Violent explosions kicked up towering clouds of smoke, completely swallowing the battlefield where Rosinante and Sakazuki were clashing.
Even the guests seated on the Marine high platform could feel the very atmosphere of Marineford trembling.
The ground continued to explode and split apart. If not for the fact that all sound had been erased within the Heaven-and-Earth Losing Color domain, the deafening roar of the explosions would have shaken the skies themselves.
Amid the rolling smoke, the sheer destructive force kept tearing the ground apart. Cracks spread outward, even reaching beneath the high platform, causing parts of it to collapse.
"It's collapsing—this place is going to give way!"
"Someone save me, damn it! What if I get hurt?"
"Mom, I want to go home! This place is too dangerous!"
Faced with such inhuman combat and such terrifying destruction, with the air itself constantly shuddering and cracks creeping ever closer, many of the powerful figures from various industries went pale, their faces tense. Quite a few nobles even started crying and screaming in panic.
They had all read the newspapers. They had heard stories of someone being impossibly strong, of someone sinking a warship with a single punch, of someone cutting a mountain in half with a sword, of battles that sank entire islands.
But those were just stories.
They had never seen it with their own eyes, never felt it themselves.
Now that they were witnessing such horror firsthand, especially when the destruction threatened to engulf them as well, terror finally took hold.
"Raise the internal defensive barriers!" Sengoku shouted.
"Yes!" A Marine immediately ran to relay the order.
Moments later, layer after layer of defensive walls rose up, separating the battlefield from the audience stands.
Only then did the guests finally breathe a sigh of relief. Their legs stopped trembling, their bodies steadied, and they dared to look back toward the plaza.
Rosinante and Sakazuki's battlefield was still shrouded in smoke and dust, the situation within impossible to discern.
Then, suddenly, a figure shot out of the smoke.
No—it was not flying out so much as being blasted out.
The body flew more than twenty meters before crashing onto its back, slamming into the ground and carving a long crack across the plaza.
"It's Sakazuki!"
"Admiral Sakazuki was defeated!"
"As expected, the new generation of Marine Admirals is still far weaker than a Yonko!"
The crowd cried out, yet at the same time, it all felt inevitable.
If the Marine Admirals truly matched the Yonko in strength, then the so-called Four Emperors would have been wiped out long ago.
After all, the Yonko were individual pirate captains who did not get along with one another and would never unite.
The Marines were different. They were a single organization.
If the three Admirals really rivaled the Yonko, the situation would never have deteriorated to this point. The New World would not have become a pirate stronghold, and the Marines would not be unable to even secure a stable foothold there.
Boom!
The air shook violently once more.
The thick smoke was blasted apart by a powerful shockwave, as if the heavens themselves had been swept clean, revealing Rosinante within the lingering magma haze.
He was dragging his long blade as he walked step by step toward Sakazuki, the steel glinting with chilling light.
At that moment, a road of ice surged forth from the ground at extreme speed, racing straight toward Rosinante and instantly spreading beneath his feet.
"Hmph."
Rosinante snorted coldly and stomped down.
A force of absolute silence spread outward from his foot.
The ice vanished the instant it touched that extreme stillness.
Then, a figure entirely covered in ice stepped forward.
"Tch… how annoying. One after another, nonstop," Rosinante said calmly. "Should I put in a bit more effort and just take all of you out at once?"
As he spoke, he glanced toward Sengoku and Garp on the high platform.
To be honest, Rosinante could not quite figure out what the Marines were really planning.
If they truly had some hidden scheme, then Sengoku and the others should know that Kuzan and the other two alone posed no real threat to him in his current state.
Under the suppression of Heaven-and-Earth Losing Color, the three Admirals could not form any effective combined offense against him. Borsalino had not even been able to properly enter the fight yet, still probing how to operate within the domain.
In this situation, the three of them defeating him was nothing more than a delusion.
If the Marines truly intended to make a move against him, they would at least need to include Garp or Sengoku. Only then might they pose some degree of threat.
But they had not.
They were simply allowing him to batter Kuzan and Sakazuki into miserable states, while Garp and Sengoku remained completely motionless.
Rosinante began to wonder if he should directly kill one of the Admirals, to force the Marines' hand and test their true intentions.
"Should I kill an Admiral today?" Rosinante murmured, his gaze turning toward Kuzan.
That single look made Kuzan's face change drastically.
He felt an intense killing intent locking onto him.
Kuzan knew—Rosinante's killing intent had chosen him.
At the same time, Garp and Sengoku on the viewing platform both changed expressions.