Chapter 572: Fierce Battle
East Blue, Goa Kingdom.
The nation considered the cleanest in the East Blue was thrown into tremendous upheaval today.
A sudden uprising brought the high walls separating the city's inner and outer districts crashing down in moments. Revolutionary Army fighters led the furious citizens storming into the royal palace.
The king was absent, but his wife and his daughter and son-in-law were making a desperate run for the port.
"Damn it all! The Revolutionary Army! That bastard Dragon!!"
The queen, her ample frame shaking with rage, had her face twisted beyond recognition. "Doing this in his own homeland!!"
This country — the Goa Kingdom — was Dragon's birthplace.
But the port was close now, almost within reach. If they could just get on a ship, if they could just leave this country, there would still be a chance to —
The fleeing group stopped.
They had no choice but to stop.
Every face went blank. Every face fell into despair.
At the port just ahead, every single vessel had been destroyed in an instant.
Because something titanic had raised its head from the seafloor, and in doing so the resulting turbulence had been enough — every ship docked along that shore had been consumed by the wave it created.
And now that colossal thing had turned its head toward them.
"A — a —"
Stelly, the mushroom-haired royal consort, was trembling so hard his legs could barely hold him. "A SEA KING!!!!!"
Somewhere in the world.
"What? Sea Kings?"
Inside the great flying vessel, the Five Elders received news that left them genuinely staggered.
"Giants, Dwarves, Minks, Long-Arms, Long-Legs, Snakenecks — and a combined force of Fish-Men, Merfolk, and humans??"
Saint Mars's forehead was drenched in sweat. "And on top of all that — large numbers of Sea Kings?!"
It was the kind of news that could stop a heart.
Brett's side was going to war with them over the fate of the entire world — and the outcome was already written.
The combination of Giants and Sea Kings alone was something no coalition of government-affiliated nations could stand against.
"Damn it all!!"
The Five Elders ground their teeth in unison.
But grinding their teeth was all they could do.
The situation was beyond their power to change now.
Every other theater of this war would be decided in a very short span of time.
Even so — even if every other front collapsed — it didn't matter.
If only this battle could be won. If only Imu-sama could defeat Brett, then this world would still belong to them.
The Five Elders exhaled slowly, all together.
Everything was resting on this one fight.
Above the ruined Navy base on the other front —
Two figures were exchanging blows in rapid succession through the sky.
Brett had entered dragon-human form. Violent lightning coiled around his entire body, and within its blinding light, he looked like a god of thunder given human shape.
Imu, by comparison, was entirely unassuming. A plain black robe. A plain, straightforward punch.
And yet — despite the relentless exchange of blows, Brett had not gained any clear advantage.
"Ridiculous." After being pushed back yet again, Brett ran his tongue over his lips.
That impossibly slender frame — and the force it could generate was this extraordinary?
What exactly was this man's body?
He was not a Devil Fruit user. This was supposed to be nothing more than raw physical strength and Haki alone.
"Give it everything, Brett." Imu flicked his wrist — a light, casual motion — and in an instant the wind tore across the sky. "What are you holding back for?"
Brett's mouth curved. "Don't rush me. Here it comes."
He had wanted to test whether his upgraded Haki alone could match Imu. But it was clear now that it fell just short.
Then there was no reason to keep holding off.
Brett drew in a deep breath.
And then his body began to change.
Claws sharpened to a new edge. Horns rose higher. A ribbon of steam coiled around him.
Awakening.
"What — what is this presence? I can't make any sense of it."
Below, on the ground, Catarina Devon felt her legs going soft. She stumbled backward and barely caught herself against a section of crumbled wall. "This is too much."
She had only brushed against Brett's presence with her Observation Haki, and it had nearly stolen her breath.
Everything he had shown before this was only the surface?
What kind of monster was this?
Brett rolled his neck. His smile was broad and untroubled. "That should do it."
"Come then." Imu gave a nod. "Let's see."
"Alright."
The lightning around Brett surged upward toward the sky, tens of thousands of feet high. He had become a thunderstorm walking in human shape. Then, in the next instant, the lightning collapsed inward completely.
"Here."
A chain of white rings burst open in the air — but long before those rings had even formed, a dark shape had already crossed the distance and arrived directly in front of Imu.
The speed was extraordinary.
Even Imu felt it.
This unmatched speed was precisely why Brett had always been impossible to catch.
But speed alone was not invincibility.
Eight hundred years of cultivation. Imu's Haki had been refined to a terrifying degree — a level that the Brett of the past could not have approached. That included his Observation Haki, of course.
Brett's fist came straight at him. Imu simultaneously twisted to avoid it, and drove his left fist forward in a counter aimed at Brett's side.
But —
The corner of Brett's mouth rose.
Don't underestimate what time can do, Imu.
Your tricks don't work on me anymore.
The voice-hearing form of Observation Haki reached along the current of Imu's own Observation Haki, climbed past it — and for the very first time, Brett heard Imu's heart.
His left hand shot out like lightning and closed around Imu's fist.
"What —"
The startled sound had barely begun before Brett's head came swinging in and crashed forward.
CRACK!!
Black lightning erupted across the sky like a nest of thrashing serpents, stretching to the farthest reaches of the horizon. Higher up, the clouds were simply swept away, and brilliant sunlight blazed down unobstructed.
"WHOA!!"
On the island below, Pizarro was sent tumbling through the air. "What is this — just the shockwave from a single exchange —"
He could barely stay standing.
What were these two? Living ancient weapons?
In the sky, a black shape dropped at an angle and crashed into the sea far away. A cataclysmic wave detonated outward from the impact point.
"Tsu — TSUNAMI!!"
A prisoner on the island screamed.
A wave well over a hundred meters tall was bearing down on them, screaming in fast.
The entire island would be swallowed in moments.
But the wave had not yet arrived when Brett drew a long breath in the sky. Flame, lightning, wind, Haki — four forces gathered in his mouth simultaneously.
Then he exhaled.