“Fleet Admiral Sakazuki! The surface of the sea has been frozen!”
“I can see that. Were our whereabouts detected? Or was the intelligence leaked…?”
Looking at the frozen sea, Akainu’s expression grew grave. Even though he was the Fleet Admiral of the Marines and had always advocated eliminating every pirate, he had initially opposed a war of this scale that would inflict such crippling losses.
Akainu could accept casualties among the soldiers, but he could not accept a battle that appeared nearly impossible to win.
Kuzan’s defection had been confirmed, Garp went down first, and the Revolutionary Army was stirring up chaos everywhere. Taking the initiative to attack enemy territory when the entire sea was already in turmoil looked foolish no matter how one viewed it.
As for Koby, Akainu had already disregarded him for being far too weak. At his current level, he was nowhere near capable of influencing the course of the battlefield.
However, the Five Elders had already made up their minds. Akainu’s objections were no more than air to them.
For Akainu, the only good news was that the World Government had not merely stood by and watched this time. It had likewise dispatched a massive fleet.
The Sea Beast Weapons formed from the sea beasts controlled by the device Vegapunk had left behind, along with the Pacifista army, supplemented part of their military strength, while the remaining fleets had also been assigned their respective roles.
To deal with Charlotte Linlin, Fujitora had prepared massive rocks for creating a temporary battlefield. To deal with Red Hair, they had deliberately assembled an army of slaves to serve as cannon fodder.
However, according to the reports Tsuru had sent him, the war was not progressing smoothly. They had achieved considerable results against Red Hair and Charlotte Linlin during the early stages, but once Shanks and Charlotte Linlin reacted, the battle fell into a stalemate.
These monsters of the sea all possessed Conqueror’s Haki. Unless they won the clashes between the top-tier combatants, relying solely on cannon fodder was nothing more than sending people to their deaths.
Tsuru’s side had even become locked in a back-and-forth struggle over the defensive line with the Beasts Pirates right from the start.
As of five minutes ago, Akainu still had not received any reports of Arceus, Kaido, or Yamato appearing on the battlefield. That was what worried him most, because he had no idea how many more cards the World Government had left to deal with the Beasts Pirates.
【You only need to carry out your orders. We will handle everything else.】
That was the answer the Five Elders had given when Akainu pressed them for details.
The decision to launch a surprise attack from the West Blue into the enemy’s heartland had also been made after careful consideration. Logically speaking, the three battlefields should have been enough to draw away their forces. At a time like this, the defenses in their heartland could not possibly be as strong as usual.
After all, the Marines and the World Government had mobilized enormous forces and large numbers of elites. The pirates could not possibly refrain from sending their main forces to face them.
As long as this surprise-attack force achieved results, even if the forces on the front lines could not wipe out the pirates, they could at least keep them occupied and prevent the enemy from responding effectively on both fronts.
This surprise-attack mission was extremely important. Had Garp still been present, Akainu would have considered having him lead the fleet. Whether in terms of strength or the morale boost brought by his reputation, Garp was more than capable of shouldering the mission.
Reality, however, no longer allowed him to do so. After some consideration, Akainu became the one to personally lead the fleet.
Without a top-tier combatant leading them, it would not be a surprise attack. It would be delivering themselves to them.
It did not matter that Akainu was not personally responsible for troop deployments. Among all the forces participating in the war, the strongest fighters were busy battling other powerful opponents. This was a world where an individual’s martial might could change the course of a war. No matter how well a strategy was arranged, its success still depended on the stronger side winning its battles.
Once an uncontrollable top-tier combatant was freed from their opponent, it will have a devastating impact on the battle.
The stalemate on Tsuru’s battlefield was itself largely determined by the fact that neither side’s strongest combatants had appeared.
Still, Akainu believed that this operation had a higher chance of succeeding. He was not some reckless commander who only knew how to charge straight ahead.
Compared to the New World, where the Emperors of the Sea had countless eyes and ears, the Four Seas were regions where their influence did not run deep. After all, powerful pirates were all drawn toward the Grand Line. The only group that operated frequently throughout the Four Seas was the Revolutionary Army.
According to Akainu’s judgment, this operation should not have been discovered. Given the complicated conditions of the sea, it should have taken pirate reinforcements at least two days to arrive.
Yet the moment the fleet appeared, the sea was frozen solid. Someone had clearly been waiting for them.
The Beasts Pirates had more than one ice-using Devil Fruit User, but the one who had left the deepest impression on Akainu was still the familiar face before him.
“Kuzan, did you predict the Marines’ actions?”
As a former Admiral, Kuzan was thoroughly familiar with the Marines’ methods of warfare. Although he had joined the Marines slightly later than Akainu and Kizaru, he had still been one of the monsters of the same generation. Kuzan was also familiar with the habits of people like Sengoku and Tsuru.
In a sense, it was not impossible for Kuzan to have predicted their actions. Assuming Kuzan had leaked information, it was also possible that the Beasts Pirates had focused their reconnaissance efforts on this surrounding area.
What Akainu did not know, however, was that within the invisible world of the consciousness network, a traitor had emerged among this fleet.
“You guarantee it?”
“I guarantee it. You can’t even imagine the life I’m living now. Why do you think we willingly let humans use us as telephones? Isn’t it so we can lie flat and do nothing?”
This was the Den Den Mushi communication network, a realm beyond humanity’s reach. Over the years, Omastar had also developed a complex snail network of its own. Although there were still many snails it did not know, sometimes achieving a goal required only one.
“There’s a human Fleet Admiral aboard my ship. My approximate location is…”
Den Den Mushi were extraordinary creatures. Because being raised by humans reduced the difficulty of survival, their species enjoyed being captured and considered their relationship with humans to be symbiotic.
And since every warship carried a Den Den Mushi, whether it can be contacted by Omastar is purely a matter of probability—it all depends on whether Omastar can leverage its connections to track down that specific Den Den Mushi.
Den Den Mushi themselves did not care who their users were, as long as someone provided for them. Thus, after being enticed by Omastar, Akainu’s route was exposed to the Beasts Pirates.
The promised reward was not even a drop in the ocean to the Beasts Pirates. They merely had to provide for one more snail. It was practically a cost-free deal.
“Fleet Admiral Sakazuki, there’s only one enemy. It’s… it’s Kuzan. What should we do next?”
Only Kuzan could be seen on the frozen sea. Behind him was silent and completely empty, as though he had truly come alone, but Akainu did not believe that for a second.
This force currently consisted of twenty large warships, with more than a hundred vessels in total.
Akainu did not know exactly how Kuzan had done it, but if he had been able to freeze them in place, then he must have received intelligence in advance. No matter how confident he was, he should not have come alone to do this.
“Blanket the area with firepower. Clear every location on the island where troops might be lying in ambush.”
After estimating the approximate distance, Akainu ordered a bombardment. If they could not see the enemy, they would use cannons to find them. That was what the artillery aboard warships was for.
Boom!
After two cannon blasts, two huge craters were blown into the ice behind Kuzan, but that was still not enough to make him stop.
“Fleet Admiral Sakazuki, the distance is too great! The warship cannons don’t have enough range!”
“Did that b*stard Kuzan calculate this in advance?”
The warships were currently frozen in place and had temporarily lost the ability to move, while the Kingdom of Daimonte happened to lie just beyond the artillery’s maximum range.
“Fleet Admiral Sakazuki, the troops are ready to land. Shall we move out?”
The ice restricted the warships’ movement, but it also gave the Marines a new foothold. When Kuzan had still been with the Marines, this had been one of their most commonly used methods of landing.
Although the Admiral from those days had already left, the veterans remained, and those tactics had not been forgotten.
“Wait a little longer. Something feels wrong. If the shells can’t reach, then I’ll do it myself.”
Akainu walked to the warship’s main cannon and stepped directly onto the foremost barrel.
“Meteor Volcano!”
He raised both fists above his head as magma surged across his body. Countless colossal magma fists shot into the sky, traced arcs through the air, and descended toward the Kingdom of Daimonte.
The blazing magma seemed to ignite the sky, and even from within the Kingdom of Daimonte, the apocalyptic sight could be seen.
The nearby sea was covered by ice Kuzan had created. Based on Akainu’s understanding of Kuzan, ice thick enough to immobilize warships could not be broken even by ordinary Fish-Men.
Moreover, all the powerful Fish-Men had already shown themselves. There should no longer be any strong Fish-Men here capable of threatening them.
As for the Beasts Pirates’ sea beasts, an army with solid ground beneath its feet was capable of fighting them.
Therefore, if enemies were hiding nearby, they should be on the island behind Kuzan.
To reduce the casualties an ambush by pirates might cause, there was nothing wrong with attacking the island first. Even if it resulted in the deaths of some citizens from a non-affiliated nation, that was still preferable to allowing his soldiers to be ambushed.
“Sakazuki, that really is just like you. But everything is different now…”
A blue metallic sphere appeared in Kuzan’s hand. It looked to be half the size of his body, yet in his grasp it seemed weightless. With a light toss, he sent it floating into the air.
“Extreme Cold Storm.”
At the front of the metal sphere was an opening shaped like the mouth of a sack. As its closed metal aperture opened, a blast of frigid air surged into the sky in an instant. Combined with Kuzan’s own ability, the freezing currents seemed to form a vast curtain across the sky.
As the cold continued spreading outward, the magma projectiles Akainu had launched gradually lost their heat and cooled into volcanic rock.
Moisture in the air clung to them, then froze under Kuzan’s power. Burdened with even more weight, Akainu’s attacks fell prematurely, and countless fragments of stone crashed onto the ice surface.
Kuzan had neutralized Akainu’s probing attack, bringing their first exchange to an end. However, Kuzan’s actions seemed to further confirm that there was something unusual on the island.
“Deploy the Pacifistas. Have the vanguard follow behind them. Spread the Vice Admirals throughout the center of the army. Advance on the island from both flanks in a dispersed formation and capture it.
As for Kuzan, I’ll deal with him.”
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