Hades and the other members of the second generation of Hell, together with the Seraphim, threw themselves into a deadly ring around Uranus.
They all understood one thing.
If Uranus targeted them directly, even they would die.
But Brook's order had been given, and none of them feared death. They used their bodies to block its routes, forcing the Uranus to choose, forcing it to waste movement, forcing it to reveal who it would erase first.
If it had to kill someone, then let it pick the unluckiest.
Luckily, Uranus chose the reckless one charging at the very front.
Seraph: Kaido.
After the suicide craft burned through most of its stored energy and detonated, after Seraph: Kaido took the brunt of Uranus's strike and suffered heavy damage, Issho's Observation Haki snapped shut like a trap.
In the instant Uranus paused to fire another energy wave, Issho moved first and pushed his Gravity power to its limit.
Uranus was forced downward for half a second.
Just half a second, but the pressure was monstrous. Blood streamed from Issho's mouth and nose as he overclocked his Gravity ability.
Then Seraph Redfield, who possessed an artificial Gravity power as well, seized the handoff perfectly and pressed Uranus down again, his brown face turning faintly pale.
Brook's plan had been drilled into them long before this battle.
Ben Beckman, now part of the second generation of Hell, had eaten the Paramecia Slow Slow Fruit, the one he had hunted for years.
And Seraph Yasaki Orochi had received Beckman's Blood.
That meant he could fire the same slowing light waves.
Under the double Gravity suppression from Issho and Seraph Redfield, the Slow light waves from Beckman and Seraph Yasaki Orochi finally landed, one after another, on the pinned Uranus.
Then the real nightmare began.
A nonstop, perfectly linked chain of control, the combo Brook had forced them to practice until their bones remembered it even when their minds screamed.
Hades snapped out orders.
Every suicide craft, loaded with DYNA stone bombs, surged forward and detonated in succession, chewing through Uranus's shield energy like piranhas.
Hades's demonic destruction wave.
Osiris's Sky Dragon superconducting thunder cannon.
Kanna's frost dragon breath.
Satan's thunderstorm bombardment.
Anubis's three headed hound infernal shock wave.
Mephisto's earth spike thrust.
Hela's phoenix flame strike.
Kuzan's Ice Age.
Gekko Moria's corrosion claws.
Barrett's fused giant fist.
Vista, Ashura Doji, Koshiro, their slashes tearing through the air.
Seraph Newgate's shockwave.
Seraph Linlin's thunder and fire.
Seraph Shiki's suicide DYNA stone bomb fleet.
And then came the moment that nearly made Beckman and Issho run for their lives.
Two Pluton warships, loaded with DYNA stone bombs, charged straight in.
Even the Seraphim, who rarely showed emotion, scattered under Hades's command.
Uranus, already bled dry after endless shield consumption, regained a fraction of mobility, and then the DYNA stone bomb fleet and the Pluton warships exploded in a chain that seemed to have no end.
The entire battlefield shook.
Tsuru's face went pale.
If that level of firepower had been unleashed on the million strong coalition directly, nearly half the army would have been erased.
On the other side of the battlefield, Brook's expression turned darker than the sky itself.
He could feel it.
His sons had Uranus on the ropes.
He yanked out the vivre cards he kept close to his body and exhaled hard.
None of them had died.
"Yo ho ho… Imu!"
Brook's eyes were red as he roared, fury and relief twisting together in his voice.
"Do you have any idea what kind of decision I had to make to deal with Uranus? I put my own children on the line!"
Then his lips curled, almost feral.
"But now… what do you think of the feast I prepared for Uranus?"
Brook laughed wildly, and even in the middle of combat, his mind flashed to the absurd logic that had inspired it, the way overwhelming explosives could become a weapon in their own right.
Uranus's shield was nearly unbreakable unless you had special soul power.
So the answer was simple.
Drain it first.
Brook had simulated this a thousand times in his head, always with the same goal.
Destroy Uranus again in a single decisive burst, before Imu could react, before it could retreat, before it could recharge.
Imu had thought splitting the battlefield would guarantee victory. With Brook and Shiki held here, Uranus would be untouchable on the other side.
Imu underestimated Brook's preparations.
He continued parrying Brook's savage pressure, but his mind kept snapping back to Uranus's status. More than ten minutes of continuous detonations had nearly exhausted the Uranus energy reserves.
His plan to let Uranus slaughter the New World pirates was collapsing, and now he did not even know if Uranus could escape back to Mary Geoise.
Brook would never allow the Uranus a second chance to recover.
And the Celestial Dragons were not an endless resource. Even monsters needed time to breed.
The role Uranus was supposed to play in this war was being crushed into nothing.
Imu's plan for a quick victory shattered. A long war, the kind from eight hundred years ago, loomed again.
Yet retreat was just as dangerous.
Imu was already being suppressed in the New World, and Brook had lasted this long. If Imu pulled Uranus back, Brook would press harder. The Holy Land would never be safe.
With a grim snarl, Imu forced Uranus to conserve what little power it had left, protecting its core, preparing to flee.
Then the explosions faded.
A furious elephant's roar rolled across the sea.
And a trunk, towering, unstoppable, slammed into Uranus and hammered it straight down into the ocean.
"It was you," the ancient voice thundered, "who forced me to wander for eight hundred years!"
Zunesha.
Then, in the mouth of four year old Nika, another voice followed, bright and childish.
"Well done, Zunesha! Father said to crush him!"
The next order came without hesitation.
"Crush Uranus!"
Zou shook with a violent quake. Houses collapsed across the island as the Elephant Lord's rage spilled into the world.
It stomped down.
Again.
And again.
Each step sent walls of water exploding outward. The navy, which had only just begun to regain its courage, broke once more and fled in terror.
They had thought Uranus's arrival would end everything, that the New World pirates would be erased in minutes.
Instead, within a single minute, Uranus fired one destructive wave that erased over a dozen pirate ships, then got pinned down and beaten like a trapped animal.
Damn the World Government.
When many of the kingdom elites saw Uranus sinking, they felt the world itself tilt.
Especially the forces from the North Blue and West Blue. Those fleets had already contacted their kings earlier. Now they used the Den Den Mushi left behind by the Hell Pirates to report what they had witnessed, and then they withdrew in a hurry.
Under the sea, Uranus's energy finally ran out.
Its shield vanished.
And beneath the Elephant Lord's furious stomps, the ancient weapon that had intimidated the world was shattered once more, broken apart in the depths.
Uranus should have been the brightest blade on a battlefield like this.
Instead, it was destroyed by the Hell Pirates at a terrifying speed.
Imu had spent years and countless resources repairing it.
Now that effort looked almost ridiculous.
Was Brook's strategy simply too vicious, or was Imu's confidence finally cracking, that an island destroying weapon could disappear just like that?
Uranus was gone.
Just like that.
------------
With Uranus gone, the World Government's coalition finally shattered for real.
The kingdom fleets from the North Blue and the West Blue were the first to break. They turned their bows around and fled at full speed, desperate to preserve what strength they had left.
Without the shadow of Uranus hanging over their heads, those kings had no choice but to reassess everything. Now they had to choose carefully between the Universal Government and the World Government.
And the world itself had changed.
With the massive seastone warships of the Universal Government, the Calm Belt, once a natural wall, no longer mattered. True free navigation between the New World and the North Blue and West Blue had become reality.
Which meant that without protective barriers, the great pirates of the New World and the armies of Universal Government could enter the North Blue or West Blue whenever they pleased.
This was not the Hell Pirates or Shiki's Sky Pirates sneaking across in small numbers.
These seastone fleets could support large scale invasions.
…
The moment Hades and the others confirmed Uranus had been destroyed, they erupted into cheers, roaring until their throats tore.
They had done it.
They had completed the task their father entrusted to them.
Their faith in Brook's planning grew even deeper, almost to the point of worship.
Then they turned as one and surged toward the main naval force of the coalition, momentum like a crashing tide.
They did not chase the kingdom fleets that were fleeing in panic. The Hell Pirates' giant forces, Wano's samurai, the fishmen army, the aerial troops, the zombie legions, all ignored the retreating kingdoms and focused on the elite navy that stayed behind to fight.
The Elephant Lord, after venting eight or nine hundred years of fury, thundered forward again. It meant to finish the destined man's order in one breath.
Inside the coalition command, the vice admirals and staff officers looked hollow.
They had never imagined this.
A war where they had more men against fewer, ending like this.
From Antonio's information warfare, to the disruption of command, to the Hell Pirates' armies of terrifying races, and then the final humiliation, Uranus itself failing to turn the tide and being destroyed almost immediately.
The kingdom troops were alienated, intimidated, and stripped of their will to fight.
"Everyone…"
Tsuru's voice was steady, but her eyes were heavy.
"Do we fight, or do we retreat?"
Even she did not truly have the authority to decide something that would shape the World Government's survival.
Her gaze flickered, instinctively searching the battlefield for answers.
How was the war going for the Five Elders and the admirals?
Around her, the other officers exchanged uneasy looks. They had come here believing they would carve their names into history, commanding a million troops and wiping out the New World's pirates.
Instead, they were staring at a humiliating defeat.
And if they retreated, would the Five Elders blame them, or kill them for being useless?
If they stayed, casualties would keep climbing, until the navy no longer had the strength to mount another counterattack.
"Chief of Staff," a lieutenant general staff officer said grimly, "Fleet Admiral Kong left the decision to you before he departed."
The meaning was obvious.
Someone had to carry the blame.
A million troops losing to four or five hundred thousand pirates, if the world heard of it, the people would drown them in spit.
Tsuru's expression went blank.
"Then we retreat," she said quietly. "We survive first."
She could already see it. This would become her fate.
And yet, she could not deny it.
She had been outplayed completely.
Antonio, the Fox of Hell, had crushed her.
This was a new kind of war. Information warfare. Cutting off command. False orders. Isolation. Division.
And above all, a decapitation strike against the Uranus itself.
In one blow, the coalition's morale was pulverized. The member states realized the fear they carried for Uranus could be broken, and once that fear cracked, their kings forced their troops to retreat.
"Then we follow Chief of Staff Tsuru's orders!"
The other staff officers spoke together, unanimous, quick to shelter behind her decision. The blame would land on Tsuru's shoulders, not theirs.
Even if punishment came later, it would not be too severe for those who only obeyed.
As the retreat horns began to sound across the warships, even the fearless naval elites locked in brutal combat were forced to withdraw. Otherwise, they would be abandoned and die fighting alone.
And then, in the middle of that orderly panic, a beam of dazzling light stabbed into the coalition's command center.
A violent explosion erupted, smoke and debris rolling through the room.
From that light, countless photons condensed into a man.
A young man with a slightly wretched look, wearing a relaxed expression as if he had wandered into the wrong party, one hand lazily spinning a pure gold ring.
If not for the battlefield, he clearly would not have wanted to take that precious ring off.
"Hey," he drawled, voice light, almost amused. "I've been looking for you for ages. Finally found you."
Yellow Flash Borsalino.
Thirty four years old.
Brook's direct disciple, the user of the Logia Flash Flash Fruit.
He had been slacking off for a long time, but he had still followed the Zoan scouting units all the way here.
And there was no one in this place who could truly threaten him.
He had already done his first job, protecting the second generation of Hell, ready to save them with speed whenever needed, and he had also helped strike Uranus at full power.
Now came the second mission Brook gave him.
Erase the coalition's command.
Borsalino did not have to suffer like Kozuki Oden, who was locked in a life and death battle against Sengoku.
Here, Borsalino could hunt.
"Oh no!"
A staff lieutenant general screamed as panic seized him.
"It's Yellow Flash Borsalino, Brook's disciple, 2.8 billion Berries! He's a Logia user, admiral level! Run!"
He bolted.
So did others.
None of the vice admirals here believed they could beat a monster like that.
"Biubiu."
Several thin yellow laser beams fired with casual precision, piercing through two fleeing staff officers in an instant.
But in the next moment, an iron leg, black with Armament Haki, slammed into Borsalino and broke him apart into scattered photons.
"Oh," Borsalino's voice floated through the smoke, lazy as ever. "So scary."
He reformed in midair, body knitting back together as if nothing had happened.
"Is that you, Tsuru? Sengoku and Garp's old classmate, the strongest lady vice admiral, and the World Government's great Chief of Staff?"
Borsalino's eyes narrowed slightly.
He knew who mattered here.
Tsuru was the core of the coalition's command. Remove her, and the coalition would become a headless beast.
"Yellow Flash…"
Tsuru stared at Brook's disciple, expression grim.
Borsalino did not have Conqueror's Haki like Oden or Kaido, but his Flash Flash Fruit was terrifying. His strength was not below an admiral's.
Why were the Hell Pirates filled with monsters like this?
Yellow Flash Borsalino.
Ice Pheasant Kuzan.
Ben Beckman.
Bullet.
And that was before even counting Brook's descendants.
The navy had just produced a genius like Sakazuki, and yet he had been captured by the second generation of Hell for no clear reason.
Now no one even knew if he was alive.
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