The Whitebeard Pirates are a pirate crew that Whitebeard established in recent years. Among them, Marco was the first person to follow Whitebeard. He had witnessed countless of his battles, and even without fighting him directly, he had seen enough to be able to roughly predict the direction of Whitebeard's attacks as soon as he made a move.
Following Marco's shout, the helmsman quickly turned the ship's rudder in the direction Marco had called out.
The moment the ship turned to the three o'clock position, everyone's view tilted completely. No, to be more precise, the surface of the sea in this entire area was tilting!
Wolf didn't change direction in time, and his massive body, along with the sea he was on, was pulled into the air.
A few seconds later, Wolf fell back down with the displaced water, raising a gigantic splash. The waves, already intensified by Whitebeard's quake attack, then created a violent storm.
This was only the first attack. If this had happened at Amazon Lily, the newly constructed island would have likely suffered extensive damage.
On the isolated island, Alucard's bullets had long since been torn to who knows where. But because the ground was warped, his Hidden Shadow was also ripped apart.
Thump! Thump!
Through his Thermal Vision, Alucard could clearly see that Whitebeard's body, his very cells, were vibrating violently. No, it wasn't just vibration; they were also breaking apart.
No matter what kind of Devil Fruit it is, there are always some side effects.
The reason Sengoku and Shiki the Golden Lion from the same era didn't have such problems was because their Devil Fruits didn't have such severe side effects. While their power waned with age, it was never as severe as Whitebeard's.
Even more terrifying was Garp, who, as a non-Devil Fruit user, saw the slowest decline in his strength.
The attack gradually subsided, and the cells within Whitebeard's body slowly stabilized. He was still in decent shape; it wasn't yet like the Summit War of Marineford, where using the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit required him to catch his breath.
Alucard stood atop a mountain about twenty meters high on the isolated island, looking down. "To be able to develop a Devil Fruit's power to such a degree, yet your strength recedes day by day. If I could, I would have liked to fight you when you were young."
"Gurararara! You've got guts, kid!" Whitebeard laughed heartily. Suddenly, he gripped his naginata with his right hand and clenched his left into a fist, generating a white, web-like sphere several times the size of his fist. He punched it heavily in Alucard's direction.
CRACK!
Where the punch struck, space shattered and twisted, and an incredibly powerful shockwave destroyed everything in its path.
"Heh..."
Alucard chuckled and charged into the shockwave. Having learned from their previous encounter, Whitebeard wasn't worried. He simply used his Observation Haki to sense his opponent's movements.
The shockwave from the Tremor-Tremor Fruit pulverized the mountain where Alucard had been standing. Two seconds later, Alucard suddenly burst out from the smoke, a pitch-black pistol flashing a few feet away from Whitebeard.
BANG!
A loud sound rang out. The pitch-black bullet gave off a feeling of extreme disgust to Whitebeard. The tip of his naginata formed a similar quake sphere to the one from his fist and swept out violently. The size difference was like a watermelon and a sesame seed.
"GAAAAAH!"
Whitebeard roared and slammed the bullet into the ground, splitting the earth to create a bottomless chasm that stretched to the unseen horizon.
BANG!
The second shot came, and Whitebeard's expression hardened. He hardened his left hand with Armament Haki and struck back fiercely. But this time, he chose the wrong response. When the bullet collided with his hardened fist, what should have been an unyieldingly tough iron fist felt tired and soft, unable to exert any force.
The bullet tore through the skin of Whitebeard's left hand, carving a terrifying gash from his knuckles all the way up to his shoulder. Whitebeard's left hand dropped limply. Only after the bullet had passed his arm did his strength gradually return.
A strong gust of wind blew across Alucard's body, making his hair and red coat billow. His eyes glowed red, and he grinned, showing his fangs. "Made by a genius scientist, coated in Seastone, a specially made silver Seastone bullet. It's 39 cm long, weighs 16 kg, and is a 13mm explosive Seastone piercing round. It's for Devil Fruit users. The Jackal!"
Alucard held his twin black and white pistols in an "X" shape and laughed maniacally. "Perfect! Vegapunk!"
A perfect bane for Devil Fruit users. Even when faced with Whitebeard's Haki-hardened fist, the moment it makes contact, it completely saps all strength.
Perfect! Perfect! Perfect!
Whitebeard stood back up, staring at Alucard's black pistol. He muttered, "Seastone... bullets, huh? Still using strange gadgets as usual."
Whitebeard wasn't concerned about Vegapunk; the scientist's fame hadn't reached its peak yet. Even in the future, only a small number of pirates would truly grasp Vegapunk's abilities.
"Pops got hurt!"
The Whitebeard Pirates watching the battle from the Moby Dick through their telescopes were shocked. They had long been prepared for the possibility of Whitebeard getting injured, or even killed, but they never expected it to happen so soon.
"Commander Marco, should we go help Pops?" a crew member from the first division anxiously asked Marco.
"Don't panic. This isn't a fight we can get involved in," Marco said, folding his arms.
"That's right! Your opponent is me!" Suddenly, the Moby Dick began to shake violently. Marco and the others were forced to look up, only to see that Wolf had dived into the water and was lifting the Moby Dick!
"It's Wolf!" Jozu yelled.
"Flower Blade" Vista drew his two rapiers from his waist. "Damn it, we were so focused on Pops's fight that we forgot about him!"
As the second-in-command of the Whitebeard Pirates, Marco didn't waste a second. He immediately transformed into a phoenix and shot to the bottom of the ship. Facing the thousands-
of-times-larger Wolf, he delivered a powerful kick to the back of the hand that was lifting the Moby Dick.
"You bastard! Let go of our ship!"