Cracks repeatedly opened and healed across the rock sphere's surface as Madara's ocular power struggled against Imu's demonic energy. Each exchange made the heavens shudder, throwing even the high-altitude air currents into chaos.
"Let's finish things here first," he said quietly, his tone flat, as though arranging some trivial chore.
Fewer than half the Navy and CP0 troops remained.
Along the coast, densely packed corpses covered the reefs and shallows. Blood had stained vast stretches of seawater dark red, and the foam left by the receding tide was littered with torn military flags and broken gun barrels.
The survivors were hardly better off. Some leaned against ruined gun emplacements, gasping for breath; others knelt in the shallows, rinsing their wounds with seawater. Some simply lay faceup on heaps of rubble, staring blankly at the sky, their breathing growing shallow and slow.
The instant the God's Knights landed, the atmosphere on the battlefield changed.
It was a subtle change.
Not a shift in the balance of power, nor a reversal of the situation.
It was a scent-a new scent had entered the battlefield.
The Night Owl Guards in their gray-white uniforms caught the scent of their own kind. Not comrades, but prey.
The angles at which the nine opponents spread out after landing, the distances they left between one another, and the directions each scanned all carried the precision of seasoned veterans.
Ten figures broke away from their respective battles almost simultaneously.
A Night Owl Guard squad captain pulled away from Akainu's side. Kei's Seed of Plague had already left Akainu with barely enough strength to pursue him.
He sheathed his blade, swept his crimson Mangekyō Sharingan across the battlefield, and, once he confirmed his target's direction, vanished in a flash.
Another squad captain walked calmly out of Aokiji's ice formation.