Bang! Bang!
"Hahaha, you must be Zephyr? I've heard your legend."
Amid the melee.
Roy leaped up and charged straight onto the warship where Zephyr stood.
The two clashed in an instant.
Their Haki collided relentlessly, every move lethal, and the battle immediately reached its peak.
"Roy, don't get cocky!"
Zephyr dared not let his guard down in the slightest. He pushed his Haki to its limits and traded blows furiously.
The intensity of this close-quarters fight rivaled Roy's earlier martial arts duel with Garp.
Meanwhile, Bullet and Red faced Yamakaji and the other Vice Admirals, while the remaining criminals fought nearly ten thousand elite Marine soldiers.
Eight hundred against ten thousand.
In terms of numbers alone, Roy's side had no advantage whatsoever.
What was more, most of these criminals had only just escaped Impel Down.
Their bodies were weak, and after repeated grueling battles, they were nowhere near their peak.
But if the Marines were elites, weren't these criminals who had fought their way out of Impel Down elites too?
Emporio Ivankov, Inazuma, and the many criminals from Level 6 and Level 5 of Impel Down-which of them wasn't a powerhouse renowned throughout the New World?
They even had top-tier fighters like Bullet and Red among their ranks.
Although decades of imprisonment had left their bodies far weaker than before.
And their recent fierce battles with Kuzan and Garp had drained enormous amounts of stamina.
They still handled Yamakaji and the other Vice Admirals with ease.
"Heh, you think the likes of you can take away our freedom? What a joke!"
Amid their furious roars, the criminals erupted once again.
The Marines instantly lost over a hundred men, while only a few dozen criminals fell.
That casualty ratio was enough to chill these elite Marines.
After all, these criminals had been weakened by long imprisonment.
How fierce would they have been at full strength?
Still, those who became elite Marines were no pushovers.
If ten thousand elite Marines were defeated by eight hundred criminals, they might as well die and get it over with.
"Damned criminals, don't get cocky! All forces, hear my command! Don't engage them head-on. Just wear down their stamina!"
"I refuse to believe these men who've been locked up for years can keep going forever!"
Just then, a Rear Admiral known among the Marines as a strategist quickly stepped forward and took command.
Once the order went out, the Marines immediately changed tactics.
They stopped fighting the criminals to the death at close range, instead maneuvering around them to wear them down.
Whenever the criminals attacked fiercely, they retreated to evade them.
The other Marines seized the chance to move in, surrounding and killing anyone left isolated.
Within moments, the criminals, whose momentum had seemed unstoppable, suffered dozens more casualties.
The situation instantly turned against them again.
The sight made Roy narrow his eyes slightly as he fought Zephyr.
This won't end well if it keeps up.
But Zephyr was already attacking again.
Bang! Bang!
"Roy, was it? Defeating Garp and Kuzan is quite an accomplishment."
"But you've fought battle after battle and just fought Garp to the death. I refuse to believe you aren't wounded!"
Despite those words, only Zephyr knew how shocked he truly was.
When he learned that Garp and Kuzan had been defeated, he could scarcely believe it.
Had Sengoku not told him personally, he would have dismissed it as a lie.
He knew those two all too well.
One had been his comrade during his days as an Admiral, while the other was a student he had personally trained, one of the Three Great Monsters of the Navy.
Yet both of those top-tier figures had lost.
But as he fought Roy, he had no choice but to believe it.
His opponent's attacks looked ferocious, but in truth, he wasn't using his full strength at all.
And although Zephyr was the Navy Chief Instructor and still possessed Admiral-level fighting strength, he was long past his prime.
Even Roy's casual attacks forced him to give everything he had.
That was what alarmed him most.
"Zephyr, I'll say it again. I've heard of you, and I know everything about you!"
Bang! Bang!
After another head-on collision of Armament Haki, Roy drove Zephyr back with a punch, then spoke quietly.
"But even as an Admiral, you had your family slaughtered and your students killed by pirates."
"Don't you find that tragic?"
Those words instantly sent Zephyr into a rage.
He abruptly unleashed Soru of the Six Powers and charged straight at Roy.
"Roy, what do you know!"
"You're nothing but a criminal! I don't need your approval, much less your judgment!"
Roy's words had truly struck Zephyr's deepest wound.
But as Zephyr charged furiously toward him, Roy's gaze turned utterly cold.
"Enough, Zephyr. You're someone of standing, so I won't waste any more time on you."
"But I still need to teach you a lesson."
As his words fell, Roy unleashed his true fighting strength, his terrifying presence sweeping across the battlefield.
Zephyr, who had been charging toward him, was forced back several steps, while the Marines and criminals fighting nearby all paled.
The next instant, a red light flared. Red and black lightning danced wildly as a terrifying shock wave swept through the surroundings.
Bullet and Red, who were fighting the Vice Admirals, immediately understood when they saw it.
Red light likewise flickered in their eyes, and red and black lightning erupted.
The three top-tier fighters unleashed their Conqueror's Haki simultaneously, their mental assault instantly sweeping across the entire stretch of sea.
Crack!
Clatter!
Splash!
Under the pressure of these three terrifying bursts of Conqueror's Haki, cracks appeared in the warships' decks, and waves several meters high rose from the sea.
Most of the Marines and a small number of criminals who had still been fighting were instantly knocked unconscious and collapsed.
Although Yamakaji and the other Vice Admirals remained conscious, they had fallen to both knees on the decks, their faces filled with terror, capable only of helpless rage.
Even an expert like Zephyr, though he did not kneel under the direct impact of the three bursts of Conqueror's Haki, was already trembling, his face deathly pale.
The pressure he was enduring was simply too terrifying.
And this sight deeply shocked Emporio Ivankov and the other pirates.
Of the ten thousand Marines who had arrived so aggressively, almost everyone apart from the Vice Admirals and Rear Admirals had been brought down by Conqueror's Haki.
What frightened them even more was that the three men had deliberately directed their Conqueror's Haki away from them.
Otherwise, even if they had not passed out on the spot, they would only have dropped to their knees in humiliation like those Vice Admirals.
Crack!
Just then, Roy appeared beside Zephyr, who had yet to recover his senses.
Looking at the old man whose life had been a tragedy, he laughed wildly.
"Jahahaha, Zephyr, you should be thankful we're in poor condition, that this isn't the final battlefield, and that Sengoku and the others are coming to reinforce you so quickly."
"Otherwise, I really wouldn't mind sending you to join that fool Kuzan."
Zephyr's expression changed sharply. He tried to pull away, but Roy was faster.
His Haki-wreathed hand seized precisely the arm that had once been severed and later mechanically reconstructed.
He exerted his strength on the spot and brutally tore it off.
"Haha, but even this little time is enough to teach you a painful lesson."
"Enjoy another taste of what it feels like to have your arm torn off!"
Crack!
Just like that, Roy forcibly ripped away the mechanical arm wrapped in flesh and skin.
"Ah...!"
Under the agony, even a man as iron-willed as Zephyr could not hold back a scream.
Cold sweat instantly drenched his entire body.
Once again, he tasted the pain of having his arm broken off all those years ago.
"Zephyr..."
Roy was about to continue when his gaze suddenly sharpened, and he swiftly raised both hands.
Bang! Bang!
Two enormous blades cleaved down through the air.
Roy reacted swiftly, his Haki surging.
With a burst of strength, he snapped both enormous blades at once.
"So it's you, you Giants."
"But don't get too cocky."
Honestly, he hadn't expected it either.
The ones who had ambushed Whitebeard in the original story could actually get up and attack him after enduring three people's Conqueror's Haki.
But did they really think he was Whitebeard?
"You damned bastard! How dare you hurt Chief Instructor Zephyr! We'll kill you!"
The two Giant Vice Admirals roared in unison. Even with their weapons destroyed, they raised their enormous fists and hurled them at Roy.
Facing their attacks, Roy's gaze turned completely cold.
"Fine, fine, fine. You dare challenge me without even knowing your own strength."
"If you want to die, I'll grant your wish!"
"Six Powers: Soru!"
"Finger Pistol!"
Before you continue