This was not some baseless guess on everyone's part. The scene before them was simply too unsettling.
Especially now, deep within the battlefield, where hundreds of thousands of Marines had just narrowly escaped death.
They panted heavily, their faces full of terror, clinging tightly to chunks of ice as they sprawled across the glacier.
Looking around, it seemed as if that last attack had cut them off from the entire battlefield. They were stranded on a small ice island in the middle of the sea, with the surrounding glacier shattered into open water that separated them from the rest of the world.
Zephyr looked at the scene and felt an inexplicable sense of unease.
Just then, bubbles began rising from the surrounding sea.
"Gurgle..."
Zephyr's powerful Observation Haki sharply sensed that something was about to emerge from beneath the sea. Realizing what was happening, his expression changed drastically, and he roared, "Quick! Retreat, retreat! Get out of here!"
But it was already too late.
Before those elite Marines could understand what was going on, dozens of pirate ships wrapped in bubbles suddenly burst up from the surface of the sea.
Dazzling sunlight shone across the bubbles, casting a rainbow glow before they popped.
"One..."
"Two..."
"..."
"Fifteen..."
In just a few breaths, a full fifteen pirate ships appeared before all the Marines, surrounding the lone ice island at the center of the battlefield, along with the hundreds of thousands of Marines trapped on it.
"That's..."
"The Sky Pirates' First Fleet, the Thunder God Pirates..."
"The Sky Pirates' Second Fleet, the Sun Pirates..."
"The Sky Pirates' Third Fleet, the Sword Wind Pirates..."
Under the sunlight, the flags on their sails were dazzling.
The only difference was that, aside from the pirate flags of their respective crews, the Sun God Bird totem of the Rainbow Country now appeared alongside them.
Before the Marines' terror could even subside, dark cannon barrels extended from the hulls.
"Now it's our turn... fire."
"Damn it..."
Under the horrified gazes of every Marine, including Sengoku, Zephyr, and Garp, whose pupils had widened sharply, countless cannonballs were fired.
"Boom... boom... boom..."
In an instant, the battlefield shifted dramatically. Dense cannon fire thundered across the entire field, followed by the Marines' miserable screams.
The Sky Pirates' pirate ships could not compare to the Marines' warships in tonnage or firepower. That was unavoidable. With the Sky Pirates' current foundation, building such enormous warships would require huge amounts of materials and supplies, and that would inevitably expose their whereabouts and plans.
But even though the Sky Pirates' ships were far smaller than the Marines' warships in tonnage and firepower, under the concentrated bombardment of so many pirate ships, the Marines, just like the Germa Corps not long ago, fell into massive casualties and devastating losses.
At that moment, human lives were nothing more than ordinary numbers.
The fact that Yemu had not used explosive rocks was already his final mercy.
Visible to the naked eye, wave after wave of Marines lost their lives under the dense artillery fire.
At that moment, it was not only the Marines trapped in the hunt whose faces changed drastically under the bombardment. The fifty thousand Marines near the flagship were horrified as well.
The Sky Pirates' three great fleets seemed determined to empty every last cannonball from their ships, bombarding them relentlessly without pause.
"Boom... boom... boom..."
"Save me..."
"No, I don't want to die..."
Watching the Marines fall into complete chaos and suffer heavy casualties, Zephyr's face went black with rage, his fury so intense his eyes looked ready to split.
"No. This absolutely can't continue..."
Looking at the pirate ships not far away, Zephyr swung his right fist and charged toward them.
As long as he destroyed those ships, the Marines would be saved.
But just then, a familiar voice sounded beside his ear.
"More More · 100x Speed!"
In an instant, Fisher Tiger appeared at the edge of his vision, along with that same black iron fist.
"I'm your opponent, Admiral Zephyr!"
At that moment, the speed and power Tiger displayed exceeded Zephyr's expectations.
This was the Moa Moa no Mi, a Devil Fruit said to possess the power to destroy an island with a single strike.
In Zephyr's rage and despair, their iron fists collided.
"Boom!"
Zephyr was instantly stopped, and under that immense force, his entire body was sent flying backward.
The same happened to Tiger.
Then the two clashed again.
...
The screams of the Marines trapped in the hunt instantly drew attention from the other battlefields.
Especially after even Admiral Zephyr had been held back.
As Logia users and the future three Admirals, the three of them immediately tried to break away from their opponents and support the battlefield.
Unfortunately, their opponents this time were not people who would let them leave so easily.
"Hey, Yellow Monkey, you're fighting me right now. Looking away like that is a little insulting, don't you think?"
With just a brief lapse in the battle between Enel and Borsalino, two men known for their speed, Enel seized the opening. His kick, coated in Armament Haki and guided by his overwhelming Observation Haki, caught Borsalino's body in the middle of elementalization and sent him flying.
Now that Enel had become one of the new Yonkō, aside from not yet mastering the power of Conqueror's Haki coating, every other aspect of his strength had reached the top tier. His Devil Fruit ability and Observation Haki in particular were absurdly powerful.
As for Kizaru, although his current rank was only Vice Admiral, in just a few years he would become an Admiral. His strength had already come infinitely close to that level, and he was also much older than Enel.
In an evenly matched fight between the two of them, even the slightest distraction could put either side in danger.
Meanwhile, in the clash between fire and ice, Kuzan's expression grew uglier and uglier, and his brows furrowed deeper and deeper.
He had originally thought that because his opponent was a woman, even if she was as strong as a monster, there was still a limit to how abnormal she could be.
But after truly fighting her, he realized he had been completely wrong.
The woman before him was absolutely a monster among monsters.
Hidden beneath that beautiful body was beastlike explosive power, further enhanced by the physical strength granted by a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit, along with that familiar technique of coating the entire body in Haki, the same one used by Fire Dragon Yemu.
Kuzan's elementalization, which had always served him so well, was being severely challenged. On top of that, this Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit had the ability to control flames.
Although its heat could not compare with Yemu's flames, it was still troublesome enough.
At least in the short term, neither of them had any chance of deciding the outcome.
And on the side where Erik and Sakazuki were fighting, the scene was completely different...