"Ngh..."
High in the air currents, Sabo suddenly let out a muffled grunt as a sharp, stabbing wave of agony radiated from his midsection. Casting a swift glance down at his lower torso, his heart sank.
He had already sustained considerable internal trauma during the preceding extraction operation in the Holy Land. Forcing his physical vessel to unleash its absolute capacity with zero restraint just now had pushed his biological systems into a state of severe overload.
Yet the two Marine Admirals were completely relentless, maintaining high-velocity vectors to close down his perimeter. Sabo rapidly analyzed the global variables mapping the active combat theater.
Aside from the two supreme military authorities, the solitary combat units anchoring this Marine alignment who commanded a modicum of tactical threat were the remaining three masked agents. Should his vanguard permit them to slip past his coordinate to hunt the Division Commanders, it would inevitably invite catastrophic friction.
Not to mention that Princess Vivi's profile lacked a single shred of raw physical combat mass.
My vanguard must systematically liquidate every single one of them right here!
In the next microsecond, the two Admirals closed the distance simultaneously. Fujitora's shirasaya executed a continuous series of fluid, rapid slashes. Facing the invisible torrents of compressed gravity, Sabo found his processing capacity pushed to the limit.
After all, the trajectory of those kinetic displacements threw back absolute zero visual data.
Fortunately, Sabo's biological vessel was formulated of pure plasma; relying exclusively on standard crushing weight, Fujitora's gravity metrics mathematically failed to register terminal damage against his elemental form. The solitary modifier that rendered the strikes exceptionally grueling was the dense concentration of Advanced Haki occasionally interwoven with the slashes.
That specific variable was incredibly difficult to predict.
Concurrently, regarding the underlying mechanics of Admiral Ryokugyu's Logia capability, his databases had only unsealed a baseline breakdown up to this hour. The Admiral could fluidly manipulate the surrounding land mass to generate a limitless volume of predatory wood to saturate the field. Standard vegetation naturally posed zero threat to Sabo's thermal output, but vines heavily coated in high-level Armament Haki were far too dense to disregard.
Partいたら, when the kinetic weight behind the wood was driven by the muscle fibers of a Marine Admiral.
"Chief of Staff of the resistance! Exactly what strategic calculations drove the Revolutionary Army to extract the asset Bartholomew Kuma from government custody?" Ryokugyu demanded, pointing a finger toward Sabo's coordinate. "Furthermore, the institutional link binding that Alabasta princess to your organization..."
"Hmph!" Sabo aborted the dialogue right out of the gate, launching his frame forward as he drove his Haki-coated lead pipe in a brutal arc targeted at Ryokugyu's perimeter.
"Your regime truly commands a hilarious philosophy. When the phantom syndicates of the World Government deploy to assassinate an innocent sovereign, are alternative factions mathematically forbidden from executing a rescue?!"
Even as the syllables cleared his lips, Sabo's lead pipe had already sundered the dense layers of aggressive vines, breaching Ryokugyu's absolute inner circle.
KABOOM!
The steel connected.
During that exact microsecond, the remaining three white-robed CP0 agents initiated a high-velocity dispersal across his flanks.
"A magnificent assault!" Ryokugyu roared, compressing his palms together as the colossal vines saturating the four cardinal directions converged onto Sabo's coordinate simultaneously.
BANG!
A blinding cascade of sparks detonated across the void, Sabo's eyes burning with a piercing crimson light as unbridled torrents of white-hot plasma screamed from his skin. Suddenly, an immense, suffocating weight materialized directly behind his spine—a massive wall of horizontal gravity crushing down to flatten his frame.
"This old man remains entirely unmapped regarding the World Government's ultimate strategic objectives here, but the specific assignment anchoring our vanguard is the absolute termination of your profile!" Fujitora declared calmly, driving his blade forward even as he spoke.
KABOOM!
Sabo unleashed a monumental wave of concentrated fire to counter the synchronized assault of the two Admirals, a thunderous explosion saturating the entire island's airspace.
Almost concurrently, Sabo's physical vessel was violently blasted backward by the sheer kinetic weight of the feedback, hurtling through the air at extreme velocity. Witnessing the Sovereign thrown clear of the sector, the operational pacing of the two Admirals naturally decelerated by a fraction.
Yet mid-flight, Sabo's eyes snapped wide. Out of the heart of the plasma burning across his spine, three colossal draconic claws of pure fire suddenly erupted, expanding toward the distant shoreline with terrifying speed.
"This is catastrophic!" The two Admirals gasped in unison, their internal tactical processors registering a critical anomaly. They finally unraveled the spatial geometry: the vector across which Sabo had permitted his frame to be blasted led straight toward the rear sector of the island.
The three CP0 agents hadn't established sufficient distance from that coordinate yet; their survival metrics were entering a lethal hazard window.
Exactly!
From the very inception of the clash, Sabo's core objective had been the absolute liquidation of the remaining CP0 assets. Their target was invariably Vivi. Should they successfully clear his line to close the distance to the extraction team, the Division Commanders would face structural failure.
Concurrently, his stamina reserves lacked the resource margins required to sustain a prolonged engagement against these two Admirals.
He had to finalize the execution immediately.
The Haki-infused draconic fire claws expanded across the void like massive extensions of steel, hunting down the three white-robed operatives.
Having just cleared the island's airspace to initiate their high-velocity pursuit, the CP0 agents suddenly mapped a suffocating, primitive warning of impending doom crashing through their sensory arrays. Every single hair on their bodies stood completely on end.
Their scalps went entirely numb.
Abruptly arresting their Moonwalk locomotion mid-air, they rotated their necks only to find a gargantuan, burning draconic hand completely filling their visual fields.
"WHAT?!"
The pupils of all three operatives shrank to pinpricks, their porcelain masks failing to hide the absolute horror fracturing their sanity. Frantically crossing their arms before their faces, they attempted to coordinate a baseline defensive block.
KABOOM!
The colossal fire claw slammed down with monumental weight, firmly clamping the three agents within its molten grip before detonating a massive wave of concentrated thermal energy.
The operatives desperately scrambled to rupture the burning cage, but Sabo had saturated the geometry of the claws with a dense, absolute layer of Advanced Armament Haki; their physical capabilities were completely outmatched.
Concurrently, the white-hot fire incinerated their biological cells at an exponential rate; before a single syllable of agony could clear their throats, the three elite assets were cleanly reduced to drifting clouds of ash.
The visual telemetry struck pure, primitive horror into the hearts of the Marine reinforcement divisions just arriving across the perimeter. A solitary, passing strike had cleanly vaporized three premier black-budget operatives of the regime. Should that fire brush against their standard armor, wouldn't their frames suffer an identical liquidation?
"As expected of an entity anchoring the bloodline of the Legendary Four Brothers—the absolute second-in-command of the global resistance," Fujitora noted softly, utilizing his gravity to levitate his stone platform directly before Sabo's perimeter.
Ryokugyu concurrently rode a colossal, rising vine to anchor the alternative flank. The raw combat mass commanded by these two individuals comfortably secured their status as terrifying, top-tier titans of the global hierarchy.
"The pair of us have genuinely been steered through a series of thorough loops by your calculations today."
Sabo let out a quiet, tired laugh, shaking his head gently. "You flatter my vanguard. I have formalised an exhaustive diagnostic of your capabilities today, Admirals. Let us permit our paths to cross down the line."
The exact microsecond the syllables cleared his lips, Sabo's six wings of pure fire ignited once more, his frame launching vertically into the high heavens as he executed a maximum-velocity retreat toward the open sea.
"Halt your vector!" The two Admirals launched their frames into active pursuit in absolute unison.
What manner of joke was this? They had deployed under an absolute operational mandate from the Holy Land. Now that the CP0 strike team had suffered a total, clean liquidation under their watch, returning to Central Command with absolute zero assets secured would render their institutional performance metrics an absolute joke.
Furthermore, with two Marine Admirals mobilizing synchronized capabilities, allowing their target to cleanly slip away would permanently drag their personal reputations through the filth.
During their initial clash in the Holy Land, Sabo commanded the tactical support of multiple high-level Division Commanders. Today, the faction that possessed the numerical and structural advantage was the Navy. Should they permit him to escape under these favorable parameters, their tactical competence would be ridiculed across the entire New World.
BUZZ!!
The corners of Sabo's lips curled into a precise smirk. Although his initial strategic blueprints had sustained significant friction, the core data verified that his vanguard had avoided any catastrophic resource loss. He had successfully bought an extended timeline for Morley's group; by this hour, their extraction vessel had undoubtedly cleared all local radar grids, vanishing beyond the horizon.
For the Navy's intelligence networks to re-establish a lock on their position would require a near-impossible miracle.
Now, the solitary equation demanding resolution was his independent escape.
Having logged decades of front-line field deployments, Sabo systematically prioritized his objectives within a fraction of a heartbeat, before pushing his six wings to trigger maximum absolute acceleration.
"Ugh..."
Mid-flight, a thin line of fresh crimson slowly leaked from the corner of his mouth.
Sustaining a high-intensity combat pacing of this scale while handling a multi-front retreat was proving exceptionally grueling for his vessel. Crucial to remember—his biological network was already operating with unresolved injuries from the Holy Land.
Sabo's velocity parameters were incredibly deep, but the tracking speeds commanded by the two Admirals were far from slow, rapidly transforming the airspace into a high-stakes, running dogfight across the open sea.
"This is catastrophic! Sabo's directional tracking has completely inverted!"
Deep within the primary deck of the Going Guard, Drake's facial parameters suddenly warped into an expression of severe alarm.
Throughout the preceding few minutes, the spatial coordinates mapping Sabo's position had been executing a series of frantic, erratic shifts. The physical alignment of the Vivre Card was completely incapable of stabilizing its vector.
This chaotic movement triggered a primitive, highly unstable warning within Drake's strategic models.
"Sabo is executing a high-velocity displacement!" Luffy noted, his eyes locked onto the burning fiber of the Vivre Card clutched in his palm.
At this current juncture, Luffy was actively anchoring the deck of the Going Guard—marking the absolute first instance his vessel had crossed the threshold of Drake's capital ship.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Host has successfully integrated Monkey D. Luffy onto the blueprint of the Going Guard. Special achievement unlocked — unique resource rewards distributed to vault!]
"Regardless of whatever tactical variables are altering his vector, our vanguard shall simply lock our navigation systems to follow the absolute path charted by the card. The data cannot lie!"
"Yeah!"
Luffy nodded fiercely, his teeth clenching.
"Sabo! Hold the line, our armadas are closing the distance!"
The Going Guard and the Thousand Sunny sundered the waves simultaneously, pushing their engines to maximum absolute knots as they tracked the exact vector indicated by the burning edge of Sabo's life fiber.