"The sea?"
Rear Admiral Luo Wei hesitated for a moment, then grabbed a soldier beside him and plunged into a crack in the ice with a splash.
The other soldiers followed suit, jumping into the seawater. Devil Fruit Users or not, they all did whatever they could to get beneath the surface. At that moment, the Marines showed the pirates just how disciplined they were!
They also had the earlier melee to thank. The ice the two had created was only meant to give them a foothold; it had never been especially sturdy. Under the force of the fighting, it had already shattered and split, leaving cracks they could easily slip through.
But while most of the soldiers made it into the water, many others had no such luck. All they could do was run for the edge.
The ice beneath them had been formed by a direct hit from Loa's Ice Dragon's Roar. Infused with his Magic Power, it was impossibly hard, without a single crack!
And if the Marines were struggling, the pirates were in even worse shape!
The warning had come from Aokiji, after all. The pirates were hardly going to obey him as promptly as the Marines did. Apart from a few quick thinkers, the rest exchanged hesitant looks, unsure whether to trust him.
Ace, for instance, was one of those quick thinkers.
Seawater was the bane of Devil Fruit Users. Though it could not make their powers vanish outright, most projected abilities could not pass through it to affect creatures below the surface.
Ulysses's blood mist was clearly hovering above the sea! No matter how dangerous things looked, it was safe underwater!
Without a word, Ace pulled a Tubes from his pocket, put it to his lips, and blew hard. With his other hand, he