109
"The battle up above has already begun, hasn't it?"
"So it seems..."
"Everything is just as he predicted."
The deputies of the various forces, who had remained below to command, exchanged glances, their eyes all reflecting the same meaning: "Just as we thought"
.
Although the Navy's top fighters seemed slightly inferior to the coalition in both numbers and quality, their retreat had been so swift and so complete that something was clearly unusual.
Fleet Admiral Kong's right arm had been severed at the shoulder, the cut as smooth as a mirror.
Though the others were covered in smoke and dust, their auras showed no signs of weakening-only the Vice Admiral who controlled magma was drenched in dark red, as though he had just been hauled from a pool of blood.
Had Akainu been able to glimpse the thoughts of the enemy commanders, the furious roar churning in his chest would surely have torn through the heavens:
I was the only one on this battlefield who gave it everything! This blood is proof!
"Attention."
The Donquixote coalition began drawing in its lines, and Jora's whispered message reached the ears of its core members simultaneously:
"If anything changes in the battle above, provide support immediately."
Above the clouds,
in the air before the Holy Land of Mary Geoise.
The world-shaking slaughter raged on, and the atmosphere and rock strata groaned beneath the continuous tremors.
With every punch Whitebeard threw, cracks spread through space like spiderwebs.
The tremors formed an invisible cage. Those whose strength fell short of a certain threshold were not even qualified to enter the battlefield; the aftershocks alone were enough to grind flesh and blood into powder.
"Paradise... waterfall!"
Two intersecting arcs of light erupted across the battlefield.
The famous swords Kozuki Oden held in both