" Pops --!!!"
" Pops personally took action--!!!"
"Charge! Charge with Pops!!!"
The pirates' morale reached its peak at this moment.
Those who were about to give up raised their knives again, and those who were retreating charged forward again.
Whitebeard walked ahead of everyone else.
His silhouette was like a flag, fluttering in the smoke-filled battlefield.
On the ice, the Whitebeard held a naginata in one hand, the tip of the blade leaving a long groove in the ice.
Blood was still seeping from the wound in his chest, but he walked with the steady gait of a moving mountain.
The naval soldiers blocking his way involuntarily stepped back.
No one wanted to be the first to rush forward anymore.
The Whitebeard man slowly raised his naginata, the tip of which drew an arc in front of him.
A translucent sphere condensed on the tip of the knife. The sphere was small, only about the size of a fist, but the compressed vibrational energy inside caused the surrounding air to begin to distort and deform.
"Hey kids, watch closely."
The Whitebeard's lips curled slightly upward, and he swung his naginata forward with a sudden movement.
The translucent sphere shot out from the knife, tracing a straight path through the air.
After flying several dozen meters, the sphere came to a stop.
Then--
"Duang--!!!"
A deafening roar.
The space around the sphere shattered like glass. Cracks spread wildly from the center of the sphere in all directions, and the cracking sound echoed throughout the battlefield.
The shockwave spread outward in a fan shape from the center of the sphere, shattering the ice surface wherever it passed, with ice fragments flying several meters high.
The naval formation ahead of the shockwave looked as if it had been slapped hard by an invisible giant hand.
The soldiers in the front row were blasted away, their bodies tumbling through the air as they crashed into their comrades behind them.
Although the soldiers in the back row were not thrown away, the moment the shockwave passed through their bodies, their internal organs felt as if they were being churned up, and blood gushed from their mouths and noses.
A huge breach was blasted through the entire naval forward positions.
Naval soldiers lay scattered across the ice, some clutching their chests and screaming, some convulsing on the ice, and others completely unconscious.
From where Whitebeard stood to the end of the gap, the straight-line distance was at least two hundred meters, and all the marines within two hundred meters were cleared out.
The entire battlefield fell silent for a moment.
The artillery fire stopped, the shouts of battle ceased, and even the distant sound of the waves seemed to be stunned by the attack.
All eyes were focused on the gap, on the passage that Whitebeard had cleared with a single slash.
" Pops --!!!"
" Pops's invincible--!!!"
"Charge! Charge with Pops!!!"
The pirates' cheers were deafening.
Those pirates who had just been being overwhelmed by the navy suddenly sprang to their feet as if they'd been injected with adrenaline, brandishing their swords and charging forward with howls.
Whitebeard didn't shout along.
He twirled his naginata in his hand, the tip pointing back at the ground.
Then he slightly bent his legs, his knees forming a power-gathering arc.
"Boom--!!!"
A crater several meters in diameter was blasted open on the ice beneath Whitebeard's feet.
His body shot into the sky like a cannonball, soaring through the air over the navy's forward positions, over the heads of the still-dazed naval soldiers, and over the gun emplacements and fortifications.
He found himself right in the center of the naval encirclement.
The moment it landed, the entire Marineford shuddered.
Whitebeard stood surrounded by tens of thousands of marines, surrounded by white naval uniforms and gleaming bayonets, but he showed no fear; instead, he grinned.
"Come."
Just one word.
Whitebeard's Murakumogiri drew a silvery-white arc in mid-air.
The arc was very long, stretching from the right side of the Whitebeard all the way to the left, drawing a complete semicircle in mid-air.
As the blade flashed, more than a dozen naval soldiers were sent flying simultaneously.
The soldiers tumbled through the air, crashing into their comrades behind them, each one knocking down a group, like Domino falling in a chaotic cascade.
Whitebeard didn't stop.
He twirled the naginata in his hand, hilt facing forward, tip pointing backward, and then delivered a backhand horizontal smash.
The hilt of the sword slammed into a Rear Admiral's chest, sending him flying before Rear Admiral could even scream.
His chest was caved in, and he spat out a mouthful of blood in mid-air before crashing through a wall and coming to a stop.
Then the naginata spun around again, blade facing forward, and slashed vertically.
A naval Commodore wielding a giant shield was cleaved in two, shield and all.
The shield split in the middle, the cross-section as smooth as if it had been cut by a laser.
Whitebeard rampaged through the naval encirclement.
His naginata flashed up and down, each strike taking down a large number of naval soldiers.
The Tremor-Tremor Fruit's power is encased in the blade; each time the blade touches the air, it causes a small vibration, making the surrounding soldiers unsteady.
Someone fired at him from a distance, but the shells were shattered in mid-air by the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
Someone tried to ambush him from behind, but before he could even raise his sword, Whitebeard sent him flying with a backhand punch.
Someone fired Seastone Bullets, but Whitebeard simply tilted his head and dodged them without even stopping.
One man, with only a knife, charged in and out of the encirclement of tens of thousands of navy soldiers as if they were nothing.
He's like a human bulldozer, pushing everything in his path.
Wherever it passed, naval soldiers were sent flying, their screams and the sound of bones breaking mingling together.
On the Execution Platform, the Sengoku period was marked by a grim expression.
" Akainu!"
Sengoku picked up the Amplifying Den Den Mushi, his voice laced with suppressed anger, "Stop Whitebeard! We can't let him keep fighting like this!"
On the battlefield, Akainu raised his head.
He had been dealing with the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates and the Impel Down prisoners.
But now that Sengoku has personally called him out, he can no longer pretend he didn't see it.
"Snort."
Akainu emerged from the lava, the ice beneath his feet melting into smoking holes from the intense heat.
His right arm transformed into scalding magma, the dark red magma churning and boiling on his arm, the temperature so high that the surrounding air was distorted and deformed.
" Whitebeard."
Akainu's voice was deep and cold, each word sounding as if squeezed out from between his teeth.
Your era should end.
Whitebeard stopped in his tracks.
He turned around and looked at the Marine Admiral who had lied to his own son.
His lips curled slightly upward, but there was no smile in his eyes.
"Lava imp."
The Whitebeard man carried his naginata on his shoulder. "What did you just say to my son?"
"Just telling the truth."
Akainu had already raised his Magma Fist.
"I said you betrayed them—but now it seems you're even more foolish than I thought."
He was actually stabbed in the back by his own people.
Whitebeard wasn't angry.
He simply planted the naginata in the ice beside him, freeing his hands, and slowly clenched his fists.
"I'm going to teach you something today."
A semi-transparent vibrating ball condensed on his right fist, twice the size of the one on the tip of the knife earlier.
"You're lying to my son--"
Whitebeard's figure suddenly vanished from the spot.
The next second he appeared in front of Akainu, his right fist smashing down towards Akainu's face with the force to shatter everything.
"There will be a price to pay --!!!"