Amidst the catastrophic pandemonium swallowing the East Blue, no one noticed a brilliant streak of light cleaving through the heavens, tearing clean through the layers of dark fog as it hurtled across the sky.
Looking closely, encased within that paw-shaped energy bubble was a young man with golden hair. He was currently fast asleep, his trademark snot bubble expanding and contracting in steady rhythm.
It was Sabo, who had rushed all the way from the distant Red Line!
To conserve his stamina, Sabo had resolved to take a deep, restful sleep inside Kuma's paw-pad propulsion bubble.
He planned to wake the instant he made landfall in the East Blue, ready to carry out his mission at full strength.
In his slumber, a faint smile played at the corner of Sabo's lips—a warm, radiant expression that anyone with eyes would recognize as the face of pure happiness.
Under Kenshin's command, the Demon Warder engaged in an all-out battle against Im. Initially, the dark colossus steered by Im probed the vessel's techniques with measured caution.
Knowing both yourself and your enemy is the only path to enduring victory.
Having nearly lost her life in their previous encounter, Im had grown considerably more conservative. Every time she detected a blatant opening in the Demon Warder's guard, she hesitated, ultimately holding back her strike.
Hmph. It must be a trap!
There is no way that bastard would expose such glaring flaws—there has to be a scheme behind it!
Because of this paranoia, Im had initially fought with great restraint.
She kept waiting for the Demon Warder to unleash its true, devastating power. Yet time and time again, the world-shaking might from their previous encounter never materialized.
Instead, she sensed that something was profoundly off about the vessel. Its current combat rhythm was fundamentally different from before, entirely devoid of that overwhelming, sovereign aura.
Even its raw destructive output had plummeted significantly.
This discrepancy only reinforced her suspicion that something foul was afoot. Drake had to be feigning weakness deliberately, baiting her into an overextension before springing that sealing move to finish her off once and for all.
Denying her fear of Drake would be a lie—she had nearly perished at his hands last time.
Though brimming with supreme confidence in her restored form, she remained exceptionally cautious.
Eventually, Im decided she had endured enough. What did it matter if there was a trap?
Dragging this out would only erode her own momentum first. Once a combatant lost their sovereign assertiveness, claiming victory became an uphill battle.
BOOM!
A colossal pillar of dark energy condensed from surging tides of black mist, slamming directly into the Demon Warder's chassis.
"How... was it that easy?!" Im's eyes snapped wide.
That strike had merely been a probing test—a casual thrust utilizing the ambient darkness.
Yet even that glancing blow had visibly rocked the Demon Warder. What did that imply?
"You can no longer manifest the strength you had before!" Im struck straight to the heart of the matter, laying bare the truth.
Having pieced it together, her mood soared. Even the heavens were smiling upon her.
Drake, the adversary she considered her greatest existential threat, was currently unable to exert his true might.
Did this not mean that across the entire world, not a single soul remained capable of threatening her existence?
Next, she would eradicate the root of all chaos here in the East Blue.
Then, she would extinguish Joy Boy, her ancient nemesis, and reclaim the fruit. Once that was done, no power beneath the heavens could ever bar her path again!
In the space of a fleeting thought, Im crossed the distance, materializing directly in front of the Demon Warder.
Kenshin's focus sharpened to a razor edge, discharging torrents of violent lightning from the hull. Almost simultaneously, the dark mist surged inward from every quadrant of the sky.
Lightning clashed against the abyss.
In a mere breath, the lightning was smothered into oblivion. Churning black mist engulfed the Demon Warder whole, coiling tightly around every limb and joint like an iron vice.
Inside the cockpit, Kenshin dropped heavily to one knee, panting in ragged, agonized gasps.
That sudden influx of dark power had been far too ferocious—its sheer, crushing density had completely overwhelmed the lightning barrier he could muster.
He was thoroughly outmatched!
In this moment, Kenshin truly confronted the terrifying gulf between himself and Im. Even with the all-around amplification provided by the Demon Warder, he was still no match for her.
He couldn't even withstand a single serious strike!
The evasive maneuvering they had pulled off earlier had been nothing more than an illusion; Im had simply held back her true power.
Under the weight of this blow, Kenshin realized that holding out until Drake arrived was an astronomical task—far more brutal than he had ever envisioned.
"Again!" Kenshin gritted his teeth against the searing agony wracking his body, forcing himself to stand.
"Kenshin, let me take over this time," Kuzan stepped forward, his expression grave. "Drake mentioned before that any of us can pilot the Demon Warder. Please, let me try!"
Kenshin lifted his head, his gaze meeting Kuzan's calm, resolute eyes.
The crew of the Dragon Flag Pirates exchanged brief glances before nodding with heavy conviction.
If one had to name the strongest combatant among them right now, it was undeniably Kuzan.
He had stood as a Marine Admiral for years, possessing unfathomable depth.
Over this recent period, his strength had sharpened even further. If Kuzan couldn't hold the line, none of them could!
"Understood!" Kenshin made the tactical call without delay. "Demon Warder, shift pilot!"
With a brilliant flash of light, Kenshin vanished from the central helm, and Kuzan stepped into the synchronization matrix.
Outside, Im extended a slender hand, curling her fingers into a crushing grip.
The tendrils of black mist wrapped around the Demon Warder constricted violently, wrenching the limbs of the mechanical titan.
"Hahaha, it's over!"
Just as the arms and legs of the Demon Warder were wrenched into unnatural angles, the surrounding atmosphere froze solid.
The ambient temperature plummeted catastrophically.
Delicate, crystalline snowflakes drifted down from the heavens, piercing through the thick shroud of black mist to fall toward the churning East Blue below.
Im froze slightly, utterly bewildered by the sudden atmospheric shift.
"Begone from this sky!" a voice roared from behind her. With the dark fog obscuring line of sight, the attack came without warning.
The instant Im turned her head, a massive volley of colossal stone arrows erupted from the mist, locking onto her from every conceivable angle with zero blind spots.
"Halt."
Facing the torrential rain of stone ballistas, Im's expression remained completely unfazed.
She raised a single palm, giving a gentle push forward. The black mist surged like a tidal bore, grinding the incoming projectile storm into fine dust the instant it drew near.
Not a single stone touched her.
"You're still breathing?" Im recognized the assailant instantly—it was the Golden Lion, who had repeatedly thrown himself at her earlier.
"Not that it matters. You won't be living much longer anyway."
Im shook her head with detached indifference, flicking a single finger through the empty air.
"Hah! Thinking a half-hearted gesture like that can take my life? You look down on me too much, woman!" Shiki curled his lip in haughty disdain.
Sweeping his arm in a grand arc, a secondary wave of six-meter-long stone lances surged forward as one.
This time, he had come prepared.
He would never allow himself to be driven into that pathetic state again—otherwise, what face did he, the great Golden Lion, have left in this world?
"Perish." Im clenched her fist. The surrounding air instantly locked into stasis, and Shiki—stationed tens of thousands of meters away—was pinned completely immobile where he floated.
Dense tendrils of black mist coiled tightly around him. Shiki's eyes bulged in pure horror, unable to comprehend how he had been neutralized so effortlessly.
Im let out a silent, mocking sneer. Just as she moved to crush Shiki, a voice echoed from behind her once more:
"Descent: Ice Age!"
An apocalyptic wave of absolute-zero frost washed across the entire battlefield. The churning, incorporeal mass of black mist was flash-frozen into a colossal sheet of solid, glistening ice!
Inside the Demon Warder, Kenshin and the others stared through the monitors in stunned disbelief.
That boundless, intangible mist... had actually been frozen solid!!