"KRA-BOOOOM—!"
"KRA-THOOOM—!"
It wasn't artillery. It wasn't a ship's cannons. It was people.
Almost at the exact same, infinitesimal moment, two figures—two living forces of nature—crashed heavily onto the sacred red earth of Mary Geoise.
The impact kicked up skyscraper-sized clouds of dust, rock, and shattered palace marble!
"CRACK—!"
The continent itself, the unmoving, unbreakable Red Line, groaned.
The ground buckled under an unbearable, sudden weight.
Massive, spiderweb-like fissures, miles long, exploded outward from the two separate impact points.
The prelude to destruction, the opening act of the world's final war, was just violently unveiled by two legends... both of them restored to their terrifying, absolute peak!
"First!" a voice roared from within one of the dust clouds.
"Fist of Love—!"
Garp's figure was the first to shoot up from the billowing, choking debris, a demonic, almost joyous grin plastered on his face.
The muscles in his right arm, the same arm that had punched mountains flat and leveled fleets, bulged grotesquely.
They looked less like muscles and more like cannonballs stuffed under his skin.
The very air around him distorted and shimmered from the sheer, terrifying power he was gathering in that one fist.
"GALAXY IMPACT!"
His iron fist, wreathed in thick, crackling, crimson-black arcs of supreme Conqueror's Haki, tore through the atmosphere.
It let out an ear-splitting, high-pitched shriek as it smashed mercilessly straight down into the ground!
A terrifying, visible shockwave, a ripple of pure, unadulterated kinetic force, exploded outward from the impact point like a tidal wave on land.
Wherever it passed, the magnificent, centuries-old, gold-leafed palaces of the "gods" didn't just crumble.
They didn't just break. They vaporized.
They turned instantly to dust, their atoms scattered.
The very earth shattered beneath them, sinking into a new, massive crater.
"AHHH—!"
"HELP US! PLEASE, HELP!"
"NO—NOT LIKE THIS—I'M A GOD—!"
The Celestial Dragons and CP0 agents who had barely managed to cling to the last threads of consciousness under Mike's wave of Haki... were now completely exposed.
They were paper in a hurricane. They were fragile as glass, instantly swallowed, torn apart, and erased by the torrent of destruction!
Screams rose in a terrible chorus, and just as quickly, they were silenced forever.
"Puhahahaha! PUHAHAHAHA!"
Garp landed steadily on the newly-formed crater rim, planting his hands firmly on his hips.
He looked at the massive, city-block-sized "masterpiece" created by his single punch and let out a deafening, joyous, full-bellied laugh.
This was fun!
Everything happening in the Holy Land was being faithfully recorded.
The Den Den Mushi were rolling, broadcasting this historic "cleaning" to the entire, watching world.
This destruction!
This beautiful, beautiful destruction! These... battle achievements!
They would all count as solid, undeniable military merits!
He could already envision it: his grandson Ace, finally wearing a crisp, white Marine uniform, his head covered in fresh lumps as he finally received his long-overdue "Fist of Love" training.
Oh, it was a beautiful thought!
"Hmph—"
A cold, unimpressed snort came from the other dust cloud.
"Move aside, you troublesome old man! Don't block the view with your ugly face!"
Whitebeard emerged, his sheer size blocking out the sun
. He gripped his legendary naginata, Murakumogiri, tightly in his left hand.
The massive, curved blade gleamed with a chilling, thirsty light, as if it, too, was enjoying its rejuvenation.
He spread the fingers of his right hand wide. He aimed his palm, not at the ground, but at the air itself—at the rest of the chaotic, burning Holy Land.
And then... he pressed down.
Violently.
The air... shattered.
The power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, the single most destructive Paramecia on the face of the planet, erupted without reservation.
This was no longer the weak, coughing, half-hearted quake of a dying, sick old man.
This was the real thing.
This was the prime, earth-shattering power that had once made the seas boil, now perfectly intertwined and merged with his equally restored, peak-level Conqueror's Haki!
"Quake: Sky Splitter!"
"CRACK—CRACKLE—CRACK—"
There were no violent explosions. There was no boom from an impact. It was far, far more terrifying than any explosion!
Centered on Whitebeard's hand, clearly visible white fissures—literal cracks in the atmosphere—appeared like grotesque, glowing scars on the face of the sky.
They spread rapidly, instantly, in all directions!
"KRA-KOOM!"
The opulent buildings that had narrowly survived Garp's punch, the ones on the far edge of the shockwave... they just... collapsed.
They folded in on themselves in silent, massive waves, reduced to absolute, pulverized ruins!
The sheer scale and thoroughness of the destruction clearly, obviously, surpassed Garp's earlier punch!
"Gurararara—! Gurarararara!"
Whitebeard held his naginata in one hand, his white mustache twitching with smug amusement.
His gaze was openly, tauntingly challenging as he looked at Garp.
"When it comes to pure destruction, Garp... you're still far, far behind me!"
"What... WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAID?!"
Garp's forehead veins bulged so hard they looked like they might burst.
His face twitched in pure, unadulterated fury.
"So you want to compete in destruction, is that it, you old bastard?! After all these years?!"
"Bring it on, you relic!"
With a furious roar, Garp kicked off the ground again, launching himself like a ballistic missile, a second fist brimming with rage already cocked and ready to strike!
"BOOM—!"
"Come on, then!" Whitebeard showed no signs of backing down, his blood pumping with a vigor he hadn't felt in thirty years.
He raised his right hand once more as an even more violent, air-shattering shockwave erupted from his fist!
"BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—!"
Mary Geoise—the Holy Land.
The "untouchable" paradise of the gods.
The symbol of the World Government's 800-year authority...
It was instantly, gleefully, reduced to a living hell.
It was a construction site run by two vengeful, bickering, god-powered toddlers.
Thick black smoke billowed as entire palaces, archives, and monuments folded in on themselves.
Flames soared into the sky, a glorious bonfire of the old world!
"..."
"Damn it... damn... DAMN IT! These two... old... BASTARDS!"
Near the ruins of Pangea Castle, the Four remaining Elders, in their monstrous forms, and the remnants of the God's Knights were still pinned down.
They were struggling, shaking, trying to stand against the lingering, oppressive, soul-crushing weight of Mike's terrifying Conqueror's Haki.
Their monstrous faces were twisted in pure, impotent, snarling fury.
They were immobilized.
They were forced to watch—to helplessly watch—as Garp and Whitebeard rampaged like two children in a sandbox, smashing their 800-year-old home to absolute, irreparable ruins!
And just then, as if their day couldn't get any worse, a new sound cut through the chaos.
"THUD—THUD—THUD—THUD—"
It was the heavy, rhythmic, deafening stomp of thousands upon thousands of military boots, echoing like the war drums of a new age over the chaos of Mary Geoise.
Garp and Whitebeard's frenzied assault had been the opening bell.
It had ignited a fire in the hearts of every single New Marine soldier!
One massive, dark-blue warship after another forcibly docked against the high, sheer cliffs of the Red Line, their steel hulls grinding and screeching against the red rock.
Enormous steel boarding ramps slammed down, crashing onto the Holy Land's soil.
"FOR MIKE-SAN!"
"FOR THE NEW MARINE!"
"LIBERATE THIS PLACE! BURN THE OLD WORLD!"
"CHAAAAAAAAARGE—!"
With morale soaring to an impossible, fanatical, feverish peak, the New Marine soldiers surged forward.
They were a bursting flood of blue and white, roaring as they stormed the "Holy Land" that had, for eight centuries, belonged solely to the Celestial Dragons!
"SWOOOOSH—"
A dazzling, blindingly golden light coalesced in mid-air.
It flickered for a second, like a faulty bulb, before solidifying into Kizaru's signature tall, lanky, pinstripe-suited figure.
He leisurely descended, landing on a relatively flat, un-cratered patch of ground, which was becoming hard to find.
Hands stuffed deep in his pockets, he tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over the utterly, utterly devastated ruins of Mary Geoise.
His lips twitched faintly beneath his mustache.
"Ooooh dear... My, my..."
"Really now... look at what they've done to the Holy Land..." he muttered, almost to himself, his voice dripping with his usual lazy sarcasm.
"Garp-san and Newgate-san are... so energetic. Guess there's no credit left for destruction... how troublesome..."
He let out a long, put-upon sigh, then shifted his gaze into the distance.
There, the Five Elders and the God's Knights were finally shaking off the last of Mike's Haki, their monstrous forms rising, their killing intent palpable.
Kizaru's eyes, behind the yellow-tinted glasses, lingered pointedly on the four distinct, monstrous, and very aged figures.
A dangerous, predatory glint reflected off the glass.
"But... there are still four... very valuable heads left... Ooooh, what a payday..."
Just as Kizaru was mentally calculating the "bounty" on those heads, new figures stumbled out from the shadows.
They emerged from ruined alleyways and burning service tunnels at the edge of the battlefield.
They were ragged. Filthy.
Weighed down by heavy, rusted shackles, their bodies covered in the visible, horrific scars of a lifetime of abuse, and now, fresh burns.
Their eyes were wide, hollow, filled with a terror so deep it had become a permanent part of them, a terror that couldn't even distinguish between new saviors and old masters.
They were the slaves.
The ones who had been enslaved by the Celestial Dragons for years, now seizing the absolute chaos to try and escape this hellish place.
But Garp and Whitebeard's indiscriminate, city-leveling bombardment had clearly struck them as well.
Many of them had fresh, bleeding injuries.
"RESCUE THEM!"
A deep, commanding roar, like the toll of a great bronze bell, instantly drowned out the clamor of battle.
Sengoku, with righteous determination, strode onto the Holy Land's soil.
His brow furrowed in pure anger at the sight of the devastation... and then, his expression softened as his eyes fell upon the fleeing, terrified slaves.
A flicker of pity crossed his face, but was immediately replaced by the iron mask of command.
He barked out orders, his voice carrying over the din, impossible to ignore.
"All units, attention! Change of priority!"
"Priority is rescuing the slaves! I repeat, priority is rescuing the slaves!"
"Escort them to the rear-guard ships! Get them to a safe zone, now! Take a headcount and verify all of their identities!"
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the charging soldiers.
Then, he added the one line that would guarantee the order was followed with ruthless efficiency.
"Every innocent slave rescued will be counted as a full military merit! NOW MOVE!"
"YES, SIR!" came the thunderous, re-energized roar.
With that, Sengoku's own body began to steam, his muscles expanding.
Kizaru sighing as his "head bounty" thoughts were cut short, transformed back into a streak of golden light, a laser beam aimed straight at the regrouping God's Knights.
Sengoku, Zephyr, and Tsuru—the old guard, all of them brimming with a terrifying new, youthful energy—followed closely behind, a wall of living legends.
Following them were the newly landed Warlords and other top-tier commanders.
Kuma walked silently at the rear of the charge, his massive strides heavy, rhythmic, and unstoppable.
His eyes never wavered, never looked left or right.
They were fixed solely on the distant, twisted, bull-and-spider form of Saint Saturn.
Mihawk's sharp, hawk-like eyes swept across the battlefield, dismissing the rabble, ignoring the Elders, finally coming to rest on one man: Figarland Garling, the leader of the God's Knights... and, more importantly, the long, elegant sword in his hand.
"...Oh," Mihawk said, his voice a low, deeply interested hum.
...
And further away, "Dark King" Silvers Rayleigh stood at the very edge of the Holy Land, having just landed himself.
His expression was... well, it was extremely complex.
He was feeling envy. Genuine, pure, uncut, bitter envy.
He just stood there, watching those two old bastards, Garp and Whitebeard—his former captain's greatest rivals—tearing through entire city blocks with glee.
They were running around like two twenty-year-olds in a bar fight.
The energy... the stamina...
Then there was Sengoku, Zephyr, and Tsuru, all charging ahead.
Each one of them looked... different.
They were moving with a speed and a sharpness he hadn't seen from them in decades.
Their Haki was razor-sharp and brimming with stamina, not the fading embers of old age.
"..."
Rayleigh unconsciously, and somewhat bitterly, stroked his long white beard.
He could feel the marks time had left on his body.
He still had his strength, sure.
His Haki was still top-tier.
But the decline of his physical capabilities was an undeniable, annoying fact.
His joints weren't as flexible as they were in his youth.
His stamina... gods, his stamina... it recovered so much slower.
Unlike these people.
All of them, after eating those... those ridiculous, magical, cheat-code [Senzu Beans]... they were like completely different individuals.
The problem, he reflected, was his current, extremely awkward position.
He was nominally the deputy director of the New Marine's Education Department.
But in reality? He was atoning for his past "crimes" as the Pirate King's right hand.
He was a "key observation subject," which was just a polite, government-sponsored way of saying he was on probation, and everyone was watching him.
He wanted to get his hands on those miraculous Senzu Beans? He wanted to feel what Garp and Whitebeard were feeling right now?
He'd need to earn them.
With tangible, undeniable "achievements."
"Sigh..."
Rayleigh shook his head helplessly, rolling his stiff shoulders.
Enough overthinking.
This was pathetic.
If he kept standing here just watching them, he wouldn't even get the scraps.
Let alone any of those beautiful Senzu Beans.
Or any good, top-tier liquor after the fight.
Look at them.
These old bastards were fighting dirtier than each other, hogging all the merits, stealing all the good fights.
'Very well.'
'To escape this "observation period" sooner... For those legendary Senzu Beans... For some top-tier, post-victory liquor... And, most importantly, to see with his own eyes what the final, true direction of this new era would be...'
'This old man was joining the fray.'
With that final thought, a sharp, dangerous, legendary glint flashed in Rayleigh's eyes.
He stopped hesitating.
Shing.
He drew the simple, two-handed sword at his waist.
The blade hummed, coming to life, gleaming with an icy, flawless light.
In the very next instant, his figure vanished from the spot.
He transformed into a blinding silver streak, a blur of pure, condensed Haki and motion that sliced into the chaotic, royal battlefield of Mary Geoise like a bolt of pure, vengeful lightning!
"TRASCENDENT HIGAN CRESCENT—!"