Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling...
The sound of blades hitting gun barrels rang out in a series of clear sounds.
Rowan and that CP0 agent; Rowan moved back, the agent moved forward. The two figures quickly crossed the snowy field, leaving a deep line on the ground.
The CP0 agent got more and more excited as he fought.
For this job, the World Government sent out a total of three CP0 agents and twenty CP9 special fighters.
Not many people, but everyone involved in the mission was an elite member of the CP organization.
Such a lineup was even enough to carry out a secret assassination of a country's leader!
So, was their real goal this time to kill Ryan Rowan?
Of course not.
The Celestial Dragons might be very stupid, but CP0 was very clear about how important Marine's investigation report really was.
[Golden Dawn] Ryan Rowan was as big a threat as [Whitebeard] Edward Newgate!
What did this mean?
It meant that if Ryan Rowan went completely crazy and started rampaging on the sea, the World Government would have to pay a very heavy price to deal with his terrible revenge!
To keep the World Government's rule stable, the World Government didn't want to see this happen at all.
So, they never really planned to "kill" Rowan in the first place.
And this mission had only one simple purpose.
...No, to be exact, it had two.
The first - mutual threat.
For dealing with someone as strong as Rowan, the World Government had two common plans.
To reach a mutual threat and then keep a weak peace.
And to gather a very large army, at any cost, to erase his "existence" from the world!
These two plans are not two "choices", but both are working at the same time, one after the other, either is possible.
There are two good examples.
[Whitebeard] Edward Newgate, this terrible person who made a name for himself on the sea from the last era, used his own amazing strength and the Whitebeard Pirates, with many strong people under him, to make the World Government know he existed, but didn't dare to act easily.
But on the other hand, the Whitebeard Pirates didn't have enough strength or the desire to completely turn against the World Government.
So, the two sides reached a delicate balance at their own bottom lines.
I won't go against you, and you won't bother my life.
Keep things as they are - the best.
This is the first plan in action.
As for the second plan.
Once, there was a man nicknamed [Devil's Heir], named Douglas Barrett.
This man was once a member of Pirate King Roger's crew, but later left Roger and started his own group.
After Roger died, Barrett suddenly went crazy. Having lost all restraint and goals, he started rampaging on the sea.
Such a person was the most trouble for the World Government.
Free, without any ties, everything and everyone was meaningless.
So, Barrett could not "be stopped."
So, the World Government paid a huge price and, with the help of one of Marine's most terrible weapons - the Buster Call - finally captured Douglas Barrett, locked him in the deepest level of Impel Down, and almost completely erased his existence on the sea.
In this way, Douglas Barrett was considered "dead".
This is the second plan, and it clearly doesn't apply to the current Ryan Rowan.
After all, according to Tsuru's report, Rowan cared a lot about his homeland, Alabasta, and was definitely not a war freak like Barrett. He even had a good political mind.
Such a person, in some ways, is actually easier to get along with.
In the end, the World Government decided to show Ryan Rowan some force to promote a "mutual threat" situation.
That's why CP0 chose to openly meet Rowan himself.
Without involving anyone else, and without anything sneaky.
Show each other's strength, and then keep things as they are. This would be good for everyone. They believed Rowan could see this point too.
As for how the World Government would show its "military strength"?
This was the second purpose of their mission.
To use real combat to test the latest weapon made by Marine's top scientist – Vegapunk!
Killing two birds with one stone, really good.
...
That's how it was supposed to be.
But now, the CP0 agent who was fighting Rowan was feeling a subtle change in his heart.
Because he found that he was actually evenly matched with Ryan Rowan, whom the higher-ups cared so much about, and was even forcing him to retreat again and again!
There's a chance...
There's definitely a chance to win!
The eyes behind the CP0 agent's mask flashed with excitement.
If he could defeat, or even capture, Ryan Rowan here, it would definitely be a great achievement!
Keep it up, he can win!
The CP0 agent roared and increased the speed of his twin swords again.
His companion, who was also CP0 and was watching the battle from afar, had noticed the change and wanted to speak out to stop him, but he couldn't hear him at all.
"Damn it, we shouldn't have sent that impulsive guy!"
The steady companion gritted his teeth and asked the third CP0 agent on the radio: "Is the prototype charged yet?"
"It'll take a little longer!"
"Hurry!"
The companion looked at the battlefield. Although they clearly had a big advantage, that strange feeling that couldn't be shaken off kept coming back to him.
"Something's not right..."
...
Far away, next to the dense forest.
The sand soldiers that Rowan had made were watching "himself" fight with Hiluluk and Kureha, with great interest.
When the CP0 agent swung a beautiful sword, the sand soldier held up a sign and couldn't help but exclaim.
"Wow!"
The sand on the sign formed the words: "Nice hit!"
Seeing this, Hiluluk and Kureha wanted to politely agree, but they couldn't say anything.
After all, they had never seen - or even heard of - such a person.
While fighting such an intense battle, he could still find the time to make sand soldiers, and use Haki to talk to others almost without any problems except for actual talking!
But Hiluluk and Kureha couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Anyway, it was great that this Ryan Rowan wasn't a tyrant who killed everyone he saw!
Now they just had to wait for this symbolic battle to end, and Drum Kingdom could return to peace again, and even have a fixed route to Alabasta.
This would be the best thing for the people of Drum Kingdom.
However, the "peace" that Hiluluk and Kureha were looking forward to did not come.
From the distance of the foothills, there came a rumble like thunder.
The two looked at each other, stunned.
As residents of a winter island, they knew very well what that dull sound meant -
Nadare.
An extremely violent, super huge Nadare!
The problem was, why was Nadare happening in this kind of place?
Did someone set off explosives above the foothills?!
The two doctors couldn't understand it at all.
It should be like this, because only one person on this sea could explain the principle.
Vegapunk had explained to the superiors about the new weapon he designed:
Compress the power of a natural Devil Fruit into it by a special device, and then release it when needed.
One prototype can only use one single-use shot, and one single-use shot is equal to a full-force attack from a natural Devil Fruit user!
But making the shots themselves required a natural Devil Fruit user to completely obey orders and charge the shots, so they had to find a completely willing natural power user.
After all, it was a secretly developed and produced new weapon, and the people on Marine's side couldn't be used openly, so the World Government had to secretly recruit people in the underworld.
Fortunately, they found a volunteer who, without knowing the machine's function, completed the production of the only shot.
What made the World Government even more surprised was that this volunteer's power was relatively "stable", not as violent as lava, nor as hard to catch as lasers, so it was very suitable for the prototype's first test.
Its name - Natural type, Snow-Snow Fruit.
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