For a moment, the air aboard the warship froze.
"W-Whitebeard!!" The Marine Headquarters Ensign's binoculars slipped from his hands and struck the deck with a sharp clatter.
His face visibly drained of color, and his lips trembled uncontrollably.
"Why... why is Whitebeard on a Marine shipping route..."
As for Gern, he wasn't sure whether he was imagining it, but the sea breeze suddenly seemed sharp enough to sting his cheeks.
The mountainlike figure in the distance was merely standing there, yet it felt as though he had pressed the weight of the entire sea against Gern's chest.
"All hands, maximum combat readiness!" the Marine Headquarters Ensign suddenly screamed hysterically, his voice turning shrill.
"Contact Headquarters immediately! Activate the Red Emergency Communication Channel!
The man we may be facing now is, in the era after Rocks,
one of the strongest men alive-Edward Newgate, Whitebeard!!"
In an instant, chaos erupted on deck.
The Marines scurried around like headless chickens. Someone knocked over an ammunition crate, sending brass rounds rolling everywhere across the deck.
The communications officer staggered toward the cabin, only to trip over his own feet.
"Second Lieutenant Gern, please return to your station!" The ensign looked at the man before him, who was about to be promoted to Marine Headquarters,
a long sword wrapped in white cloth strapped to his back. The ensign's Adam's apple bobbed, and cold sweat had completely soaked the back of his uniform.
"That's a monster who can unleash tsunamis! Second Lieutenant Gern!!"
Hearing the ensign, Gern shifted his gaze and glanced sideways.
The performance of this Headquarters elite stood in stark contrast to that of the West Blue soldiers who had seen him off at the harbor three days earlier.
He suddenly remembered Branch Commander Asahi's face, streaming with tears and snot.
Heh. There wasn't much difference between the two now.
"Distance, one point five nautical miles!" the lookout called, his voice shaking. "No sign of them accelerating!"
"Second Lieutenant Gern, please..."
The voices in his ears slowly faded. As Gern turned his gaze back into the distance, his pupils abruptly contracted to pinpoints.
His right hand instinctively rose to grip the hilt of the Black Blade: Eight Desolations.
At that moment, the mountainlike figure was all he could see.
Whitebeard stood casually at the bow, his white coat snapping in the sea breeze. He wasn't even looking toward Gern's warship...
"Whitebeard..." Gern suddenly realized he was trembling. It wasn't fear, but excitement.
He had already drawn the Black Blade: Eight Desolations from his back, and vibration particles instinctively began gathering around his right hand...
I actually want to experience the World's Strongest man's... Gern's lips twisted into a stiff curve, and cold sweat slid from his temples to his jaw.
"Attack!!" Gern laughed, but just then, a pulse suddenly ran through the Black Blade: Eight Desolations.
Clang! The blade's clear ring cut a sliver of clarity through the chaos.
Gern looked down at the trembling blade. The blood that fear had frozen suddenly boiled again, and his shaking fingers tightened.
The deck trembled slightly beneath his feet. Every Marine watching Gern instinctively backed away, because they could distinctly feel a vibration.
"Second Lieutenant Gern! Have you lost your mind?!" The ensign's desperate warning grew distant. All Gern could hear was his own heartbeat, growing louder and louder.
Not far away, aboard Whitebeard's ship,
young Marco, the pineapple-headed boy who was Whitebeard's first son, had also noticed Gern's warship.
"Pops, I told you from the start not to take the Marines' shipping route."
"Gurararara!" Whitebeard couldn't help laughing at Marco's words.
"But we're already here! It's not as if Sengoku and Garp would be here!"
"Pops, you..." Marco pursed his lips. He knew Whitebeard wanted to find more "sons," but they could still avoid unnecessary trouble.
"All right, all right!" Now that Whitebeard had a family, he actually enjoyed Marco's nagging. It made him happy.
"Marco, I'll..." Before Whitebeard could finish,
his powerful Observation Haki suddenly detected an unusual surge of fighting spirit, directed squarely at him.
He grabbed Murakumogiri and whipped around, staring toward the warship-or rather, at Gern standing on its bow!!
"Pops..."
"Marco, there's a very interesting fellow aboard that warship!" Whitebeard's mouth spread into a grin, and he laughed loudly.
"Gurarara! If you dare direct that kind of aura at me, stop holding it back!!!"
Aboard the warship,
when Whitebeard finally looked directly at him, Gern felt an electric current shoot up his spine to the crown of his head.
It wasn't the fear of being watched by a savage beast, but a shudder of exhilaration.
He suddenly understood why moths flew into flames.
"Whitebeard!!!" Gern's roar tore through the sea breeze.
The bandages around the Black Blade: Eight Desolations suddenly disintegrated on their own. Grayish-white fragments hung in the air like a swarm of deathly butterflies, each edge flickering with vibrating arcs powerful enough to slice through space.
"Gurararara..." Whitebeard's deep laughter carried through the waves. "Marine brat, keep your footing!"
He casually swung his right arm, and the entire sea trembled with it. Then came a crack.
The air ahead fractured like an enormous glass dome unable to withstand crushing pressure, cracks spreading across it like a spiderweb!
The Air Quake surged forward like an invisible mass of energy, pulverizing the air as it hurtled toward Gern's warship!
Wherever it passed, an invisible force pressed down and tore apart the sea, leaving a fleeting trail.
The "ordinary shockwave attack" he had rarely used even during the Paramount War required no more than a flick of the finger from Whitebeard as he was now.
Gern's pupils contracted sharply. He clenched his left fist, which was gathering vibration particles, and the particles shrieked between his fingers like a buzzing swarm.
When his arm swept through an arc identical to Whitebeard's, everyone froze.
The instant the two shockwaves collided, the world lost all sound.
Crack-boom!! The two forces of vibration collided in midair. As space warped, the atmosphere was sucked completely dry!
The shockwave of the vacuum explosion forced the sea into a crater a hundred meters across. In the next second, seawater surged back in, sending up a torrential shower.
Seeing Gern's vibration particles cancel out his Air Quake, Whitebeard raised an eyebrow and slammed Murakumogiri down on the deck.
"Oh? The Marines have a brat who can use vibrations too?"
Beside him, young Marco stood at the bow, his pupils trembling violently and his mouth slightly open, utterly unable to speak.
He stared fixedly at Gern's left arm, where vibration particles glimmered faintly.
"N-no way?!" Marco's voice was dry and hoarse, his youthful understanding of the world shaken to its core.
"Isn't that Pops' power?! How does he have it?!"
Before you continue