"Click—"
It was a sound so faint, so quiet, it was instantly stolen by the sea breeze.
A tiny, almost imperceptible press from the cold metal sphere beneath Mike's fingertips.
It was nothing. It was like he had merely flipped an ordinary light switch.
At that exact same time, impossibly far away, deep in the cold, cosmic sea of stars, a massive, silent, and deeply ominous metallic celestial body quietly stirred to life.
Its dark, pockmarked surface was covered in intricate patterns and enormous, city-sized cannon barrels, resembling a slumbering, world-ending beast.
This was the five-star artifact. The [Death Star].
A silent, faster-than-light command was transmitted.
Inside the weapon's core, a cold, synthesized voice echoed in the dark.
"Beep. Doomsday Protocol activated."
"Authorization confirmed. Controller of the Death Star: Mike."
"Target for eradication confirmed: One of the Five Elders, Saint Marcus Mars!"
"Death Star descending. Annihilating all creation!"
Within the Death Star's main cannon—a weapon capable of vaporizing entire stars, a concept so far beyond the technology of the world below it might as well have been magic—an unthinkable amount of energy was condensed in a fraction of a second.
There was no apocalyptic, blinding light.
There was no earth-shaking, world-breaking roar.
There was just... an imperceptibly fine, nearly invisible ripple of pure energy, silently launched toward the target's coordinates.
Its speed surpassed light. It surpassed physics. It surpassed all understanding.
It acted directly on the very level of causality, not as a projectile, but as a judgment.
....
Above the Holy Land, Mary Geoise
Saint Marcus Mars was having a grand old time.
He had just unleashed his "Itsumade" form, a grotesque, horrifying mockery of life.
A twisted bird's head sat atop a long, coiling serpentine body.
Black, hellish flame clouds swirled around him like a shroud, a visible representation of his "awakened" power.
He was a god, and this was his divine form.
He let out a piercing, ear-splitting shriek—"Skreeee!"—and flapped his massive, leathery wings.
He was about to charge.
He was going to dive with overwhelming force upon the New Marine fleet below, upon those insolent mortals who dared defy the gods' authority.
He would rip their ships apart.
He would tear their leader limb from limb.
He would make these mortals understand, in their final, agonizing moments: defying the Celestial Dragons meant only destruction!
He was a god. He was immortal. He was—
He was mid-charge when his massive, twisted figure suddenly... froze.
It wasn't a choice. He didn't stop. He was stopped.
A thread-thin beam of pure, shimmering white light, a beam so fine you could miss it if you blinked, had just ignored space, distance, and the laws of physics.
Like the gaze of a true god, it had landed precisely on Saint Mars's avian-serpentine body.
The moment the beam touched him—
There was no explosion. There was no scream. There was no blood, no fire, not even a hint of a struggle.
Saint Mars's entire, massive form—his grotesque body, his arrogant soul, the swirling black flame clouds that symbolized his "invincible" awakened power—was completely, cleanly, and decisively erased from the world's canvas.
He was deleted. From existence... to nothingness.
In 0.01 seconds.
The sky, which a moment ago had held a screeching demon-god, remained clear and blue.
It was... empty.
"..."
Silence.
A deep, profound, absolute silence engulfed the battlefield.
It was so sudden and so total that it felt like the entire world had been plunged into a vacuum.
Then, that silence spread, transmitted instantly across the globe through the Den Den Mushi broadcasts.
Time itself seemed to have been forcibly stolen in that single, baffling instant.
....
On the Deck of the Nautilus
Garp and Whitebeard, who had been red-faced and screaming, literally seconds from throwing a punch at each other over Ace's fate, abruptly fell silent.
Garp's eyes were as wide as dinner plates, his face frozen in a mask of pure, slack-jawed shock.
His massive, Haki-darkened hand, which had been reaching out to grab Ace, was frozen mid-air, his mouth still half-open in a furious roar that never came.
Whitebeard's iconic "Gurarara" laugh had caught in his throat, making a small 'Gura-?!' sound instead.
The bold, all-powerful confidence that had returned to his face at his peak... was just... gone.
Replaced by an expression of utter, childlike disbelief.
He looked... confused.
Ace, who had been caught between the two titans, felt a chill shoot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, freezing his entire nervous system.
'What... what the hell... just happened?'
Kizaru... his usual, lazy, infuriating smile froze.
It didn't fade; it froze solid, the curve of his lips as stiff and unnatural as a mask.
Sengoku. Zephyr. Tsuru. Rayleigh.
All of them.
Every single one of the top-tier combatants of the New Marine, the legends of the old era and the new... they stood as if petrified, their vacant, stunned stares fixed on the empty patch of sky above Mary Geoise.
Then, slowly, with a growing, dawning, shared sense of disbelief, all of their gazes shifted.
They turned, one by one, like clockwork, toward the one man who hadn't reacted.
Toward the young leader who remained casually standing at the bow, one hand still in his pocket, his expression completely unchanged.
'What... just happened?Did... did he...?Did he just... poof?One of the Five Elders... the highest authority of the World Government... just... vanished?'
....
Outside the Chamber of Authority, the scene was pure panic.
The stern, battle-ready, fanatical expressions of the thousands of CP0 agents and God's Knights... instantly twisted into masks of boundless, pants-shitting terror.
They had watched as Saint Marcus Mars—a Gorosei, who had just unleashed his form and radiated overwhelming pressure—disappeared.
Into thin air.
He wasn't knocked away. He wasn't injured. He wasn't bleeding.
He was gone.
Fear, like the coldest, deepest-sea current, instantly flooded their hearts, bypassing their brains and locking their joints.
Their limbs turned to ice.
Some of the less-composed agents began trembling uncontrollably, their knees knocking together so hard it was audible.
Their grip on their weapons weakened, and with a series of clatters, guns and swords began to fall from nerveless fingers onto the pristine plaza.
To erase one of the Five Elders... in an instant... What... what kind of terrifying, ungodly power was that?
Was this truly a power that humans could possess?
The New Marine... No. That man. That boy. That... monster called Mike.
What is he?!
An enemy like this... An enemy who can delete a god... Did... did the World Government... even stand a chance?
This single, horrifying, heretical thought spread like a plague among the World government's most loyal, most fanatical defenders.
Faith, in that one moment, began to crumble.
"MAAARS!!!"
At the entrance of the Chamber of Authority, the remaining four Elders, who had just stepped forward in their own monstrous forms to personally join the battle, roared in a symphony of shock and disbelief.
They could feel it.
They were connected to one another, to Imu, to the very world.
And they could clearly sense it—Saint Mars's presence, his life-force, his very existence... had been completely and totally wiped out!
"How... how is this possible?!"
"This... this can't be happening!"
"Mars's presence... it's... completely... GONE!"
"The immortal bodies! The bodies bestowed upon us by Imu-sama... how could... how?!"
"WHO?! WHO DID THIS?!"
"This power... this... this is... even Imu-sama couldn't..."
Only Nusjuro managed to suppress the storm of raw panic rising in his throat.
He locked his icy, skeletal-horse gaze onto the one tiny, distant figure standing at the bow of the Nautilus.
'It was him.It... it had to be him.'
Fear, a new and unfamiliar sensation, spread like wildfire among the four highest authorities of the world.
For the first time in 800 years, their rage was completely overshadowed by it.
Their twisted, monstrous, demonic forms... they no longer brought them a sense of security or power.
Suddenly, they just felt like giant, glowing, easy-to-hit targets.
....
Across the World
Those watching the historic confrontation through the Den Den Mushi broadcasts... froze.
In every tavern, every town square, every home... the world went silent.
Countless plates of food, held halfway to open mouths, clattered to the ground.
Countless bars, buzzing with tension, fell into a deathly, confused hush.
The incomprehensible phenomenon brought a terror far beyond mere visual shock.
This wasn't a fight. This wasn't a war. This was something else.
An unknown, unstoppable, godlike power had just been laid bare for the entire world to see.
And then... after a brief, two-second silence... came the eruption.
It wasn't fear. It was discussion.
And... exhilaration.
"Did... did I just see that? Did one of the Five Elders just... disappear?"
"Am I seeing things?! Is the Den Den Mushi malfunctioning?! That's one of the Five Elders!!"
"Who cares! ONE DOWN! BA-HAHAHAHAHA! The highest, most untouchable echelon of the World Government, gone just like that!"
"Holy shit! Is this the power of the New Marine?! Is this the real power of Mike?!"
"Does that mean… does that mean the World Government is really done for this time?!"
"WOO-HOO! Brothers! Break out the good stuff! Fill 'em up! The party's starting NOW!"
"Marcus Mars? Who's that? Never heard of him! History won't even remember his damn name! HA!"
"Let's raise our glasses!"
"TO A NEW LIFE!"
"TO TOMORROW!" "TO FREEDOM!" "TO THE NEW MARINE!"
"TO MIKE-SAN!!!"
The people's reaction was raw and unfiltered.
The initial, microscopic trace of fear was instantly vaporized by an ecstatic, delirious joy.
The collapse of the old order, the one they thought was untouchable, was happening right before their eyes.
The 800-year authority of the World Government crumbled to dust in that moment, leaving not even a speck behind.
....
Deep within Pangea Castle, The Flower Room
The silence here was different.
It was shattered.
Even the strange, cloying floral scent hanging in the air seemed to freeze.
A pair of eyes that had slumbered for countless ages... slowly opened.
Those eyes held no emotion.
Only an icy, endless void so profound it mirrored the darkness of the universe's birth.
The figure to whom those eyes belonged remained shrouded in shadow, indistinct, eternal.
Suddenly, within that eternal, emotionless void, an exceedingly rare... a microscopic... flicker of faint surprise appeared.
"Mu?"
A simple, ancient, questioning syllable, tinged with a trace of imperceptible confusion.
"Mars's… presence…"
"...Gone…?"
Imu, the being who had stood at the absolute apex of the world, overlooking humanity like an unchanging mountain for eight hundred years... was roused from slumber.
....
The deathly stillness was finally broken.
Not by a word, but by a sound.
"Gulp."
It was the sound of a thousand marines, officers, and legends all swallowing their dry-mouthed shock at the same time.
But what followed wasn't the spread of fear.
Oh, no.
It was an indescribable, near-delirious, electric fervor erupting from the deepest, most primal recesses of every New Marine soldier's heart.
'Our... our leader!Mike-san!With... with nothing more than a casual flick of his wrist... he had erased one of the lofty, untouchable Five Elders—who had ruled the world for eight centuries—like he was... like he was just brushing away a speck of dust!'
'Such power!This... THIS was a leader worth following!This was the god of the new era!'
"LOYALTY!!!"
Someone, somewhere—maybe Garp, maybe Whitebeard, maybe Ace, it was impossible to tell—was the first to roar, a single word of pure, unadulterated faith, shattering the frozen air!
And that one spark was all it took.
"LOYALTY!!!"
"LOYALTY!!!"
The tsunami of shouts instantly coalesced into a torrent of faith, a sound so powerful it seemed to shake the seas and overturn the heavens.
It scattered all remaining shock, all fear, all doubt, and ignited the most primal, blazing, unstoppable battle spirit!
The New Marine's momentum was absolute!
Their fighting spirit soared to the very heavens they were about to conquer!
"Today, my comrades!"
"WE STORM THE HOLY LAND!!!"
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