A joke?
Atmos did not respond to Whitebeard's question, nor did he look at the gazes his companions were casting toward him.
With somewhat stiff movements, he simply undid the torn cloak around his shoulders, then struggled to rip open the clothes over his chest.
Riiip—
The sound of tearing cloth was especially loud on the silent deck.
When the state of his chest was exposed, a wave of sharp gasps rose around him.
There were not dozens of wounds.
No bloody, mangled flesh.
Across his chest were three scorched slash marks, running from his left shoulder toward the right side of his abdomen.
The wounds were not especially deep, but every line was smooth and precise, with faint dark-gold traces still lingering along the burned edges.
Everyone could tell that if those slashes had gone even a little deeper, Atmos would have been split cleanly apart.
The person who swung that blade had controlled his strength with terrifying precision, deciding the victor while leaving Atmos alive.
"With the first exchange, he sent me flying back to my own ship."
Atmos's voice was hoarse.
"In the strength contest, he forced me back."
His gaze slowly swept over every face on the deck, then finally stopped on Ace, his eyes complicated.
"With the final strike, he split the ship beneath my feet and knocked me into the sea. If he hadn't ordered the Marines to pull me out, I would have drowned."
Teach's small eyes gleamed
He stared fixedly at the scorched wounds across Atmos's chest as though he were looking at some priceless treasure.
"The wound didn't turn elemental, and there are no traces of freezing or ordinary flame..." he muttered to himself.
His smile slowly widened, but this time there was a thin layer of caution behind the greed. "That pressure... it isn't Haki alone. Zehahahaha... what the hell is that Marine hiding?"
While the deck erupted into commotion, a lazy voice drifted over and clearly entered everyone's ears.
"Oi, you flies. Done buzzing yet?"
Everyone's heart jolted, and they turned toward the voice.
At some point, a figure had appeared at the bow of the Marine warship, looking down at them from above.
It was Zaraki.
He had not stepped onto the deck of the Moby Dick.
He merely stood there casually, as if this massive ship carrying the world's strongest pirate crew was nothing special in his eyes.
Zaraki ignored everyone at first, including Whitebeard, whose aura had already begun turning dangerous on his throne.
His gaze passed straight through the crowd and landed precisely on Ace.
That look was like he was studying prey.
"Portgas D. Ace." Zaraki slowly spoke, his voice not loud, yet clear enough for everyone to hear.
"On behalf of the World Government, I formally invite you to join the Seven Warlords of the Sea."
That sentence exploded across the sea.
Ace froze at first.
Then his face flushed red, and his fists clenched tightly!
Marco, Jozu, and the other commanders' expressions also darkened instantly.
He was trying to poach someone right in front of their Pops.
It was a blatant insult to the Whitebeard Pirates!
"Gurarararara..."
Whitebeard laughed in a low voice, and that laughter carried a crushing pressure.
He slowly rose from his throne, his enormous shadow covering the entire deck.
"Brat... are you forgetting that I'm right here?"
A terrifying pressure dropped from above, pressing even the surface of the sea into a shallow depression.
Yet Zaraki merely spread his mouth into a chilling smile.
"Old man, the times have changed."
The moment his words fell, Whitebeard moved.
He did not step forward. He simply swung the naginata in his hand, Murakumogiri, fiercely toward the front.
Crack—
The air ahead instantly filled with white spiderweb cracks, spreading toward the warship where Zaraki stood.
The power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
Facing that overwhelming strike, Zaraki's smile only grew wider.
"Now that's more like it!"
His right hand gripped his sword hilt, and in that instant, dark-gold Reiatsu mixed with Armament Haki surged upward like a violent tide.
He did not draw the blade.
Zaraki merely lifted Murasame, still inside its sheath, and slashed upward at the cracked space.
Buzz—
The two forces collided violently over the sea between the ships.
For one breath, the world seemed to lose sound beneath the pressure of that clash.
Then the impact burst outward.
The sea between the ships caved down in a broad ring.
Waves rose like walls and crashed outward, forcing both vessels to groan under the strain.
Black-gold arcs scattered through the air, and the cloud layer above was torn open in a long, narrow scar rather than a true split across the heavens.
Even so, that single exchange was enough to make everyone aboard the Moby Dick fall silent.
Marco's eyes widened slightly.
Whitebeard's hawk-like gaze sharpened, surprise flashing within it.
The brat had not matched him as an equal.
But he had met that strike head-on and remained standing!
And at the very moment when the sea and sky trembled, while everyone's attention was dragged toward the collision—A black shadow moved.
It was Teach.
His face twisted savagely.
Taking advantage of the instant when Zaraki and Whitebeard exchanged blows, he shot up from the deck, both hands spread wide as he lunged straight toward Zaraki's back.
"Whatever power you're hiding... I'll take it!"
However, before his hands could even touch the corner of Zaraki's clothes, a blinding golden beam suddenly shot out from a concealed port beneath the cabin of the Marine warship.
It was one of the compact light-pressure cannons the science unit had loaded onto the ship under Sengoku's emergency authorization, a weapon meant for suppressing pirates at range rather than killing Emperor commanders.
The beam moved so fast that almost no one had time to react.
Pfft!
It grazed across Teach's side and shoulder with brutal accuracy.
The tremendous force carried his heavy body backward, and with a thunderous crash, he smashed through a railing on one side of the Moby Dick, leaving a scorched wound across his ribs and a trail of blood across the deck.
This sudden change made everyone's expression shift.
There were weapons like that on the Marine ship?
"Bastard!"
A sharp roar rang out.
The Sixteenth Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, Izo, a man famous for his marksmanship, now had a face full of fury.
An enemy had dared to fire on one of their comrades with a long-range weapon right under their noses!
That was a challenge to every sharpshooter in the Whitebeard Pirates.
"Unforgivable."
Izo stepped onto the rail, raised both pistols, and fired toward the cannon port in a blur of muzzle flashes.
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