The ice frozen by Aokiji beneath her feet let out a "crack" as she kicked off, web-like fissures spreading out. Using that force, she was like a white wolf charging at full speed across a snowy plain, her figure tracing a sharp arc as she turned without hesitation, racing toward the more densely packed and complex ice fields away from the core battlefield!
Ice shards splattered behind her, every step firm and swift. Her goal was crystal clear: pull away and buy even one more second for her father and everyone else!
"Stop him! Beckman!"
As she sped along, the howling wind filled her ears, but Yamato's clear and sharp cry still pierced through the clamor, thrown behind her without her looking back.
Almost at the very instant she spoke, Benn Beckman's figure, like a precisely calculated shadow, ghosted directly in front of Marcus Maz Saint's burning path of assault!
The spark of a cigarette butt flickered before his steady face, but he didn't fire immediately. Those eyes, sharp as a hawk's that could pierce through mist, looked past the hideous Monstrous Bird in front of him and locked firmly onto the man draped in an Admiral's coat not far away, whose figure seemed somewhat stagnant at this moment—Kuzan, Aokiji!
"Kuzan!"
Beckman's voice wasn't loud, yet it possessed a strange penetrating power, as if it could knock directly against one's mental defenses.
He spoke at a steady pace, but his words were like tempered blades: "Open your eyes and look clearly!
To cover up the defeat and unsightly state of those with the highest authority, they don't hesitate to issue orders for indiscriminate massacre, even threatening the very foundation of the World Government, all just to silence the witnesses..."
He paused, his gaze burning as if he wanted to brand everything he saw into the other's soul: "Does a master who acts like an evil god and treats all living beings like blades of grass deserve to have you Marines gamble your so-called 'Justice' and shed your last drop of blood for them?
Just what is it that you are protecting!"
"..."
Aokiji's tall frame gave a nearly imperceptible shudder.
His eyes, usually lazily half-closed, suddenly snapped open. Deep within his ice-blue pupils, it was as if massive glaciers were cracking and colliding.
Saint Mars's cold and heartless command, treating subordinates and civilians alike as expendable materials, still rang in his ears;
The shocking image of Satan Saint being pierced by Nika's Punch, the dignity belonging to a 'God' publicly shattered, had not yet faded;
And now, Beckman's question that struck right at the core was like a heavy hammer, ruthlessly smashing against his heart of 'Justice'—a heart already riddled with cracks from the Ohara incident and often shrouded in chill.
Protecting such 'Gods', massacring potentially innocent people... is this the 'Justice' he should be carrying out now?
Confusion, struggle, past nightmares, and present reality clashed violently.
Time seemed to stretch, yet passed in an instant.
Just as the Monstrous Bird Saint Mars transformed into let out a sharp cry, its talons burning with black flames about to sweep past Aokiji's side and continue pouncing toward the two fleeing figures at this critical moment—
"Ice Age..."
Aokiji lowered his head, the shadow of his brim covering most of his face. Only two nearly inaudible words, sounding almost like a sigh, escaped his lips.
In the next moment, a terrifyingly irresistible chill suddenly erupted with him as the center!
But this time, the direction of the cold current was extremely'subtle'—it did not rush toward Beckman, nor did it directly attack Saint Mars's main body. Instead, as if it had a life of its own, it accurately and extensively swept through and froze a large area of space and ice in the fan-shaped region in front of Saint Mars!
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