Yukiko and the others held the Marines' main fighting force on the frozen sea. Even Sengoku probably hadn't expected his three prized Vice Admirals to charge out in fury only to never make landfall.
This came down to Kuzan and the others relying too heavily on their Devil Fruit abilities. In the end, they were still too young — trusting in the destructive power of their powers while neglecting their Haki training. Facing a battle-hardened opponent like Yukiko, they couldn't gain the upper hand in the short term.
Though if the fight dragged on for thirty or fifty days, Yukiko and her companions would surely be no match for Kuzan, Sakazuki, and Borsalino.
Of course, the Marines had brought twenty warships this time. Beyond those three Vice Admirals, two more served as pillars of strength. Thousands of Marines jumped from the ships, marching across the ice toward Whole Cake Island with weapons drawn and battle cries echoing across the frozen expanse.
Big Mom's side wasn't going to sit idle. Beyond Big Mom's own children, Totto Land itself had plenty of pirates in its ranks.
These were former Rookie pirates, trained over the years and capable of using Haki. Facing the charging Marines, they showed no fear — drawing their swords and surging forward without hesitation.
The coastline instantly became a bloody battlefield. Steel clashed against steel, and cries of pain mixed with the howling wind as both sides committed fully to the fight.
Seeing the situation turn unfavorable, the Marines opened the holds of all twenty warships and unleashed waves of Ruin Defenders and Heavy Machinery. Tons-heavy machines stepped onto the ice — not just one or two, but over a hundred.
Their thick, elongated mechanical legs moved forward like an earthquake, the force cracking the ice meters thick beneath them. Each footfall sent tremors rippling outward, the vibrations traveling deep into the frozen surface.
A sharp crack echoed for kilometers.
Kuzan's face changed. He dodged a slash from Yayoi and pressed his palm against the ice below. Sweeping aside the white snow, he saw the frozen surface fractured like tempered glass after impact — dense cracks splitting the once-solid ice into tiny fragments.
The ice was on the verge of collapse.
"Ice Age!"
Fearing the ice would crumble and sink the Marines' billion-berry war machines, Kuzan used his power to reinforce the frozen sea for several kilometers. The fractured ice, moments from breaking apart, was sealed within another protective layer. It still looked shattered, but was now utterly firm.
His Ice-Ice Fruit specialized in extreme cold, and the ice it produced was far harder than Yukiko's. With this reinforcement, Kuzan breathed a sigh of relief.
But Big Mom's forces had their own weapons.
Unlike the Marines' rigid first-generation machines, Big Mom's Ruin Defenders and Heavy Machinery seemed almost alive. The machines, originally lacking any organ resembling eyes, now had burning cores in their chests that served as eyes. The strangest part — those eyes were chibi-styled!
Over a dozen Ruin Guardians blinked in unison. The leading Heavy Machinery units waved their arms and shouted in mechanical voices: "First squad, intercept the mechanical beasts causing destruction in the city! The rest, follow me to the ice and fight the Marines!"
The Heavy Machinery unit leaped forward, charging toward the Marines. Nearly a hundred Ruin Guardians followed close behind, their long arms swinging low while their axes spun at high speed — a hundred Ruin Guardians spinning windmills simultaneously, a spectacle even Morax had never witnessed.
Morax: I've actually seen this.
The machines swept through the Marines like cleaning robots, sweeping them away. The Ruin Guardians on Whole Cake Island didn't do the same — they were there to fight invaders, not destroy their own home. One machine braced against the ground with both hands, aiming its spherical body skyward to snipe the aerial Ruin Defenders and Ruin Dragons overhead.
Ruin Dragons were essentially upgraded versions of Ruin Guardians and Ruin Hunters in the game. But in reality, they were completely different. Both aerial and ground variants had a major flaw — terrible mobility.
The aerial versions in particular couldn't compare to Ruin Hunters in maneuverability. Moreover, both types used the same construction materials. There was no such thing as the Dragon series having more durability than the Guardian series — that simply wasn't the case.
These Ruin Dragons were actually the only batch Inazuma had ever produced. They were of little use, which was why they'd been handed over to Doflamingo.
Despite their poor mobility, their sheer tonnage gave them devastating destructive power. Energy from their cores converted into scorching lasers, continuously unleashed across the island.
From a distance, it looked as though a vast stretch of "Void" had engulfed Whole Cake Island, unleashing something called a "Void Flash" in all directions.
Amid the chaos, a dark green slash surged upward along the earth's contours, like a wall cutting the island in two. Dracule Mihawk stood at the center of the devastation, sheathing "Night" before him. His long coat billowed in the aftermath, and he was breathing hard — numerous sword wounds marked his body, proof that this fight had not been easy at all.
His opponent, Charlotte Amande, lay fallen on the ground.
In terms of Haki, Mihawk was actually no match for Amande. But swordsmanship, like martial arts, didn't simply favor the one with stronger Haki.
Haki was like internal energy — some people had natural strength and could defeat a master through sheer brute force. Mihawk had deep understanding of the sword, so even with slightly inferior Haki, he could compensate through technique and blade pressure.
Now that Amande was down, her twin sisters stood before Mihawk. Truthfully, when Ren had once remarked that Amande's long neck looked a bit odd, she had still been the most attractive of the three sisters. The remaining two were genuinely hard to look at — not much to see in appearance, but their strength was no less impressive.
Both attacked simultaneously with coordinated strikes, their blades weaving together in a relentless assault that forced Mihawk into a defensive position. The World's Greatest Swordsman found himself pushed back step by step, his legendary skill tested to its limits.
On the other side, Crocodile faced Charlotte Oven. This hot-tempered man burned like a red-hot iron ball, radiating a heat that warped the air around him. Crocodile's sand attacks were losing effectiveness — the endless sea of sand was crystallizing under the extreme temperature, turning to solid glass and slipping beyond his control with every passing moment.
Crocodile had always thought his only weakness was liquids. He never expected sand to fear extreme heat as well. This truly taught him a lesson.
[
Dear Readers,
I hope you are doing well. I am writing to you today because things have become genuinely difficult, and I need to be honest about where I stand.
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