Final Agreement: Zeroing out.
The cold, electronic sounds echoed over the lifeless steel city, like the tolling of a death knell.
The colossal war machine rising from the center—codenamed "The Reckoner "—revealed its monstrous form. It was not humanoid, but rather resembled a massive, asymmetrical metallic polyhedron, its surface covered with countless energy vents and sensor arrays. At its center, a huge, crimson monocle was locked onto Ace and Sabo, who had just unleashed their power and were in a brief recovery phase.
• Buzz--! A thick, dark red beam of energy shot out from the single eye at the center of the " Reckoner " without any warning. Wherever it passed, the air was ionized, emitting a pungent, acrid smell, and space itself was slightly distorted. The destructive energy it contained far exceeded any previous attack by Pacifista!
" Ace! Sabo!" Luffy, his rubber body instantly stretching to its limit as he tried to block the attack. But he was too far away, and it looked like it was too late!
At the critical moment!
" Time Fold - Stasis!" Allen clenched his fists forward, veins bulging on his forehead. The spacetime in front of the destructive beam was instantly compressed and folded, becoming incredibly viscous, as if it had been shot into invisible amber, its speed decreasing tenfold! But this act of almost freezing such a powerful energy attack caused Allen to groan, a trickle of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth, clearly indicating an immense burden.
"Thanks, Allen!" Ace and Sabo seized the precious moment and quickly dodged to the sides.
Boom!!! The delayed energy beam finally struck the spot where they had just been standing, causing a violent explosion. A crater tens of meters in diameter instantly appeared, and the metal foundation at the edge was melted into molten steel! The shockwave sent nearby Resistance fighters and debris flying.
"All units, clear!" the electronic voice announced again.
The next moment, the entire mechanical city seemed to transform into a boiling furnace of slaughter!
Those PX-Z Pacifista and Order Guards, their eyes glowing crimson, completely abandoned their defensive and efficient modes, entering a state of pure, suicidal, frenzied attack.
" Gum-Gum Gum-Gum Giant Pistol!" Luffy, fearless, took a deep breath, his arm growing gigantic and enveloped in Advanced Armament Haki and a wisp of the remnant of the Flame of World Purification (briefly borrowed from Ace? or perhaps resistance to fire?). With a single punch, he slammed a PX-Z robot charging at the front, its chest caved in, sending it flying backward and crashing into a steel wall. But even as it flew backward, the robot's arm suddenly detached from its body and shot towards Luffy like a missile!
" Fire Fist - Impact!" Ace's arms transformed into raging flames, but he discovered that the flames' burning efficiency was indeed suppressed by the environment. He immediately changed his strategy, highly compressing the flames to form a solid fire shockwave, which he unleashed like a heavy cannon, engulfing and detonating several oncoming Order Guards along with their energy blasts! A series of explosions resounded through the city streets.
" Dragon Claw - Wave Slash!" Sabo's figure weaved through the mechanical army, his Observation Haki and Omniscient Domain combined to precisely predict every attack and self-destruction. His hands, covered in Dragon Claw Fist and imbued with Ryuo Haki, directly tore through the adaptive armor of the new Pacifista, disrupting their internal energy circuits. However, he quickly discovered that these robots learned at an astonishing speed, and the effect of the same attack would be greatly reduced the second time, forcing him to constantly change tactics.
Allen, meanwhile, hovered on the edge of the battlefield, focusing his efforts on dealing with the " Reckoner '" terrifying attacks and manipulating localized time to assist his teammates. " Time Acceleration!" He pointed at a Resistance fighter who was nearly hit by an energy blast, instantly increasing his speed to narrowly avoid it. " Time Deceleration!" He slowed down a robot about to self-destruct, buying time for those around him to evacuate. However, each time he intervened in time, it attracted more attention from the " Reckoner " and resulted in targeted energy barrages, forcing him to constantly dodge.
Using their familiarity with the terrain, the Resistance fighters attacked the robots' joints and sensors with rudimentary weapons and explosives, attempting to create opportunities for the allied forces, but suffered heavy casualties. The steel city had become a bloody meat grinder.
"This can't go on!" Sabo dodged a self-destruct and rushed to Allen's side. "That big guy ( the Reckoner ) is constantly analyzing and adapting to our capabilities! We have to take it down as soon as possible!"
"But its outer armor is too thick, and its energy defense is too strong!" Ace said, panting, after pinning two approaching guards to the ground and detonating them with a "Divine Fire: Shiranui". His flames were indeed greatly weakened.
"Where are its attack intervals? Like before?" Luffy shouted as he knocked away a bunch of mechanical arms.
"No, the ' Reckoner's' energy cycle is redundantly multi-layered, without any obvious fluctuations!" Sabo analyzed quickly. "Its weakness is its information processing core, but it's heavily protected..."
Just then, the Resistance leader rushed over through a hail of bullets, pointing to a complex fin-like structure at the bottom of the " Reckoner " that constantly opened and closed for heat dissipation and energy exchange, and shouted, "There! After each large-scale energy burst, the defensive force field there will fluctuate very briefly to quickly dissipate heat! But it's extremely short-lived, and it will definitely be heavily protected!"
"An extremely short time?" A sharp glint flashed in Allen's eyes. "How short?"
"May... maybe less than a tenth of a second!"
"That's enough!" Allen and Sabo said almost simultaneously. They exchanged a glance and instantly understood the tactic.
" Luffy! Ace!" Sabo shouted, "Create an opportunity for us! Let it fire at full power!"
"Understood!" / "Leave it to us!"
Luffy and Ace charged at the " Reckoner " at the same time, drawing most of its attention.
" Gum-Gum -Gum Giant Thunder Axe!" Luffy the air, his massive black legs wreathed in Inazuma- like Haki, and slashed fiercely at the crimson single eye.
" Great Flame Commandment - Flame Emperor!" Ace drew upon all the flames he could muster, condensing them into a massive fireball, smaller than its peak size but still incredibly powerful, which he then hurled at the main body of " The Reckoner ".
The " Reckoner's" single eye instantly shone brightly, clearly indicating that it judged these two attacks to be a significant threat!
• Boom boom boom!!! A dark red torrent of destruction, several times thicker than before, erupted out, instantly engulfing Luffy's slash and Ace's fireball, and continued its relentless charge towards the two!
"Now!" Sabo's Omniscient Domain locked onto the bottom heat sink fins! Allen's Time Perception was accurate to the microsecond!
In the instant after the destructive torrent erupted, the heat dissipation fins suddenly opened, and sure enough, an almost imperceptible ripple appeared in the invisible defensive force field!
" Time Stripping - Moment of Eternity!" Allen concentrated all his power on one point, not to accelerate or decelerate, but to stretch that less than 0.1-second gap several times over for the core processing unit inside the heat sink! This almost instantly exhausted him, leaving his face as pale as paper.
Within this forcibly created "time window," Sabo moved! He concentrated all his Armament Haki and the penetrating power of his Dragon Claw Fist into his fingertips, his body transforming into a streak of light, like a precise Scalpel, piercing straight into the time gap torn open by Allen!
Sizzle! Crack! A crisp cracking sound rang out, not from metal breaking, but from the shattering of some crystal or core!
The " Reckoner's " massive body jolted violently, its single, crimson eye flashing wildly and erratically, the buzzing sound turning into a distorted, chaotic noise. Its surface energy vents spewed energy haphazardly, blasting surrounding buildings and allied robots to smithereens.
"We've succeeded!" the Resistance fighters cheered.
"It's not over yet!" Sabo quickly withdrew.
As expected, before completely spiraling out of control, the " Reckoner " executed its final command, directing all its remaining energy towards the central, one-eyed being—
• Buzz... An extremely unstable, distorted, dark red energy beam began to condense, but it was clearly no longer able to aim, and was instead preparing for an indiscriminate, self-destructive burst!
If this explodes, most of the mechanical city will be razed to the ground!
"Damn it!" Ace tried to intercept with flames, but his power was insufficient.
Luffy tried to block it with his body, but the attack was too large.
At this critical moment, Allen gritted his teeth and forcefully raised his hand again. He didn't try to stop the energy, but instead did something extremely risky—
" Time Flow Guidance... Deflection!" He applied his remaining Power of Time to the time attribute of the terrifying energy about to erupt, forcibly "postponing" its eruption by a crucial two or three seconds into the future! At the same time, he slightly distorted its eruption direction, directing it towards the sky!
Those two or three seconds gave everyone time to react!
"Get underground immediately!!!" the Resistance leader shouted hoarsely.
The coalition forces and survivors rushed to the nearest bunkers and underground entrances as quickly as possible.
Boom!!!!!! A deafening explosion rang out. The " Reckoner " transformed into a massive fireball, and a twisted, dark red beam of light shot into the sky, blasting a huge hole in the clouds above the steel city that remained open for a long time.
The shockwave from the explosion swept across the ground, twisting and blowing away countless steel structures.
After a long while, the aftershocks of the explosion gradually subsided.
The survivors struggled to crawl out of their bunkers, only to find an even more chaotic wasteland, but the terrifying weapon and the absolute Order Force Field had vanished.
The numbness in the eyes of many controlled residents began to fade, gradually replaced by confusion and fear.
Luffy helped the exhausted Allen to his feet, and Ace and Sabo also gathered around, their expressions heavy as they looked at the land that had been ravaged by "Absolute Order" and then suffered another catastrophe.
They won the battle and destroyed the " Reckoner," but Imu's " Order Formatting " was only temporarily interrupted here. The cost was enormous.
And they knew that this was merely the tip of the Iceburg of Imu's immense power.
Pluton lies quietly on the shore, where will it go next? And where will Imu's "order" continue to be implemented?
They must be faster and stronger.