On Puttelocrone Island, the battle between Marine Headquarters and the Rocks Pirates shattered heaven and earth.
Rocks versus Garp.
Golden Lion versus Sengoku.
Linlin and Carlo, two against one, clashed with Haines bolstered by the power of a hundred shadows.
Zephyr and Columbus led a host of Marine officers in a brutal melee with Kaido, Silver Axe, Gan Sui, John, and the rest.
Every battlefield became a slaughterhouse of life-and-death carnage.
The struggle was perilous beyond measure.
Outside the island, the churning sea Whitebeard had stirred with the Tremor-Tremor Fruit finally calmed.
Most of the warships remained intact.
Yet two had been capsized by the violent waves, thousands of Marines cast into the water.
Tsuru, commanding from the fleet, dispatched rescue parties.
At the same time she absorbed situation reports from every vessel.
A rear-admiral staff officer asked tensely, "What do we do now? Vice Admiral Sengoku and the others are mixed in with the Rocks Pirates—do we still open fire?"
Tsuru said nothing, raising her telescope to study each battlefield on the island.
A moment later she spoke decisively.
"Transmit the order: all ships, open fire on the eastern main battlefield. Maintain continuous barrage—hit every Rocks Pirate!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Though worried, the adjutant obeyed instantly, relaying Tsuru's command.
The moment the order went out.
Less than three seconds passed.
The warships ringing Puttelocrone, past their initial chaos, began the true Buster Call bombardment.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!
In an instant hundreds, thousands of cannon roared like sky-splitting thunder.
Across the sea the guns thundered in unison, hurling heavy shells toward Puttelocrone.
The ships aimed chiefly at the eastern battlefield Tsuru had named.
There stood Sengoku, Zephyr, Haines—the heart of the main fight.
Perhaps sensing the rear-admiral's unease.
Tsuru sighed: "We can't afford hesitation. While the old Fleet Admiral keeps Whitebeard pinned down we must smash the Rocks Pirates. If Whitebeard reappears alone he could destroy our fleet."
With all forty-eight ships firing together.
Uncountable shells rained onto Puttelocrone.
In a heartbeat the small island was packed with blossoming fire.
Both sides caught in the melee suffered massive casualties.
Rocks Pirates.
Marines of Headquarters alike.
All were scythed down by the indiscriminate storm of steel.
The difference lay only in this: the Marines had trained for such bombardment, keeping their heads and dodging effectively, cutting their losses.
The pirates lacked that discipline.
Under the dense barrage they panicked like startled birds, bolted, and were blown apart in swathes.
As pirates died in droves.
On Puttelocrone, only the mightiest Senior Combatants still stood amid the shells.
The rest had lost all will to fight, scattering like souls torn from their bodies.
Yet Puttelocrone was tiny.
And forty-eight warships surrounded it at sea.
Where could they run?
Faced with island-erasing fire.
Even the rank-and-file pirates broke.
Silver Axe, Gan Sui, John—fear and retreat gripped even them.
Not from cowardice.
But because this Buster Call was simply too overwhelming.
In this apocalyptic ruin, perhaps only Rocks himself and a few Division Captains still burned to fight.
On the western third of Puttelocrone.
Only two figures traded blows.
Yet their clash gouged the land as though scraping it three feet deep, nearly shattering that portion of the island.
To keep Rocks from reinforcing the main field, Garp gave everything, unleashing strength beyond anything he had shown.
Iron fists met Rocks's long blade again and again, sky and earth blurring.
After more than ten minutes of relentless violence both bore wounds.
Rocks had taken several punches, blood at the corner of his mouth.
Garp wore slashes across his body.
But such injuries were mere scratches to their inhuman Physique.
They only fought harder.
Yet as time wore on Garp felt pressure mounting from the other man.
That pressure swelled as Rocks's pirates fell in droves.
When Tsuru ordered the Buster Call.
Shells descended in torrents.
The battlefield was shredded, hundreds of pirates blasted to pieces.
The pressure peaked.
In raging fury Rocks finally exploded!
"Enough, damn you!! Marines!!!"
Rocks roared to the sky.
His wild hair lashed like whips.
Power erupted from him like a volcano.
Crimson Haoshoku lightning burst outward in a world-ending storm, sweeping across Puttelocrone and the surrounding sea.
"Not good!"
Garp reflexively released his own Haoshoku to counter it, hoping to cancel the horror before it spread.
Too late.
Rocks's Haoshoku, released first and a shade stronger, crushed Garp's back into his body the instant it left his skin.
In the next heartbeat.
Crimson lightning flooded the sky above Puttelocrone.
An abyssal pressure crashed down.
Apart from a handful like Zephyr, ninety-nine percent of the Marines on the island collapsed unconscious.
Some wounded sailors were shaken to death on the spot.
Against such terror.
Even an ordinary Vice Admiral could not stay standing.
"Rumble—!"
Rocks's Haoshoku continued to surge seaward.
Wherever its light passed, thousands of Marines on the ships fainted, and shells were detonated mid-air by the shock.
Even Tsuru, kilometers away at the flagship, reeled with dizziness.
She stared in horror toward Rocks.
"What monstrous power... He's like a demon god! Garp—"
As her worry peaked.
Across from Garp, Rocks—shrouded in black-red lightning—gripped his blade in both hands and slashed.
"Abyssal Curse!!"
Garp knew the weight of that blow; every ounce of strength roared into his right fist as he punched.
"Fist Bone! Galaxy—!"
BOOM!
Amid earth-shaking thunder Garp grunted, a ghastly wound splitting his broad chest. He was smashed like a cannonball by the demon god and hurled into the sea behind him.
Rocks's terrifying force even blasted the ocean into a great fan-shaped crater.
Three warships caught within were shattered to splinters.
At almost the same instant.
On a distant beach.
The air cracked like a spider's web.
The fissure burst open, and through it—amid Tsuru's ashen gaze—a towering figure with a naginata punched a blood-soaked man to the sand.
Recognizing the broken body and feeling its life gone, Tsuru's mind went blank.
"Fleet Admiral Gustav... is dead!"