"Hold the line! For justice!"
Another young Vice Admiral shouted at the top of his lungs, desperately trying to rally the troops.
His voice was slightly hoarse, yet filled with unwavering resolve.
Reality, however, was merciless.
The sword-wielding Vice Admiral raised his blade with all his strength and met Kingdew's crushing dragon claw head-on.
Clang!
Blade and claw collided, sending brilliant sparks flying.
The tremendous impact crashed through him like a violent wave. The skin between his thumb and forefinger split open instantly, blood streaming down his fingers.
He staggered backward again and again, each step leaving a deep footprint beneath him.
Elsewhere, another Vice Admiral spotted an opening and unleashed one of the Six Powers.
"Tempest Kick!"
He kicked off the ground and shot toward Squard like lightning, both legs cutting through the air with razor-sharp force.
To his disbelief, however, Squard's dragon scales were as hard as forged steel.
The attack struck them without leaving so much as a scratch.
Squard merely swept his thick dragon tail sideways.
The blow shattered the Vice Admiral's offense instantly, and the tremendous recoil sent him flying backward like a kite with its string cut.
He crashed heavily into the ground.
The middle ranks of the battlefield had become a bloody meat grinder.
Dragon roars thundered loudly enough to make ears ache.
Weapons collided in a nonstop metallic storm.
Explosions created by clashing Haki erupted one after another, seemingly powerful enough to rip apart heaven and earth.
Countless colors of light intertwined across the battlefield, creating a spectacle that was as beautiful as it was bloody.
The fighting had immediately reached its most intense stage.
Neither side showed any intention of retreating.
Every attack was delivered with the intention to kill.
The overwhelming strength displayed by the Divine Kingdom's commanders struck the Marine battle line like a massive war hammer.
Under that relentless pressure, the once-solid formation began to loosen.
Unease appeared across the soldiers' faces.
The balance of the battle was quietly beginning to tilt toward the Divine Kingdom alliance.
Victory seemed to be creeping closer.
...
With every supreme fighter now on the battlefield and the senior officers committing themselves fully to the conflict, this war that would decide the future of the entire world finally entered its bloodiest and most chaotic stage.
It was like an ancient beast that had finally awakened and thrown off every restraint.
Dark clouds filled the sky, stained by an eerie shade of blood-red that made the atmosphere almost suffocating.
The ground shook beneath countless charging feet, while enormous clouds of dust rose high enough to obscure the heavens.
Every inch of the air carried tension and murderous intent.
The whole battlefield seemed like dry powder waiting for the smallest spark.
"For justice! ATTACK!"
The furious cry erupted from the Marine formation like a brilliant streak of light piercing the darkness.
In the next instant, fifty thousand highly trained and heavily equipped elite Marines advanced in perfect formation.
Fire burned within their eyes—the desire for victory and their unwavering devotion to justice.
They surged toward the Divine Kingdom alliance like an unstoppable flood of steel.
Swords were drawn, their cold edges reflecting the hard expressions of the soldiers carrying them.
Rifles and cannons fired together.
Their deafening roar seemed capable of shattering the world.
The Marines advanced with enough momentum to crush every obstacle in their path.
"Guard Corps! Meet them head-on!"
An equally powerful shout immediately came from the Eternal Divine Kingdom's side.
The waiting members of the Guard Corps surged into motion, their blood already boiling for battle.
Most of them had once been pirates who roamed the seas freely and committed their fair share of crimes.
Now, however, they had entered into sacred contracts with the Divine Kingdom and officially become members of its Guard Corps.
Individually, many of them were slightly inferior to the elite Marines.
But they possessed one enormous advantage capable of completely changing the battle—
Every single one of them was a Devil Fruit user.
And it was all thanks to Ron's miraculous abilities.
Through his extraordinary methods, every member of the Guard Corps had been granted some kind of strange and powerful Devil Fruit ability.
Their powers varied wildly.
But none of them were ordinary.
"Rocket Cannon!"
Several enormous cannons erupted with fire simultaneously.
Shells streaked across the sky like meteors and crashed into the advancing Marines with devastating force.
Explosions blasted soldiers and debris into the air as thick smoke rolled across the battlefield.
"Chop-Chop: Clown Knives!"
Another Devil Fruit user swept both hands forward.
Countless sharp knives separated into individual pieces and swarmed toward the enemy like a cloud of angry insects.
The blades darted unpredictably through the air at dizzying speed, leaving deep cuts wherever they passed.
"Barrier!"
Another fighter immediately raised a transparent wall in front of his allies.
The seemingly invisible defense was nearly indestructible, stopping the Marines' fierce assault and giving those behind it precious time to counterattack.
"Kilo-Kilo Fruit: Ten-Thousand-Ton Pressure!"
Another ability user leaped high into the air and raised both arms overhead.
A tremendous downward force suddenly descended across the battlefield.
The Marines caught beneath it became impossibly heavy, their movements slowing as though they had been submerged in deep mud.
The once-stable atmosphere rippled beneath the influence of all those unnatural powers.
Across the blood-soaked battlefield, bizarre Devil Fruit abilities lit up one after another like brilliant stars.
Flames roared like ravenous beasts opening their jaws, scorching everything they passed until it blackened and twisted.
Bitter ice formed into razor-sharp spears and pierced through the air, freezing everything around them.
Violent lightning writhed across the sky like furious silver serpents before crashing into the earth and blasting clouds of dust into the air.
Powerful shock waves surged forward like enormous tsunamis, sweeping everything before them aside.
The battlefield had become a chaotic sea of supernatural powers.
...
Even more bizarre transformation-based attacks came crashing down upon the Marines.
Some fighters reshaped their bodies into enormous claws, while others produced razor-sharp spikes that stabbed toward the Marine formation from every direction.
Those terrifying abilities exploded among the disciplined ranks like beautiful but deadly fireworks.
The elite Marines were hardened soldiers who had survived countless battles. They charged forward without hesitation, driven by their faith in justice and their determination to win.
But what they faced now was unlike anything they had ever encountered.
The Divine Kingdom's forces possessed an astonishing variety of unpredictable Devil Fruit abilities, making their attacks almost impossible to defend against completely.
The Marines' previously unstoppable charge suddenly stalled.
Soldiers fell one after another.
Blood soaked the ground beneath their feet as casualties mounted rapidly, bringing their advance to a grinding halt.
"Damn it! How the hell do all these pirates have Devil Fruit powers?!"
A young Marine shouted in shock and anger, confusion and worry filling his eyes.
"Don't panic! Hold the formation!"
A veteran nearby roared in an attempt to steady the troops, but his voice seemed almost powerless amid the chaos.
The junior Marine officers were even more desperate.
They shouted themselves hoarse issuing orders, veins bulging across their foreheads while sweat soaked through their uniforms.
Yet even they struggled to deal with such an unpredictable battlefield.
Panic and uncertainty began appearing on the soldiers' faces.
The determination in their eyes wavered.
Even the weapons in their hands began trembling slightly.
But the Marines, as one of the great powers responsible for maintaining order across the seas, had not entered this war completely unprepared.
At that critical moment, a firm command rang throughout the battlefield.
"All units, take the Green Blood serum!"
A Marine officer with a resolute expression stepped forward, fully aware of both the importance and the dangers of that order.
Without hesitation, he pulled a vial from inside his coat.
Dark energy radiated faintly from the liquid within.
He raised it to his lips and drank the entire dose.
The bitter taste spread through his mouth, but his eyes only grew more determined.
As though responding to an unspoken command, thousands upon thousands of elite Marines made the same choice.
They exchanged brief glances.
In one another's eyes, they saw both a fierce desire for victory and a calm acceptance of whatever sacrifice might follow.
Their hands tightened around their weapons.
Without hesitation, they drank the serum carrying both unknown power and a terrible price.
At that moment, they had tied their lives completely to the outcome of this battle.
They were prepared to spend every last bit of strength they possessed for their honor and mission.
"For justice!"
The roar tore through the darkness like the first light of dawn.
Then an even more desperate cry followed.
"Take these pirates down with us if we have to!"
Every syllable carried the resolve of soldiers prepared to die.
Terrifying dark energy erupted throughout the Marine formation like an enormous tide.
In moments, the eyes of countless soldiers turned pitch black, resembling bottomless holes in the night sky.
Faint waves of darkness slowly coiled around their bodies, twisting through the air like malevolent spirits.
The ordinary soldiers could not reproduce the simulated Dark-Dark Fruit abilities with anywhere near the same level of power or precision as the Vice Admirals.
But sheer numbers made up for much of that weakness.
When the Devil Fruit users of the Divine Kingdom's Guard Corps launched another ferocious assault, the battlefield immediately changed.
One Guard Corps fighter transformed into a brilliant bolt of lightning and shot forward at a speed almost impossible for the naked eye to follow.
Just as everyone thought he was about to break through, a Marine calmly raised one hand.
"Black Vortex!"
Dark gravitational force erupted from his palm and forcibly dragged the elementalized fighter out of his lightning form.
The Marine immediately followed with a clean slash.
Blood sprayed across the ground as the Guard Corps member was cut down.
Elsewhere, another ability user unleashed a roaring torrent of flame.
The fire surged forward like a colossal dragon, carrying enough heat to destroy everything in its path.
Three nearby Marines reacted instantly.
Working together, they generated overlapping fields of dark attraction and swallowed the raging flames completely, extinguishing them as though they had never existed.
Another Guard Corps member possessing the power of the Glint-Glint Fruit prepared to fire a devastating laser.
The Marines were already waiting.
Several of them activated Black Vortex simultaneously, forming a powerful wall of darkness in front of the attack.
The laser struck the barrier and vanished into it, swallowed before it could inflict any damage.
Across the battlefield, the overwhelming importance of Devil Fruit matchups became painfully clear.
The Divine Kingdom's Guard Corps had originally seized the advantage through the incredible variety of their abilities.
Now, however, they suddenly found themselves trapped.
Their supernatural powers were being nullified across wide sections of the battlefield, leaving them unable to fight as they normally would.
Abilities that had once terrified their enemies seemed to have been cursed.
Techniques that should have torn through Marine formations simply vanished against the strange darkness.
The elite Marines, meanwhile, fought like a highly trained war machine.
Years of discipline and shared combat experience allowed them to coordinate with remarkable precision.
Every movement flowed into the next.
Every defense created an opening for someone else's counterattack.
There was no confusion and no unnecessary hesitation.
And now, on top of their discipline and teamwork, they had gained the support of that mysterious dark power.
The energy surged through their bodies and pushed their combat effectiveness to a level none of them had ever experienced before.
With those advantages in hand, the Marines immediately launched a vicious counteroffensive.
They charged forward like tigers descending from the mountains, their battle cries shaking the heavens.
Their assault was sharp and relentless, seemingly determined to crush everything in front of them.
The balance of the battlefield began shifting once again.
And this time, it was visibly tilting toward the Marines.
...