“What gave you the misconception that we couldn’t handle a situation like this?”
Reality was not what Dragon had imagined. In his view, nearly all of the Beasts Pirates’ current forces had already appeared on the battlefield. A starved camel was still bigger than a horse; even Garp, who had been frozen for so long, would still cause the Beasts Pirates a certain amount of trouble once released.
At a time like this, his proposal should have been perfectly reasonable. He was not here to cause trouble. He simply wanted to fish two people out of the prison. From the standpoint of combat strength, the Beasts Pirates would lose nothing.
Yet Shayna rejected his proposal without even giving it much thought.
“You may not have understood what I meant…”
“No, you’re the one who didn’t understand what I meant. This is our territory. Our duty is to defend this place. Whether they’re prisoners or anything else, the only ones allowed to leave this country are corpses.
The fact that I haven’t directly treated an intruder like you as an enemy is already a special wartime exception. While you still haven’t done anything, leave now and I can still treat you as a passerby. Otherwise, your entire Monkey family can stay here together.
After tonight, a lot of rooms here will be empty.”
The Beasts Pirates did not particularly care about the Straw Hat crew. According to the agreement between Red Hair and Kaido, if the Straw Hats still insisted on their own ideas after a certain period of time, then they would simply be packaged up and sent to Red Hair. There were quite a few people who could use their connections to get them out.
But not caring was one thing. The Beasts Pirates could choose to release people, but others could not come over and snatch them away. Otherwise, the nature of the matter would completely change.
Dragon had just helped Shayna attack Saturn, which was why she had said a few extra words. Otherwise, Dragon would already have been marked as an enemy by now.
Things had already become very bad, but the situation was actually even worse than Dragon had imagined.
“Monkey D. Dragon, leader of the Revolutionary Army. You are also someone who disrupts the stability of the world. From the Freedom Fighters to the Revolutionary Army, you have already touched the World Government’s bottom line. You are likewise a target who must be eliminated.”
Upon seeing Dragon appear here, an ominous glint also appeared in Saturn’s eyes, and an oppressive force immediately descended upon Dragon.
“…”
There seemed to be quite a few people present who possessed the skill of silencing others. After Queen had been struck speechless, Dragon now also felt that his way of thinking could no longer keep up with the times.
He had long known that the World Government disliked him. From the day he became the leader of the Revolutionary Army, he and the World Government had been enemies. Unfortunately, the Beasts Pirates had no intention of making a deal with him either, and had already placed half of him in the enemy camp.
He had clearly come here hoping to profit while the two sides were at war, yet somehow he had ended up pleasing neither side.
The only good news was that he did not need to worry about the Beasts Pirates joining forces with the World Government to eliminate him first, because the Lunarians and the World Government had an irreconcilable blood feud.
The moment Saturn’s Evil Eye ability shifted toward Dragon, the Red Chain also transformed from a spear into a chain-spear and shot toward Saturn.
Bang!
Saturn thrust both hands holding his cane downward, stabbing the cane directly into the ground. Although he had said that Dragon also had to be dealt with, Saturn was not in any hurry. Garp had only just been released; killing his son right in front of him could easily force Garp to immediately switch sides.
That would not serve Saturn’s interests. Moreover, now that there was something to compare them to, in the eyes of the Five Elders, the Revolutionary Army was at most a minor ailment. Although they stirred up so-called revolutions in various countries, the Revolutionary Army did not possess military strength anywhere near as outrageous as that of the Beasts Pirates.
Two of the Five Elders had moved out at the same time, yet they still had not immediately taken down this relatively empty Wano Country. If Wano Country’s forces had been intact…
Once he thought of that, Dragon’s level of threat naturally began to decline. After all, nothing changed one’s perspective quite like comparison.
Saturn tilted his head to dodge the incoming chain-spear, then even reached an arm toward the chain.
“The probing should end here. If we keep dragging this out, dawn will arrive.”
Even Saturn felt a trace of greed toward the power displayed by the Red Chain. It could extend freely and change forms at will. That alone made it an extremely rare treasure, not to mention its astonishing toughness.
However, Shayna did not retract the Red Chain or control it to evade him. Instead, she simply allowed Saturn to grab it.
Just as Saturn thought that the next stage would be a contest of strength, a strange power surged out from the Red Chain. The originally cold chain became unbearably scorching at that instant, attacking Saturn’s limb like a red-hot branding iron.
Saturn instinctively tried to let go, only to discover that he could not. The power on the chain seemed to possess an irresistible attraction that had already locked his arm firmly onto it.
“Greed comes with a price. You people really never learn your lesson.
Your filthy blood is unworthy of touching it.”
Slash!
Saturn swept one hand across his own arm. The arm that had just been tightly gripping the Red Chain was instantly severed from his body. Although Saturn’s arm could regenerate, the empty sleeve already explained everything.
Watching his severed arm turn to ash, Saturn realized that this mysterious weapon concealed an enormous secret far beyond his understanding. Kaido had gone out to war, and eighty percent of the officers had left with the army, yet even a Wano Country like this was still proving troublesome for him.
“Do you really believe that? The facts prove that the destruction of your race was inevitable. Sitting atop a treasure trove without even realizing it, you have no idea how many things you missed.”
From the very beginning, Saturn had not moved from his position. The spider legs beneath him were now deeply embedded in the ground, as though he had been sensing something all along.
The Five Elders had another objective in coming here. While overturning the Beasts Pirates’ rear, they also intended to directly excavate Pluton, which lay buried deep within Wano Country. In earlier years, they had believed everything was under their control. It was actually a good thing for a threatening weapon like Pluton to remain sealed away.
The World Government’s military strength had originally held an absolute advantage. Whether or not the World Government possessed Pluton, it could still control the seas.
Later, Wano Country became Kaido’s territory, and they could not easily force the issue. If Kaido gained control of Pluton during the process, it would only create trouble for them instead.
But now, the situation had changed again. The World Government needed a more powerful military force to fill the gap in its strength.
With a large portion of the Beasts Pirates’ forces deployed elsewhere, they saw this as an opportunity.
“Treasure trove? You mean that so-called Ancient Weapon? We haven’t dug it up simply because a stable headquarters brings us greater returns. If you think you can use that thing to turn the tide of battle, then you’re dreaming.”
Shayna raised her head and looked toward the sky, where a dazzling ice flower was blooming.
Saturn was stalling for time, and Shayna was doing the same. The only difference was that they were waiting for different things. That ice flower not only meant that the follow-up forces were ready, but also that everyone who needed to evacuate the area around the quarry had now reached a safe location.
At the same time, outside Udon, Regice, which had been dormant for a long time and had been serving as a mobile air conditioner and biological freezer, finally awakened.
With the quarry as the center, connecting to Regice’s position, a no-man’s-land had formed. All forces belonging to the Beasts Pirates within this region had already withdrawn.
Then the towering ice walls began to rise even higher, enclosing everything within them.
What had always restricted the Beasts Pirates inside Wano Country was never any particular enemy, but their own people. Only after the battlefield was cleared could they truly fight without restraint.
Giratina was in the Reverse World, and aside from it, no one else had any way to precisely lock onto everyone, otherwise shifting the battlefield would have been much easier.
It was at this moment that Regice fired its signal into the sky.
Behind Regice, Regigigas, whose Slow Start had already finished, had completed its warm-up and was now observing Regice’s situation.
[It seems there is no need for me to act. The humans who follow Him have done fairly well. They have not disgraced Him.]
Differences between species also brought entirely different ways of thinking. In the eyes of Saturn and Mars, after the battle had reached this point, there was no way the Beasts Pirates could still be hiding any combat forces. The only reason some had yet to appear had to be that they were absent or tied down by something else.
Even Yamato, the successor, had come to the most dangerous battlefield. The remaining forces were probably planning something even more dangerous.
The impact of that could be terrifying, but they had no time to think about this unknown issue. Taking advantage of the opportunity to finish what was in front of them was the immediate priority.
But in truth, they had only guessed half of it correctly.
As the god-tier Pokémon with the lowest favorability toward humans, Regigigas would not willingly take action unless absolutely necessary or directly ordered by Arceus.
The effects of the incident had basically been contained within the prison area, so Regigigas had not intervened directly and was merely guarding against unforeseen circumstances.
Before Saturn could understand what that signal flare meant, he felt the temperature inside the quarry suddenly plummet. A layer of white frost spread outward in every direction with Yamato at its center.
“So they’ve finally evacuated? In that case, I won’t hold back anymore. Eternal Ice Prison!”
The Udon quarry was instantly divided in two. A dome formed from ice enveloped most of the quarry, trapping Garp, Dragon, and Mars inside the nearly transparent barrier.
As the ice dome formed, the temperature in Udon also began to plunge.
Some of the Marine prisoners, along with people of ordinary physical constitution like Nami and Usopp, were instantly frozen stiff by the wave of cold, then turned into ice sculptures just like Garp had been before.
Even Bon Kurei began shivering violently from the low temperature, while Franky felt as though even the gears inside his body were about to turn stiff.
“F-Franky Fresh Fire~! Damn it, isn’t there any cola here?! Hercules, help me out! Can you find some cola for me?!”
Franky tried to start a fire to warm himself, but the effect was mediocre. Energy sources other than cola could power his body, but the results were far too inferior.
The cold wave did not stop. Viewed from high above, most of Udon had already turned white.
“Muhahaha, she finally used it? Looks like our young miss is finally going all out without holding anything back!”
White mist continuously escaped from Queen’s mouth. The heat inside his body froze from the extreme cold the instant he breathed it out. At such a low temperature, even breathing brought a kind of pain.
Queen was very familiar with this move. It was a new insight Yamato had gained a few months ago. The seemingly transparent ice dome was actually formed from the release of her source power. As long as she was still able to fight, this ice dome could not be broken.
As for why Queen knew this so clearly—
It was because one of the purposes behind the creation of this move was to leave Queen with nowhere to escape so he would obediently take his beating. Many things, after being created, would eventually depart from their original nature and develop other uses.
For example, certain medications for heart disease had later been developed for entirely different purposes.
If items could be like that, then moves were naturally no exception. Using this ice dome just to trap Queen was admittedly making a mountain out of a molehill. Its original purpose had never been because of Queen, but because Yamato wanted to avoid accidentally injuring anyone else when ambushing Kaido.
However, when using a move of this scale, she had no way to hold back. If she did, its strength would be insufficient. If she did not clear her own people out first, she would earn the title of teamkiller before anything else.
In a certain sense, the development could be considered a success. After all, once everything that could be accidentally injured had been cleared away, there would naturally be nothing left to accidentally injure.
By enclosing all three opponents within her own battle space, Yamato’s intentions were already obvious.
Although responsibility for defending the rear had been divided so that Shayna, Metagross, and Robin handled the thinking, while Regigigas and the other Pokémon served as contingencies against unexpected situations, Yamato was still the primary person responsible because of her status.
If anything major happened to Wano Country, it would be equivalent to handing Kaido a ready-made excuse. If anger had a meter, hers, just like Queen’s, would already have been maxed out.
If all three of these people had been in their prime, Yamato might have found it somewhat troublesome. In that situation, she might have suffered a bit.
But it would only have been a bit. Once things reached their limit, Zekrom and Reshiram would naturally step in as well. Yamato simply did not want things to reach that point.
Once it became Zekrom and Reshiram’s turn to act, the nature of the incident would be little different from failure.
Yet what she was facing was a weakened Garp and Dragon, who had been traveling nonstop. Aside from Mars, who was still in fairly good condition, the other two were both carrying debuffs from their weakened states.
She would have dared to try even if all three were at their peak, much less now.
“Arrogant brat! What gave you the courage to do something like this?!”
Yamato’s actions left Mars both shocked and furious. The Beasts Pirates had no intention of treating Dragon as an ally. From the looks of things, she clearly intended to fight one against three. Aside from Queen, people strong enough generally had their own pride.
To a Celestial Dragon who placed enormous importance on face, this behavior was nothing short of the ultimate insult.
“One against three? Who told you this was one against three? This is three against three!”
Zekrom, Reshiram, and Kyurem were three parts of a single power. Yamato had not been able to completely fuse them, but she had found an entirely new use for their separated powers.
With ice serving as their bodies, two ice clones identical to Yamato appeared beside her. Even Takeru had been replicated at a perfect one-to-one scale.
Then two powers, one black and one white, surged out from Yamato’s body and continuously poured into the ice clones beside her.
Before long, a black Yamato with lightning coiling around her fingertips and a white Yamato whose eyes were filled with flames appeared beside Yamato.
“Let’s go, sisters. I’ll leave those two to you. Since they want to end all of this before dawn, then we’ll make sure everything stops before dawn!”
Yamato continued fighting Mars, while the black Yamato went after Dragon and the white Yamato met Garp head-on. The slight disadvantage in numbers had now been completely erased.
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