"All evil must be eradicated completely. That is 'Absolute Justice'!"
When that cold, murderous voice, devoid of any human emotion, came from the other end of the canyon along with the acrid smell of sulfur, the entire battlefield instantly fell into an eerie dead silence.
The surviving members of Squad Seven stared dumbfounded at the deadly expanse of magma before them, still bubbling away, and the hundreds of pirates who had been reduced to charcoal before they could even scream. Their minds went blank.
Were... were they saved?
Under their stunned gazes, a tall young Marine with a stern face and a cigar between his lips slowly walked out from the edge of that magma hell.
He wore a standard Marine uniform, but the volcanic heat and brutality of his presence made him seem completely out of place amid everything around him.
Behind him followed another, entirely different figure.
He was an even taller man in a yellow-striped suit, wearing a seemingly lazy, inscrutable, sleazy smile.
"Oh my~ How terrifying~ Sakazuki."
With both hands in his pockets, the man in the yellow-striped suit said in an exaggerated, singsong voice, "You burned everyone up the moment you attacked, without leaving a single survivor. Now we can't even question anyone for information~"
"Hmph. A bunch of trash. What is there to ask?"
The stern young man called Sakazuki gave him a cold glance, then turned his gaze toward the few surviving Divine Punishment squad members in the canyon, covered in blood but still fierce-eyed.
When he saw the black Tyrannosaurus flag insignias on them, brimming with murderous intent and utterly at odds with their regulation uniforms, his sharp, hawklike brows abruptly furrowed.
"What unit are you from? I've never seen that flag in the Marine ranks." Sakazuki's voice was full of scrutiny