kind of coward who would use family ties to blackmail people?"