No wonder Imu had been so eager to repair Uranus.
He needed it, not just to fight Brook, but to keep one or two hundred member states trembling in line, all forced to stand on his side.
Yet the Revolutionary Army's uprisings, along with the pressure from several core countries, pushed many member states straight into crisis. Their capitals burned, their borders broke, and desperate pleas flooded toward the World Government.
Some kings even demanded their elite troops be recalled immediately.
But how could the World Government allow that?
If the kingdoms pulled their elites back, the World Government's greatest advantage, its overwhelming manpower, would collapse on the spot.
So the member states could only watch their own countries fall, one after another, while their royal families fled like hunted animals.
Imu also understood something very clearly.
This war could not be dragged out.
Eight hundred years ago, the twenty kings had fought a hundred year war against the giant kingdom because they were the ones at a disadvantage.
Imu had no intention of repeating that mistake.
Right now, the World Government held the advantage.
So Imu would crush the Hell Pirates and the Universal Government like an autumn wind sweeping fallen leaves.
He would drown the New World in numbers.
The million elite troops would erase the pirates.
The top fighters only needed to pin down the Hell Pirates' senior cadres.
Even if eight or nine hundred thousand elites died, the New World's pirates had to be exterminated. Brook's forces had to be shattered completely.
Warships flooded into the New World.
Seven or eight thousand of them, large and small, packed together until the sea looked like it had grown an island made of steel. They were countless times larger than Germa's sea snail fleet.
Rows upon rows.
Flags blotted out the sky.
Drums, horns, and shouting rolled like thunder across the water.
A mighty army.
Today, they would cleanse the pirate cancer of the New World and restore peace to the world.
Even Fleet Admiral Kong felt a headache staring at it.
A million soldiers.
Even he was not sure he could truly command a force this massive.
Sengoku, the "wise general," and Tsuru, the strategist of Marine Headquarters, had never led anything on this scale either.
Then a voice tore through the command deck like a knife.
"Bad news, Fleet Admiral! The Den Den Mushi, something's wrong with them, all of them, they've gone on strike!"
The Minister of Communications, Stephen, rushed in with a face drained of color.
Once, he had been Operator 9527. Even after promotion, he still looked like a man drowning in cables.
Tsuru's eyes narrowed, a cold sweat sliding down her temple.
"No… It's him."
Her voice turned grim.
"Communication King Antonio. The Hell Pirates' central nervous system. Has his Den Den Mushi Fruit awakened?"
Sengoku's expression hardened.
"Antonio was Brook's first crewmate. For years, he stayed so invisible that even our intelligence divisions couldn't dig up a single useful detail."
He paused, jaw tight.
"If he hadn't been using Den Den Mushi networks to quietly gather information during Brook's disappearance, none of our people would have ever sensed him."
Garp slammed a fist into his palm, furious.
"That damn fox!"
His anger was the kind that shook the air.
"Antonio, bounty two point three three three billion Berries. He's not famous for fighting, he's famous for twisting the world with intelligence. Damn it!"
Then his face darkened further.
"So it was him. The one whispering in Dragon's ear all these years."
A vice admiral nearly panicked.
"No Den Den Mushi at all? What are we supposed to do? Even the anti eavesdropping Den Den Mushi and the golden Den Den Mushi are down!"
His voice cracked.
"This Den Den Mushi Fruit is too filthy. Too unreasonable!"
Kong's eyes turned cold.
"Find the Four Elders. Now."
Without Den Den Mushi, the chain of command was dead. A million soldiers scattered across a sea of warships would turn into chaos if left alone for even a moment.
Kong had no choice but to personally move with the admirals, ship by ship, hunting down the Four Elders to form a temporary command room and issue unified orders.
And the worst part was, the Hell Pirates had not fired a single cannon yet.
They had only touched the Den Den Mushi, and the million strong coalition was already on the verge of riot.
Stephen burst in again, breathless.
"This is worse! Fleet Admiral, several kingdom guard captains received urgent calls from their kings, requests for aid, direct orders to immediately withdraw and return to protect the royal families!"
Figarland, slammed his hand down and roared.
"Antonio must be eliminated!"
His fury was almost animal.
"Order everyone to crush every Den Den Mushi, crush them all! When this war ends, that Devil Fruit must be recovered!"
Panic spread through the high command.
"They're using Den Den Mushi to send fake orders?"
"Do we have any other way to communicate?"
A bitter answer followed.
"We… we can only use the white pigeons from the Peace Dove News Agency as temporary communication."
For a moment, the room fell silent.
The Four Elders, the Fleet Admiral, the admirals, none of them had imagined they would return to carrier pigeons for urgent orders.
Not in this era.
Not in this war.
And worse, nobody knew how many secrets had already been stolen through Den Den Mushi, over all these years.
Even after the World Government began smashing Den Den Mushi and shouting that it was all a Hell Pirates conspiracy, the damage had already been done.
Seeds of distrust were planted.
Some guard captains, especially those tied to fallen kings carefully chosen by Antonio, began searching for ways to break away and return home.
Then came the real blow.
Before the Den Den Mushi were fully destroyed, parts of the army had already received orders.
Two or three hundred thousand soldiers split off from the main force.
Some dumped supplies straight into the sea.
Some rushed at full speed to attack a specific island.
By the time the World Government realized what had happened, those forces were already scattered, starving, and low on fresh water.
And now they had to beg the World Government for food and water support.
All because of a tiny Den Den Mushi.
Two days passed before the World Government finally stabilized the situation, reorganized the chain of command, and distributed white pigeons to relay orders.
Just dragging the million strong army back under control left Kong physically and mentally drained.
They had not even met the Hell Pirates' main force yet.
And they had already suffered a heavy loss.
Even Imu, watching from above, had to admit it.
Brook knew how to fight.
He was a hundred times more dangerous than Joyboy and Poseidon had ever been.
And Brook did not stop there.
He cleared the surrounding sea.
Every pirate island in the front half of the New World was ordered to evacuate its food stores.
Fresh water sources were sabotaged, polluted with a short acting poison developed by Crocus and the poison master Tia.
Brook would never have used methods like this under normal circumstances.
But the enemy was too strong.
The World Government would never give their leaders the luxury of a clean duel to decide everything.
So Brook did what he had to do.
In war, the sea did not reward pride.
It rewarded survivors.
------------
New World, Nansha Island.
"Brother Brook, it worked," Antonio reported with calm certainty. "We've planted distrust between the World Government and a portion of the kingdom elites. Thirty percent of their army has already abandoned food and water."
His tone barely changed, as if he were discussing the weather.
"But a million soldiers eat like a natural disaster. If we stall a little longer, then cut their logistics, their daily consumption will become impossible to sustain."
For Antonio, this was the moment years of quiet preparation had been waiting for. The Den Den Mushi Fruit he had nurtured and sharpened in the shadows finally showed its teeth.
They had not only severed the instant communication between the World Government and the Marines, they had also flooded the network with false orders, forced units to scatter, and made them dump supplies into the sea. The offensive momentum of that enormous army had been slowed, dragged down into mud.
Brook nodded, eyes cold.
"Good."
He wanted nothing more than to drag Imu and the Five Elders onto the battlefield and end this himself, but the World Government had thrown too many bodies into the New World. In that sea of elites, Imu's shadow could vanish completely.
If the Hell Pirates charged in recklessly, they might win, but they would burn themselves out and get swallowed by encirclement.
"That's why we do it like this," Brook said. "Air fleet and fishmen, begin harassment."
He raised a finger and traced an invisible line across the map.
"Bomb them during the day. Sink them at night."
The Hell Pirates' flying fleet moved first, seizing the sky and turning the battlefield into a crushing air to sea slaughter.
The world had never truly witnessed what an air force could do to a navy.
Shiki's sky fleet hovered at an altitude that mocked human reach, ten thousand meters above the waves. From that height, the million strong coalition below might as well have been ants.
Explosives rained down.
Dyna stone bombs fell like judgement, and warships shattered in a single breath of fire and smoke.
Brook sat in the command seat, gaze fixed on the distant mass of enemy flags.
"Imu," he murmured, voice almost amused, "times have changed. Numbers alone won't save you."
He did not speak loudly, but his words carried weight.
"You've ruled for eight hundred years. You have Uranus. Yet you never understood the value of the sky. That is the limit of the era you live in."
Brook's eyes narrowed.
This would not be a quick duel between masters. Not with a million elites between them.
Before he could clean up that army, or fracture it, or force it to retreat on its own, facing Imu directly was a gamble that could cost everything.
If Imu intended to grind the Hell Pirates down with meat and steel, then Brook would answer with pain, fear, and division.
He would disintegrate that million strong force from the inside.
…
New World, Mogaro Sea.
The coalition retook pirate islands with overwhelming strength, warships filling the horizon, cannons aimed like teeth.
But when they landed, they found empty warehouses.
Food had been evacuated by the underground dark world.
Fresh water sources had been drained, or ruined.
It meant the elite soldiers of the Marines and the kingdoms could not replenish. They were forced to rely on hunting at sea just to survive, scraping together meals like castaways.
Then the explosions began.
A dense chain of blasts rolled across the ocean, flames blooming on the water. Warships cracked open, snapped in half, vanished under smoke and debris.
"Enemy attack!"
"Enemy attack! Bombardment from high altitude!"
Scouts screamed until their throats bled, but ten thousand meters above, there was nothing they could reach. Nothing they could even see.
Some Marine experts tried to leap upward with Moon Step.
But ten thousand meters was a cruel joke.
Even if they exhausted themselves stepping on air, would they ever find Shiki's fleet in that endless sky?
And the higher they climbed, the thinner the air became. Moon Step grew harder, less stable, more draining. Each step demanded more, and gave less.
"Move!"
"Get out of the bombing lane!"
Generals and kingdom guard captains barked orders, forcing ships to scatter, twisting formation into chaos just to avoid annihilation.
One round of bombing inflicted heavy losses.
Even Imu and the Five Elders were shaken.
For a moment, it felt like they had met an enemy they could not overcome.
Then Imu sent Uranus.
The sky turned into a nightmare.
A single devastating sweep, and flying pirate ships began to vanish, one after another, erased by destructive power that made the heavens look like a fireworks festival.
Cheering erupted from the sea below.
"Shiki's air fleet got wiped out by the Uranus! Great!"
"Uranus is terrifying, the strongest ancient weapon!"
"Was Shiki on one of those ships? If he wasn't, he can rebuild it!"
The soldiers celebrated, relief pouring through the ranks.
Even Imu, even the admirals, felt it was almost too easy.
Why weren't the Hell Pirates fighting back properly?
Why did they keep throwing flying ships into the sky like disposable toys?
…
Then the answer arrived.
On Hell Pirates territory, ordinary pirate ships were being hauled up and armed with dyna stone explosives by large numbers of lunar robots. Under Shiki's Float Float Fruit, those crude vessels rose into the air again.
The robots controlled them autonomously.
They were not a fleet.
They were ammunition.
Suicide bombers with propellers and sails, sent to slam into the coalition from above, again and again, with one additional mission, to drain Uranus.
"Yohoho… let the Uranus explode," Brook laughed softly, eyes gleaming. "Let's see how much energy it has."
He did not care about the lunar robots' survival. Vegapunk and Inu kun could already mass produce them. All they needed was Redfield's lightning to kick them into autonomous action.
"Bomb them every day," Brook ordered. "Slow their advance. Then at night, send the fishmen."
His voice sharpened.
"Harass them. Don't let them sleep. We cannot allow them to conquer the front of the New World without paying for every inch."
The second wave of aerial bombing came.
They struck.
They were destroyed.
They struck again.
They were destroyed again.
That was when Imu finally understood what Brook was doing.
Brook was using worthless flying scrap to force Uranus to spend priceless power.
It was a filthy exchange, a small cost for a huge price.
It was like trading cheap suicide drones for air defense missiles worth fortunes, forcing even the richest nation to choke.
Imu's fury rose, bitter and cold.
If Uranus did not destroy the bombing fleets, the coalition would be bled day after day, ships shattered, morale rotting from inside out.
If Uranus did destroy them, its energy would be consumed for Brook's amusement.
Even an immortal who had lived for thousands of years began to curse.
Brook's tactics were dirty.
He wanted to win with minimal investment.
And then night came.
The sea went black.
Silent shapes slipped beneath the waves.
Fishmen.
A large number of warships and battleships were attacked in the dark. Hulls were torn open. Anchors were cut. Rudders shattered. Ships sank with terrifying speed.
Thousands of coalition soldiers drowned, swallowed by the ocean before they even understood what had happened.
For hundreds of years, Imu and the World Government had refused to truly subdue the fishmen with conciliation.
They had treated them as convenient tools, or convenient trash.
Now that arrogance came back like a knife.
In naval war, the advantage of fishmen could not be ignored.
.....
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