Over two days, more than twenty members of the Roger Pirates had fallen in battle.
For a pirate crew with so few members, it was a devastating loss.
The World Government and the Marines would show none of the restraint the Flying Pirates had.
Another half day of fierce fighting passed, and several more members of the Roger Pirates died.
The Roger Pirates had once numbered over fifty. Now barely more than twenty remained.
The longer the battle dragged on, the worse their position became. Those still standing were the best of the best.
Even the Oro Jackson had been badly damaged. It had taken a blast of Dragon Breath from the CP0 Chief, destroying a third of its hull and exposing the framework within.
Tsuru had ordered the attack, and the Roger Pirates, surrounded and pinned down, had been powerless to stop it.
At this stage, every last hope the Roger Pirates had needed to be cut off.
Without a ship on the open sea, there was no escape.
The sea had fallen eerily calm, like the stillness before a storm.
Then the ice beneath their feet began to tremble.
The sudden disturbance broke across the battlefield.
No one knew what was happening.
They only felt the ground drop away beneath them as the ice began to sink.
Through the ice, they could see currents racing beneath what had been a calm sea.
Against the power of the ocean, even ice nearly a hundred meters thick seemed fragile.
Cracks appeared across its surface.
Countless spiderweb fractures spread in every direction.
The area Kuzan had frozen was vast, stretching dozens of kilometers.
At the heart of the battlefield, none of them knew what was happening.
Perhaps only Roger did.
The others realized it too.
Boom!
The ice exploded with a