Next Bonus, 100!!
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The cacophony of gunfire and clashing steel echoed across the battlefield.
Thick smoke lingered in the air, casting a dark, suffocating pall over Marineford, a place once hailed as a pristine sanctuary of peace.
Whitebeard's resolute decision to hold the line, coupled with his earth-shattering declaration regarding the shift of eras, brought a fleeting moment of absolute silence to the chaotic warzone.
Where Whitebeard stood, a massive chasm tore the earth in two, completely halting the Marine advance.
As far as the eye could see, the battlefield had been reduced to a smoking ruin by his overwhelming power.
He stood at the absolute epicenter of the carnage. A lone titan wielding a colossal naginata, facing down the charge of tens of thousands of Marines without a single flinch.
He was just one man, but his sheer presence dwarfed the combined might of an entire army.
"KILL HIM!"
"Attack together! There's nothing to fear!"
"Even a monster can't fight all of us at once!"
Whitebeard leveled Murakumogiri, his gaze sweeping over the advancing horde. Fueled by the experimental drugs, his temporarily rejuvenated body possessed the catastrophic strength of his absolute prime.
His eyes burned with absolute, sovereign disdain. The Haki rolling off his massive frame swept across the battlefield like a physical hurricane.
"Who..."
Whitebeard's voice rumbled like approaching thunder. "...gave you the courage to face me?"
"Gurararara!"
"I AM WHITEBEARD!!!"
He roared, unleashing the full, unmitigated terror of his Conqueror's Haki.
The invisible shockwave blasted across the plaza.
The Marine flags snapped violently in the 'gale,' their flagpoles groaning and bending to the breaking point.
The weaker Marines didn't even have time to scream. They simply collapsed, instantly rendered unconscious.
They possessed neither the will nor the strength to remain conscious in the presence of this man!
Driven by an absolute resolve to die on this battlefield, Whitebeard's Conqueror's Haki had reached its absolute zenith.
In this moment, he had made his choice. This would be his final dance.
There was no more holding back.
If gods stood in his way, he would slaughter them.
If Buddhas blocked his path, he would crush them.
"Is this... the power of the Strongest Man in the World??"
Among the Marine ranks, Helmeppo and Koby stood with their jaws slack, their faces drained of all color. They staggered backward, overwhelmed, before finally collapsing to their knees.
"Helmeppo! Stay with me!" Koby cried out.
He had joined the Marines back in Shells Town under 'Axe-Hand' Morgan. Thanks to a recommendation, they had both been sent to Headquarters for advanced training.
In just a few short months, the grueling regimen had transformed them entirely, granting them the baseline strength required to even participate in a war of this magnitude.
But in the grand scheme of things, they were still just grunts. Mere fodder relegated to logistics on the absolute fringes of the battlefield.
Koby's willpower was slightly stronger than his friend's.
Even so, his legs felt like jelly. Every instinct screamed at him to turn and run, to escape this living purgatory.
Whitebeard is a terrifying monster!
It wasn't just Koby. That exact thought echoed in the minds of countless Marines.
A wave of primal, instinctual fear washed over the troops, halting their advance.
In that moment, they realized with agonizing clarity just how horrifying it was to stand face-to-face with the apex predator of the seas.
Countless men found their legs shaking uncontrollably.
Their hands, gripping rifles and swords, refused to obey their commands.
Flashes of their own grisly deaths played out in their minds' eyes.
Some simply broke. They threw down their weapons and scrambled to flee.
One man holding the line.
Whitebeard possessed only an unquenchable, blazing will and the absolute serenity of a man ready to die.
Seeing the Marines paralyzed by fear, he took the initiative. He charged.
SHLUCK! SHLUCK!
He unleashed two devastating, wind-infused flying slashes.
They swept across the plaza with peerless, unstoppable momentum, annihilating everything in their path.
"Hold the line!"
"Whitebeard is dying! He can't keep this up much longer!"
From the ruins of the execution platform, Sengoku's voice boomed through the loudspeakers, washing over the panicked troops.
Simultaneously...
An equally tyrannical burst of Conqueror's Haki erupted from the base of the platform, sweeping outward in a violent flash.
It slammed directly into Whitebeard's aura!
The collision generated a physical shockwave that blasted outward in all directions.
The clash inadvertently shielded the bulk of the Marine forces, though many were still thrown off balance and knocked to the ground.
"It's Vice Admiral Garp!"
"Garp the Hero!"
"Is he finally stepping in??"
Every eye snapped toward the source. Seeing Garp standing there, a collective sigh of relief swept through the Marine ranks.
Instantly, the shattered morale began to knit back together. Their grips tightened on their weapons, their eyes hardening with renewed resolve.
This was the power of a true "Symbol."
Garp's mere presence was enough to inject the troops with a massive surge of adrenaline and fighting spirit.
It was exactly why the Five Elders and the Marine high command—despite knowing full well that Garp was the father of Dragon, the Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Army—continued to let him operate within the Marines.
Just as they had once built up Jin, they had spent decades building up Garp's legend, until he became a pillar too massive to remove.
"Whitebeard may be a Yonko, a living legend..."
"But we have a legend of our own!"
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku and Vice Admiral Garp have clashed with Whitebeard countless times, and they've never been defeated! Today will be no different!"
"That's right!"
"We're going to win this war!"
Confidence blazed anew within the Marines.
Garp had hesitated to strike down Ace or Luffy. But Whitebeard? That was a different story entirely.
A ferocious, unbridled Conqueror's Haki—vastly more powerful than the burst Luffy had unleashed—exploded outward from Garp like a hurricane.
CRACK... CRACK... CRACK...
Fissures spiderwebbed across the ground surrounding Garp, crackling with arcs of crimson lightning.
His aura was like a caged beast suddenly unleashed.
It swept across more than half of Marineford.
WHOOSH!
Garp launched himself into the sky.
"Fist Bone: Meteor!"
A blinding, incandescent light enveloped Garp. As he rocketed forward, the sky erupted with the sound of rolling thunder.
He broke the sound barrier, driving a devastating punch straight toward Whitebeard. Even in his twilight years, Garp's sheer, raw power remained utterly terrifying.
Watching him move, everyone finally realized just how monumentally Garp had held back when facing Luffy.
If Garp had fought with even a fraction of this intensity...
Forget Luffy.
Even Whitebeard himself couldn't put Garp down for the count with a single punch.
On this entire battlefield, Luffy was the only person who could have ever bypassed Garp.
Facing the incoming meteor, Whitebeard's fighting spirit surged. He showed no fear. He dropped into a low stance, gripped his naginata with one hand, and drew his other fist back.
Before their fists even met, their colliding Conqueror's Haki formed an invisible, impenetrable wall between them, grinding and tearing at each other.
CRACK... CRACK...
BZZZZZT... BZZZZZT...
Deafening explosions continuously detonated in the empty air between them. The resulting shockwaves tore the earth apart and sent scores of nearby Marines tumbling through the air.
Finally, Garp and Whitebeard's fists connected.
DOOOOOOM!
Upon impact, Garp was actually blasted backward, skidding across the ground.
"Ah! Vice Admiral Garp!"
The Marines cried out in shock.
"Garp the Hero??"
"Vice Admiral Garp was pushed back??"
The Marines closest to the clash clutched their heads, looking on as if witnessing the end of the world.
"Don't be ridiculous! I am a Marine Vice Admiral! I'm not going to be taken down by some pirate!"
With a thunderous roar...
CRASH!
A ferocious surge of Haki blasted away the rubble, splintered wood, and chunks of ruined architecture that had buried him.
Garp stood amidst the wreckage. Blood trickled down his cheek, but his expression was deadly serious, grim, and entirely focused.
"You think you can just march into Marineford and do whatever you please?"
Following Sengoku's lead, the man known as the "Hero of the Marines" had finally dropped all pretense of holding back.
Because this war had just escalated to its absolute peak!
"You've gotten old, Garp!" Whitebeard roared with laughter.
"We all get old eventually!" Garp shot back.
"Time is the only truly fair thing in this world. Aging is inevitable. Except, perhaps, for those monsters who are no longer human."
Garp's aura remained overwhelmingly powerful, but his stamina, his endurance, his overall vitality had inevitably degraded with age.
Perhaps in a few more years, he would finally lose his battle against time.
The title of "Strongest" is always temporary. Legends like them were destined to become the stepping stones for the next generation of monsters!
Just as the legends they had defeated had been for them.
Garp stared at the visibly rejuvenated Whitebeard. "Is it really worth it?"
"What's the point of asking that now?"
Whitebeard laughed, a bold, booming sound. "If you Marines want my head, you're going to have to pay the toll!"
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