On the deck, Bullet had already completed his dragon transformation.
The three-hundred-meter black dragon hovered above the sails, its dark violet scales reflecting an eerie sheen beneath the morning light. In the distance, the three CP0 warships were rapidly closing in, their cannons already adjusted and aimed.
"Bullet!"
Anna shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Give me one minute!"
The black dragon lowered his head and glanced at her. A trace of confusion flickered through those crimson slit pupils, but he did not stop her.
Anna sprinted to the stern and threw the manuscripts into a pile on the deck.
Then she pulled out a fire striker from inside her clothes.
It was an old heirloom passed down through her family, forged from a special metal that could throw sparks with ease even in damp air.
Clack. Clack.
The sparks fell onto the manuscripts.
The paper caught almost instantly.
These manuscripts had all been treated with a special solution. Once ignited, they burned with terrifying speed. Orange-red flames surged upward, and thick smoke rolled into the sky, visible even from several nautical miles away.
On the first CP0 ship, an agent wearing a white mask raised a telescope and saw the blaze.
"The target is burning the documents!"
He immediately reported it.
"They're Oliventa family manuscripts!"
"They're trying to destroy the evidence!"
"Accelerate!"
The captain barked the order at once.
"Seize whatever remains before they burn everything!"
All three ships increased speed simultaneously.
But Bullet had no intention of allowing them to approach so easily.
The black dragon beat his wings and dove straight toward the foremost ship.
He chose the most direct method possible, a brute-force collision with his own body.
Boom!!
The three-hundred-meter dragon body crashed into the ship like a falling mountain.
The wooden hull collapsed at the instant of impact. Agents on board were hurled into the air. Some were thrown into the sea, while others smashed into splintered deck planks and wreckage.
But CP0 were, after all, the elite of the World Government.
Even after such a sudden attack, six of them still leapt into the air, adjusted their stances mid-flight, and launched an immediate counterattack against the black dragon.
Two of them were Devil Fruit users.
One fired burning jets of superheated energy from both hands.
The other's body swelled and hardened, his flesh turning into something like dark stone.
The remaining four were pure masters of physical combat and Haki.
Using Geppo, they moved across the air itself, slashing out flying sword strikes from different angles and sealing off every avenue through which the dragon might evade.
It was disciplined, professional teamwork.
But Bullet did not even bother dodging.
His enormous dragon wings spread wide and slammed apart the incoming streams of heat head-on. Those dark violet scales possessed extraordinary resistance to high temperatures, and the blazing jets left behind nothing more than shallow scorch marks.
Then one gigantic dragon claw swung out and collided directly with the stone-bodied agent.
With a sharp crack, the man's rocky exterior shattered. He was sent flying, skidding across the sea and carving a long white trail over the surface.
As for the sword strikes...
Bullet opened his jaws, inhaled, and then spat forward.
A compressed air cannon, condensed to the limit.
It collided with the incoming sword aura and exploded in midair. The resulting shockwave blasted the four close-combat agents off balance and sent them reeling in every direction.
In the very first exchange, CP0 was completely overwhelmed.
But they had already achieved their purpose.
Delay.
While Bullet was tied down fighting those six, the other two ships curved around the battlefield and headed straight for the two-masted ship.
They saw the manuscripts burning at the stern.
They also saw Anna standing beside the flames.
"Capture her!"
"We need her alive!"
The captain of the second ship gave the order coldly.
Ten agents jumped at once, using Geppo to cross the hundred meters of open sea before landing squarely on the deck of the ship.
They split up with practiced efficiency. Five charged straight toward Anna. The other five rushed toward the cabin.
Clearly, they already knew there was also a severely wounded old man aboard.
Anna did not run.
She simply stood there beside the fire, watching the manuscripts she had spent half her life studying turn to ash.
Each scroll that burned felt like part of her own past being torn away and consumed.
But she knew this sacrifice was necessary.
"Miss Oliventa,"
the lead agent said coldly,
"please come with us."
"The World Government needs your knowledge."
"Needs?"
Anna slowly raised her head, and a sharp note of ridicule flashed through her eyes.
"You needed it so badly that you wiped out my entire family?"