As Kuzan approached Yamato, he sensed an immense killing intent.
A figure with flaming wings and a serrated blade had already launched an attack toward him.
Recognizing the attacker at a glance, Aokiji immediately identified him: King the Conflagration—the last surviving member of the Lunarians, a pitiful soul once captured by the World Government and subjected to various experiments in a laboratory.
Given his background, it made sense for him to harbor deep hatred toward the Marines.
But Aokiji would not go easy on King because of his tragic past.
"Ice Blade!" Using his ability to create a frigid blade, he simultaneously infused it with Haki, clashing violently with King's serrated greatsword.
At the same time, a terrifying chill erupted from Aokiji's ice weapon.
"Ice Time!"
King realized his serrated sword was frozen to Aokiji's ice blade, unable to be pulled back.
Moreover, the bone-chilling cold was on the verge of encasing him in ice.
Just as he shifted into a defensive stance, several laser beams appeared, followed by a blinding explosion.
In the blink of an eye, Aokiji was shattered into countless fragments, scattering in all directions.
eizing the opportunity, King broke free from Aokiji's freezing grip and distanced himself from the icy shards.
His savior was Queen, the Brachiosaurus cyborg, who had transformed into his human-beast hybrid form.
Exchanging a glance with King, he warned, "This one's tough. Be careful."
"Right, let's take him on together!"
With that, King and Queen charged toward Aokiji, who had just reformed his body.
Subsequently, explosions of fire, lasers, and ice erupted one after another.
Aokiji felt annoyed.
By his calculations, it would take him at least another thirty seconds to defeat these two.
But by then, the entire battlefield would have been completely frozen by that wolf girl.
Of course, he had a way to end the fight quickly, but once he used his Awakening domain, he wouldn't have enough stamina for the battles to come.
'Forget it.'
'Let these pirates rush toward the Seastone wall. Whether they can breach it will depend on their strength.'
Exhaling a cold breath, Aokiji continued his fight against King and Queen.
...
The battle raged on.
Ten minutes later, with only half an hour left until Ace's execution.
Luffy and his crew advanced to the Seastone wall closest to the inner city.
Suddenly, a group of masked enemies in white cloaks appeared before them.
CP0—ten agents in total—blocked the path of the Straw Hat Pirates.
The Straw Hats, who could have smoothly broken into the inner city, were now held back.
...
On the frozen battlefield, Whitebeard and Akainu were locked in combat.
The two had clashed five minutes earlier.
After these few minutes of fighting, Akainu had fully experienced Whitebeard's terror.
Now, Akainu was covered in blood, his internal organs severely shaken and damaged.
Whitebeard, on the other hand, had only lost the left side of his mustache to the Meigo attack, leaving three scars on his face.
With his powerful Observation Haki and peak physical condition, Whitebeard effortlessly dodged Akainu's lethal attacks.
But Akainu was struggling.
Though his Observation Haki was also strong, and he could only rely on his Logia intangibility to evade enemies wielding Haki, Whitebeard was different.
Every punch from the Tremor-Tremor Fruit was a massive area-of-effect attack.
Faced with vibrational fists imbued with Haki, Akainu's only options were to confront them head-on or rely on advanced Armament Haki to withstand the blows.
But unfortunately, even when facing Akainu head-on, Whitebeard could still overpower him, let alone when Akainu tried to withstand his attacks directly.
This was the first time Akainu felt furious about not possessing Conqueror's Haki!
Conqueror's Haki infusion was simply too overpower!
In terms of pure destructive power, his Magma-Magma Fruit and Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit were fairly comparable.
However, Whitebeard's additional ability to infuse attacks with Conqueror's Haki was the decisive factor that tipped the scales of combat.
Moreover, Akainu confirmed another point: Whitebeard's Armament Haki was also superior to his own.
It made no sense—how could someone so old still possess such strength? Logically, he should have declined like Garp.
'Whitebeard must have received help from someone.'
'Who the hell was it? Damn it!'
No matter how much he raged, it was useless.
Akainu could only choose to continue fighting.
As the battle progressed, the internal injuries caused by the tremors accumulated within him.
...
Twenty minutes later, with only 20 minutes remaining until Ace's execution.
Aokiji found himself pinned down.
He should have been able to defeat King and Queen much earlier. But when that wolf-woman transformed into her hybrid form and joined the fight, Aokiji was stunned.
'Another one who could use Conqueror's Haki infusion.'
Today, he had already encountered four such rare users of Conqueror's Haki infusion—Whitebeard, Luffy, Rayleigh, and Yamato.
And Aokiji's intuition told him there was another one who master Conqueror's Haki infusion somewhere on this battlefield.
Just as the thought crossed his mind, the distinctive black lightning of Conqueror's Haki infusion flashed from another direction on the ice field.
"Great, there really is another one. It's Roronoa Zoro."
...
Zoro had been fighting CP0 agents when a green slash suddenly cut toward the platform he was on.
With a single glance, Zoro's excitement ignited.
'Mihawk!'
His crewmates immediately understood what Zoro was thinking.
Ever since arriving at Marineford, Zoro had been stealing glances at Mihawk on the ice battlefield from time to time.
And now, Mihawk's slash was essentially an invitation for Zoro to come down and spar.
What swordsman could resist such a temptation from the World's Greatest Swordsman?
Besides, having Zoro occupy Mihawk would benefit their side.
This way, Marco of the Whitebeard Pirates would be freed up.
Sanji quickly calculated that trading the moss-head for Marco was a reasonable and cost-effective move.
Smiling, he spoke to Zoro, "We trained so hard all for our ultimate dreams, right? Opportunities to achieve them are rare, but yours is right in front of you. Go for it, Zoro!"
The rest of the crew responded similarly, so Zoro descended to the ice field and was now battling Mihawk.
As for why the Straw Hat crew was so willing to let Zoro go... It was mainly because the CP0 agents weren't putting much pressure on them.
In just five minutes of straightforward fighting, they had already taken down two of them.
Sanji was responsible for protecting Robin, Robin controlled the enemies, and the others finished them off with lethal moves.
With their brutal, control-based combat style, they could wipe out the entire CP0 sooner or later.
In front of Robin, who had mastered advanced Haki, the Rokushiki techniques were utterly useless.
Any martial arts expert who couldn't overpower Robin in strength would learn what it meant to face the Demon Flower.
As for Luffy, with Buggy's help, he had already broken through to the inner city alongside Crocodile, Jinbe, Doma, Jozu, and Marco—who had just been freed from Mihawk
. Behind them, there was also Hancock.
Yes, that's right—the Pirate Empress had defected!
Before Luffy arrived, she had intended to help him secretly. But after seeing Luffy kicked away once by Kizaru and then sent flying again by Akainu, Hancock became enraged and immediately switched sides.
Thus, a luxurious lineup of fighters with Yonko Commander-level strength fought their way through all obstacles.
Five minutes later, they reached the inner city ground not far from the execution platform.
At this moment, there were only 15 minutes left until Ace's execution.
...
Deep within Marineford, Saint Garling was communicating with his master through a special energy within his body.
"Imu-sama, Ray still hasn't appeared."
"Hmm, I've already deployed all CP organizations to intercept the enemy's strong fighters. Currently, only a few pirates with decent strength have broken into the inner city."
"Prepare the summoning array? Understood, I'll make preparations immediately."
"Understood, I will definitely eliminate the Straw Hat Pirates here at Marineford. And keep a close watch on Ray's movements."
After the communication ended, Saint Garling looked grave.
He expressed his dissatisfaction to Kong. "Just two pirate crews have made Marine Headquarters struggle this much? How have you been training them?"
Kong put on the appearance of a child who'd done wrong, letting Saint Garling berate him.
But inwardly, he was utterly speechless....
'If you're so capable, why don't you step up yourself? Can't you see the combat power gap? Why don't you summon people from the God's Knights instead?'
---
Bonus cause y'all a good boys and gals! yes gals! surprisingly there is a lot of girls reading this fic!
Girls tell me, is it because of Sesshomaru?