Imu fended off Setsuna's relentless onslaught while sending out a telepathic call.
"My knights, heed my call and come to my side."
Yet few answered.
She split off a sliver of her consciousness to observe the battles, only to discover that the Holy Knights had already been routed.
Rayleigh sat on Saint Shepherd Sommers, whose wrists were tightly bound in Seastone chains;
Big Mom held Maffey in his hand and toyed with her, terror still frozen on her stiff face;
Gunko was driven back again and again by Akainu's magma fists, half her body already charred black;
The remaining Holy Knights faced Kaido, Kizaru, Aokiji, Dragon, Garp, Loki, and Hawkeye-and they, too, were being beaten miserably.
Only Shamrock was still barely holding out against Shanks's attacks, but his defeat was already apparent.
"Useless!" Imu's gaze was cold as a blade. "Then return the power I bestowed upon you."
In an alley in the Sorbet Kingdom.
Shalria trembled as she slapped Saint Shepherd Sommers's cheeks, crying and explaining as she struck him, "Lord Sommers, I didn't mean to! They forced me!"
Saint Shepherd Sommers's expression was dark. Though Shalria's slaps barely stung, they humiliated him.
"Just you wait, you lowborn scum. I've already heard God's call. Soon, you'll-" Saint Shepherd Sommers's face suddenly filled with terror. "Lord Imu, please have mercy-"
His plea cut off abruptly.
Under Shalria's horrified gaze, Saint Shepherd Sommers's skin rapidly shriveled and cracked. Almost in an instant, he became a withered skeleton.
Shalria screamed in terror, "I didn't kill him! I didn't kill him!"
Rayleigh ignored her cries, his gaze grave. "So this is the god of the Celestial Dragons Setsuna spoke of? How cold. Discarding subordinates the moment they become useless?"
The same thing played out across the battlefields.
Maffey's body crumbled into powder, and