"Hmph!"
Ivalis clicked his tongue and let out a cold snort, completely indifferent to Kizaru's words. His rapier, blackened by Armament Haki, pulsed with terrifying sharpness. After parrying the Admiral's Ama no Murakumo, he whipped his wrist in a backhand strike, shouting coldly: "Mizuchi!"
Spiral-shaped sword energy surged forward, snaking around Kizaru's blade to strike at his body.
Caught off guard, Kizaru chose to leverage the advantage of his Glint-Glint Fruit. He transformed into a flash of light to retreat and evade.
In an instant, Kizaru's body dissolved into light particles and reappeared three seconds later atop a rock three hundred meters away. The sheer speed of the Glint-Glint Fruit was on full display.
However, a thin trail of blood appeared on Kizaru's left cheek, just beneath his sunglasses. Though it was merely a scratch, those capable of drawing blood from an Admiral were few and far between in this world.
Kizaru nonchalantly wiped the blood away with his thumb and remarked half-jokingly, "How scary the Immortal Pirates are truly something else, ne"
"Pheasant Beak!"
On the other side, the battle between Aokiji and Benn Beckman continued.
After swiftly dodging one of Aokiji's moves, Beckman adjusted his stance and seized an opening to fire. The bullet tore straight through Aokiji's abdomen.
"He hit him!"
"Is Aokiji dead?"
Marines and pirates alike gasped as they witnessed the shot.
"No! That's impossible!"
Suddenly, the hole in Aokiji's stomach coalesced back into solid form, completely restored. He hadn't actually been hit; instead, he had proactively transformed into his elemental state to create a hole, allowing the bullet to pass harmlessly through him.
Hovering in mid-air, Aokiji unleashed a second attack. With a wave of his hand, countless ice spikes filled the sky, saturating Beckman's entire field of vision.
"Ice Age: Cold Storage!"
Beckman dodged the barrage of ice spears repeatedly, returning fire with his rifle, but he was temporarily forced onto the defensive.
Aokiji descended from the air. Seeing that Beckman had only sustained light injuries, he ruffled his curly hair and muttered, "Arara... this isn't working. We're out of time."
While the Navy held the overall advantage in numbers and average strength, the core combatants of the Immortal Pirates were formidable. At this rate, it would take three or four hours to decide a winner.
According to the earlier intel, Alucard had already boarded the target ship. They all knew it was impossible to make it there in time now.
The Navy knew it, and Beckman knew it even better.
"Do you want to keep going?" Beckman asked, his shoulder pierced by one of the earlier ice spears, though he seemed unbothered by the pain. "The outcome of this operation is already clear. Without an Admiral on that ship, what could possibly stop that man?"
"Arara... I have my own brand of Justice to uphold. As long as there's a shred of hope, I can't give up." Though he understood the reality of the situation, Aokiji didn't simply take Beckman's word for it.
"Hmph! So the 'Lazy Justice' Admiral Aokiji actually has this side to him." A smirk played on Beckman's lips.
"Aren't you the same?"
Aokiji raised one hand, half of his body shifting into ice as a bone-chilling frost radiated from his arm.
"REPORT!!!"
Suddenly, a soldier on a nearby Marine warship shouted toward the combatants on the shore: "Intel from the G5 survivors! The unit has been annihilated! Base Commander Gilbert has fallen in battle! Vice Admiral Vergo is in critical condition! There are roughly two hundred survivors... and Dr. Vegapunk has been kidnapped by Alucard!"
The moment he heard this, Kizaru disengaged from the fight. He tucked his hands into his pockets and sighed, "So it really ended like this? But how did the intel leak in the first place? Mmmm~"
Beckman lowered his rifle and narrowed his eyes. "Well? Do you still want to fight, Aokiji?"
Exhaling a puff of freezing air, Aokiji deactivated his elemental state, his arm gradually returning to normal. "I will wait for instructions from Headquarters before taking further action."
Neither Aokiji nor Kizaru were "Hawks" like Akainu or Dalmatian, who felt the need to slaughter every pirate on sight. Now that Dr. Vegapunk had been taken, a fight to the death here was meaningless.
"Withdraw."
Aokiji picked up his Marine greatcoat, which he had tossed aside at the start of the battle, and ordered the retreat. Kizaru offered no objection; he flashed back to the ship and sat in a lounge chair as if nothing had happened, casually asking a subordinate for a cup of black tea.
"Embarrassing yourself, aren't you, kid?"
Ivalis walked over to Cavendish and mocked him.
Cavendish looked a mess. He had been fighting a Marine Vice Admiral and had been suppressed the entire time. Had Aokiji's withdrawal order not come down, he might have lost his head.
"Shut up!"
Cavendish pouted, unwilling to admit defeat. But this time, he had truly tasted bitterness. He finally realized the massive gap between himself and the world's top-tier combatants.
"This is no time for jokes," Beckman said as he walked toward them. "You know how important Vegapunk is to the World Government. Our Captain's actions are, to put it bluntly, 'poking the hornet's nest.' There's no telling what extremes they will go to in order to get Vegapunk back."
"Having a Captain who's too strong isn't always a blessing," Ivalis remarked, adjusting his gloves. He gave the order: "Set sail! We're heading back!"
Not long after the downfall of Dragon, Alucard had once again committed an earth-shattering act: he had kidnapped the genius scientist the World Government prized above all else, Dr. Vegapunk.
Even Benn Beckman couldn't predict what kind of retaliation the Government would launch next.