Dark-gold arcs tore through the sky, and an ominous pressure spread in every direction.
Immediately after, a black shadow fell straight down from the torn clouds.
His speed had surpassed sound.
By the time everyone's retinas captured that shadow, their ears were still wrapped in dead silence.
In Zaraki's vision, the entire world was rapidly expanding.
Below him was a battlefield scarred beyond recognition.
A massive ancient mammoth was attacking a man in a pink yukata and wooden geta with enough force to crush a mountain.
The man had his arms crossed, jet-black Armament Haki covering them, but in the face of the mammoth's overwhelming power, his defense was on the verge of collapse.
In Zaraki's eyes, everything below moved as if slowed down.
His body adjusted its posture in midair at an impossible angle, and his right hand gripped the hilt of Murasame at his waist.
Prey.
Buzz—
A faint sword cry trembled in his palm.
Murasame was thirsting for blood.
Zaraki's eyes turned cold, like a hunter locking onto his target.
"One-Sword Style: Sever."
He softly uttered those words, then drew his blade.
A dazzling blade aura burst from the edge.
At first, it was only a single line, but as it descended, it expanded violently until it split open the smoke hanging over the battlefield.
Jack the Drought's ferocious strike, the expression on Chaton's face, the wild laughter of the pirates in the distance—every scene froze before that blade aura, then was swallowed by a field of white.
Boom!
The delayed roar finally exploded, as if the entire battlefield itself were wailing.
A deep trench stretched from Zaraki's landing point to the edge of the inlet, splitting the harbor stones and throwing seawater high into the air.
Several Beasts Pirates warships that happened to lie in the path of the slash were torn open before they could turn away, collapsing into broken masts, shattered planks, and rolling fire.
Dust and water vapor rushed into the sky.
Only after a long while did the smoke slowly scatter, revealing a figure standing at the edge of the crater.
Zaraki held his sword in one hand, the tip angled toward the ground, while the Justice cloak on his back snapped loudly in the sea wind.
He did not look at the result of his strike. His gaze fell nearby instead.
The man in the pink yukata, Chaton, was sitting collapsed on the ground, his entire body stiff.
His sunglasses had gone crooked, exposing eyes filled with the lingering shock of surviving disaster, while the muscles in his cheek twitched uncontrollably.
Even as an Admiral candidate, he had been pushed to the brink by Jack's raw strength.
Yet this man, younger than him, had cut into the battlefield with a single slash and broken the death crisis open from above.
Embarrassing.
Too embarrassing!
Zaraki's gaze remained on Chaton for half a second before moving away.
His attention was already elsewhere.
He slowly turned and looked toward the other side of the smoking trench.
Jack the Drought was still standing, but his mammoth form had been forcibly beaten back into his human-beast form.
From his right shoulder toward his left abdomen, a deep blade wound cut through muscle and drew a terrifying amount of blood, though it had not reached the organs beneath.
Dark blood poured out, turning the ground beneath his feet into a muddy mess.
"You..."
The lips beneath Jack's metal jaw guard trembled as he stared fixedly at Zaraki.
"What the hell... are you?"
Zaraki did not answer.
He merely raised Murasame slowly and tapped the blade against his own shoulder, the casual motion as light as brushing off dust.
"Beasts Pirates, one of the Three Calamities, Jack the Drought. Bounty, one billion berries."
He slowly recited the man's information, his tone flat.
"Keep going. Don't disappoint me."
He paused, and a cruel curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"After all, compared to that old man Whitebeard, you're way far behind."
That sentence was like a bomb thrown into a dead-still lake.
Every surviving Marine present, including Chaton, who was still sitting on the ground, changed expression the instant they heard the name Whitebeard.
They remembered the top-secret intelligence sent from Headquarters.
Right in front of Whitebeard, Zaraki had heavily injured Fire Fist Ace, then healed him.
He had rejected Whitebeard's invitation.
And his reason was... becoming the son of a pirate would get in the way of him cutting people.
They had thought the intelligence had been exaggerated, but now...
The way Chaton looked at Zaraki changed completely.
Had this monster truly stood before the strongest man in the world and walked away alive?
At that moment, a Marine warship finally broke through the smoke offshore.
Two figures kicked off from the bow with sharp sounds of tearing air, crossing the remaining distance with Geppo before landing steadily atop the ruins.
The arrivals were Vice Admirals from Marine Headquarters, Momousagi Gion and Yamakaji.
When they saw the scene before them clearly, even these two battle-hardened veterans could not stop their pupils from contracting violently.
The terrifying slash mark that had torn through the ruined harbor.
Jack the Drought, covered in blood and breathing heavily.
And the man standing opposite Jack, who seemed to be the center of the entire battlefield simply by standing there—
War Demon Zaraki.
"It's Vice Admiral Gion!"
"Vice Admiral Gion and Vice Admiral Yamakaji are here too!"
The surviving Marines erupted into cheers.
However, those cheers soon faded.
Some of their gazes instinctively moved from the newly arrived Gion toward Chaton, who was still dazed on the ground nearby.
Would adding Vice Admiral Gion really be enough to deal with that monster-like Calamity?
A thought even rose uncontrollably in some people's minds.
Please... don't let this turn into another person coming just to fall!
For a moment, the hope that had just been ignited was replaced once more by a strange silence.
Unexpectedly, Momousagi Gion, who was known for her fiery temper and hatred of evil, remained unusually silent after landing.
She did not immediately draw her famous blade, Konpira.
Nor did she say anything to Jack or Zaraki.
She merely stood there quietly, her sharp eyes fixed on Zaraki's back.