Chapter 73 The Calm Before the Storm
"Strawhat Luffy did what?!"
Rayleigh could only repeat back in amazement.
The fresh newspaper the Marine handed to Rayleigh had a front-page news story that was beyond belief. The Pirate World MC punched a Celestial Dragon.
When Rayleigh and every other Player started in this world, they were given some base-level knowledge such as the language, local culture, and some minor details on how the world viewed itself. This meant that every Player knew that this world considered Celestial Dragons on the same level that a Church considered gods. Blaspheming one was grounds for execution and harming the dignity of one meant that the next crusade had your name on it.
What was more interesting was the lack of a mention of Luffy's arrest. Celestial Dragons were the so-called Reverse Scale of the Marines and touching one was the grounds for an Admiral to be sent out. If Luffy had been captured, the front page would have included a picture of him in chains, but it seemed that he had miraculously gotten away. As expected of the favored son of the World's Will.
Rayleigh peeked into the Chatroom and asked a question.
[Swordsman: Was anyone there when Luffy punched the World Noble?]
[Captain Jack: I was in Sabaody at the time. Had front-row seats to the whole thing.]
[Immortal Beauty: And the Admiral they sent didn't see you?]
[Captain Jack: Ha! The best part about always wearing the same outfit and hat when seen is that you become practically invisible if you wear anything else.]
[Swordsman: So what happened?]
[Captain Jack: No idea. Kizaru and some Bear Robots started attacking every Pirate in sight.]
[Immortal Beauty: So you didn't actually see what caused it.]
[Justice: I know the details. My Teacher told me. The World Noble went to a slave auction to buy a Mermaid and it seems Luffy was there and punched him. The former Pirate King's first mate, the Dark King was there as well and stopped Kizaru from capturing Luffy.]
[Lightning Lord: F*cking b stards. When I'm strong enough, I'm gonna blast their entire city to ashes.]
[Dragon Chef: Good luck with that. There are dozens of Mihawk-level swordsmen there who will cut you down even if you fly in from the sky.]
[Justice: Speaking of Mihawk, hey Swordsman, are you coming to Marineford?]
[Swordsman: You mean for the Execution? Yeah, Mihawk is bringing me along.]
[Dyna Might: You're actually gonna be there Swordsman? I still have a bone to pick with you.]
[Dragon Chef: Swordsman, you're gonna help the Marines execute Ace?]
[Swordsman: Nope. I just want to find some good opponents. Mihawk won't get in trouble even if I turn against the Marines so I'll do what I want.]
[Titan: That makes sense.]
[Swordsman: Who else is coming? This battle should result in the destruction of Marineford, the end of the Whitebeard Pirates, or both. In other words, it is the biggest party we've seen as Players.]
[Wild King: I'm coming and I'm bringing an army of Sea Kings. If anyone else wants to come and destroy the Marines, I'll give you a free ride. Sea Kings can easily traverse the Tarai Currents.]
[Goddess of Ice: You'd better not or I'll turn you into an Ice Sculpture.]
[Wonder Woman: Why are you still with the Marines when you know how bad they are?]
[Justice: The training is good and we are not ungrateful. I can't believe how you can just ignore all the good the Marines do just because of the few bad things they are forced to do. If Marineford is destroyed, wild pirates will wreck the world and it will be on your heads!]
[Captain Jack: Meh. Sometimes it takes more effort to keep a broken thing together than it does to allow it to fall to pieces and rebuild it from scratch. If this is all it takes for the Marines to fall, then it is better for it to happen sooner so it can be rebuilt into something better later.]
[Swordsman: Dragon Chef, Titan, are you gonna come?]
[Titan: One of us will. The other will stay to take over Whitebeard's territory. We're gonna do best of three to figure out who will go and who will stay.]
[Swordsman: Why do you want his territory?]
[Dragon Chef: I don't have the Jedi Class so I can't go there to have fun. I'll be taking over Titan's crew when he leaves for the Jedi Galaxy and using the Beast Pirates, Big Mom Pirates, and Red Haired Pirates as sparring partners instead.]
Rayleigh read over the messages and recalled that a few of the Players still lacked a presence in the Force. During his Nen Training Lessons, he told the Players to go awaken their Jedi Class so that he could use Impartation to speed up the rate they understood his lessons, but Dragon Chef was one of the few that did not do so.
At the beginning of the game, it was possible to sacrifice a class to strengthen another class, but Rayleigh did not want to assume, and asking at the time would have been impolite.
[Swordsman: Does anyone have any guesses on who is gonna win? I tried peeking but I only saw static.]
[Wonder Woman: If Little Miss Icicle and her glowing SIMP don't get in our way, we should easily be able to destroy Marineford.]
[Justice: F*ck you! And you guys are badly underestimating the Marines if you think we'll lose. All three Admirals, the Fleet Admiral, Vice Admiral Garp, fifty other Vice-Admirals, fifty warships, and a hundred thousand armed Marines will be stationed here with Home Field Advantage!]
[Goddess of Ice: If you don't want to die, you should stay away. None of you are a match for the Admirals.]
Rayleigh could not guess how the battle would end but he had the confidence to survive any outcome. Even Mihawk could not keep up with his speed, so how could anyone else hope to do so if there wasn't a Fast Fast Devil Fruit or something.
Thinking on this, Rayleigh started meditating and tried to feel out if there was a Devil Fruit, a Flow or Law of the World that could enable someone to run and move like the Flash. He didn't find anything at first, so he delved deeper, silencing everything around him.
Within the center of the world, Rayleigh could not find anything that looked like a Law of Speed, but he did see a glowing golden law. From his senses, it seemed to be the most powerful law of them all, stronger than the rest of them put together. Rayleigh could not stop his curiosity and he delved deeper. The other laws around the golden law faded away, giving away the true form of the most powerful law in the world. Why did it look like a jacket?
Rayleigh awoke with a start when he realized that he had not been meditating, he had been dreaming. Without a bed, Rayleigh had not actually slept in over a year, so it wasn't too surprising that he fell asleep. Still, what a weird dream.
He was currently on a Marine Ship heading for Marineford. Usually, Mihawk would just take his own boat where he wanted to go, but due to the imminent war, Marineford would not be allowing private vessels anywhere close to the base so they had to be taken there by Marine Ship first. Thankfully, the voyage only lasted a few days. They just had to sail to Enies Lobby and the Tarai Current would take them to Marineford in a few hours.
Out of morbid curiosity, Rayleigh stayed on deck and use Clairvoyance as they sailed past Enies Lobby to the Gates of Justice. The main castle-like building at the end of the island was still in ruins while the rest of the island looked to be half-way through reconstruction.
Rayleigh asked one of the Marines on deck, "How did that happen?"
The Marine in question shook his head, unwilling to say anything, so Rayleigh used Jedi Mind Trick to ask again, "You can tell me, you know I won't say anything to anyone."
The Marine looked blank for a moment before looking back at Enies Lobby and sighing. "Well, alright, but don't tell anyone I told you." It seemed that he really wanted to get it off his chest.
According to the Marine, he was stationed there at the time. Two prisoners were being taken from Water Seven to Enies Lobby by sea train and it was during Aqua Laguna, an annual storm that sends a tidal wave at Water Seven. No one sails during Aqua Laguna, so there were no ships or extra men on Enies Lobby. No one expected a second sea train to follow the first one to Enies Lobby carrying a bunch of pirates and ship builders. Each track only had one train after all.
That was the first problem. The second problem was that, not long after the intruders arrived, the pair of Giant Marines used as guards turned on the rest of the Marines. So not only were they understaffed and at their weakest due to the timing, but they got surprised attacked and their main defenders turned on them. This wrecked their formations. Still, they were eventually able to capture and tie-up all the shipwrights, the giants, and everyone else but the pirates who were on the other side of the island.
The Marine didn't know what happened next, but he did know how it ended. Everyone was ordered to keep it secret since it was a complete disgrace, but it seemed that the one in charge of Enies Lobby accidentally signaled for a Buster Call on the Marine Base itself. This caused a fleet of ten warships, led by five Vice Admirals, to be sent to Enies Lobby where they would fire their cannons at the island until nothing was left standing. The captured shipwrights and giants got away while the pirates somehow sailed away, right through the warships.
Rayleigh asked, "How does everyone know that he did it accidentally?'
The Marine looked partially dead inside with shame as he answered, "Because, in addition to accidentally using the Buster Call communicator, he then explained himself to his prisoner while accidentally using the island-wide communicator, so everyone heard it."
Rayleigh gaped at the explanation. For some reason, the first term that appeared in his head was Nepo-baby. Rayleigh figured that whoever was in charge must have been extremely incompetent and only got their position because of a parent or two who held an even higher position. He sincerely hoped that such a person would not trouble future generations by having children, unaware of the fact that the prisoner he held at the time had already achieved this feat through the casting of the most powerful DnD Spell, Testicular Torsion.
After sailing through the Gates of Justice and dropping off supplies at Impel Down, Rayleigh had once again arrived at Marineford.
Mihawk had his own quarters at Marineford and left without a word. Justice quickly found Rayleigh and said, "Man, you got a tan!"
Rayleigh nodded. He usually only wore pants while training and the Calm Belt was without storms, so he had been standing in direct sunlight for months and acquired a very light bronze tone that made him stick out less in this world compared to his previous complexion. Rayleigh didn't know why, but Players seemed to tan very slowly.
According to his Birthday in this world, he had turned eighteen a few months ago so Rayleigh no longer had any remnant of a childish appearance. His sharp features almost looked like Mihawk's, but Rayleigh kept his face clean-shaven using his sword so he lacked the sideburns or beard that gave Mihawk his distinctive look. His brown hair was cut short but left uncombed and his brown eyes only lost in sharpness to Mihawk's own.
Justice and Goddess of Ice had also turned 18 and both had their own ships, crews, and ranks as Rear-Admirals. They would likely be promoted to Vice Admirals after the war if there was still a Marineford standing.
Since every Player was born within six months of the World Main Characters, none would be a full year older or younger than the others. Though this inconvenienced some of the Wizard Players since many were a year behind others in school depending on whether they were born a few months after the Wizard MC or not.
After getting taken away by Justice, Rayleigh asked, "Did you ask the Marines to tell Mihawk to bring me?"
Justice paused for a moment before answering, "Yeah, I wanted your help since things might really go sideways with all the other Players coming over. If you can help stall the other Players with Goddess of Ice and myself, then you won't have to do anything else but wait for the Marine's victory."
Rayleigh stated, "I don't mind fighting the other Players who show up, but I won't kill anyone if I don't want to."
Justice replied, "I wouldn't have it any other way. Me and Goddess of Ice haven't killed anyone yet. For all the bitching that the other Players have against the Marines, we don't kill our prisoners unless there is no choice. Even Marine Longswords are made purposefully too thick to make them last longer and less lethal."
"Yeah, but that should only be the case in standard times. This battle will be different."
Justice nodded and replied back, "Well, no one will say anything if we kill someone during the battle, but I'm good at disabling and Goddess of Ice is good at freezing while keeping them alive, so it won't be a problem. This battle should have the best of the best of the Haki users of both sides, but they will total less than one percent of everyone, with half of that being the Haki users of the Marines."
Justice took them to the training barracks and Goddess of Ice was waiting there with an ice sword and an expectant glare.
Rayleigh sighed and raised a finger for the universal sign of 'One Moment.' He then used Force Muffle and started reciting his Force Code aloud. Thanks to Force Muffle, neither Player could hear him, and a few moments later, a longsword materialized in Rayleigh's hand while he entered the state of Second Stage Zetsu.
Justice asked, "What was that and why are you in Zetsu?"
Rayleigh replied, "This is my training sword. I've been using it to practice my Sword skills and Haki."
Goddess of Ice asked, "So you can't use Nen?" She didn't have a Hunter Class but knew what Justice knew of it since he told her everything.
Rayleigh didn't answer but walked into the training stage and raised his sword.
Goddess of Ice vanished and reappeared behind Rayleigh with her sword raised and a confident smirk, but only after passing him did she hear the cracking sound of her Ice Sword shattering.
Rayleigh replied, "Just because I'm not using Nen doesn't mean I'm weaker than I was the last time we fought." Rayleigh's mastery of One with the Sword combined with his possession of Heart of the Sword into what could essentially be called a Sword Domain. As long as you were within his range, he would strike with the most efficient, quickest, and strongest attack. If you were within his range, you had already been cut.
Goddess of Ice made a new Ice sword that quickly became jet black and charged again using Shave to clear the distance. Her Haki saturated sword met Rayleigh's Haki saturated sword and the pressure from each met a half meter from one another, stopping the blades from making contact. A moment later, Rayleigh sliced through her pressure and stepped forward. She could move the world with her Will, but the world she moved was not being led by her specialty.
Rayleigh stated, "Let me show you something," and the black sheen of his sword vanished. He moved with the same speed and strength against Goddess of Ice and her Haki infused Ice Sword seemed to best Rayleigh for a moment, but then he powered through, erupting in strength. She moved to deflect the blow and strike back, but her own attack was caught and slowed to a halt in a matter she found quite familiar.
In this way, Rayleigh sparred with her for ten more minutes only using the Law of Ice. By the end, Goddess of Ice had figured out what Rayleigh was doing and asked, "How can you do that?"
Justice asked, "What did he do?"
She answered, "His sword felt colder than mine did. It felt more like ice than my sword did."
This reply left Justice stumped with more questions than answers.
Rayleigh explained, "I just moved my sword like freezing ice. Did you know that pure, still water can be super-chilled to below freezing without getting frozen? But when super-chilled water gets disturbed or mixed with something, it freezes rapidly with unstoppable force, almost like an explosion."
From what he observed, Rayleigh could tell that the effect of the Chilly Chilly Fruit made water think it was super-chilled and then caused it to instantly freeze. So it wasn't actually the power of Ice, but the power of cold. Rayleigh figured out how such an effect would look as a sword style and showed it off to Goddess of Ice to help her understand her own element a little better.
Seeing that this was something that could help her, Goddess of Ice continued their spar, but no longer used Haki. She simply tried to digest the sword form that Rayleigh had made up on the spot.
An hour later, an old Marine with a walking cane entered the training area. It was not someone any of the Players were familiar with but he wore a Commodore's outfit and would not have entered their private training room without a reason. The old man seemed feeble enough to drop dead any moment and peered through his glasses for a few moments before spotting Rayleigh. "Ah yes, you. Please follow me to your quarters."
Rayleigh looked over to Justice who shrugged.
Not seeing anything particularly suspicious about it, Rayleigh exited Zetsu which caused his sword to disperse, and walked over to the old man who started to slowly hobble out of the training hall. Justice and Goddess of Ice followed since they had nothing better to do than see where Rayleigh would be staying until the execution.
Rayleigh caught the man's hand a moment later when he tried to touch Rayleigh's face. Rayleigh smiled and said, "Entering Zetsu is fine, but that variation of Force Stealth does not hide your presence in the Force, it just makes you harder to notice by those without a strong presence in the Force."
The old man sighed and slapped his other hand on his own cheek. Once he made contact, his form shifted to a youth of their own age.
Rayleigh let the Player's other hand go and asked, "Mimic, I presume?"
Justice exclaimed, "You're Mimic! How long have you been here?!" Mimic was something of a pseudo-legend among the Players as everyone had heard of him but no one had ever seen him. He also had the most up-to-date info on the World Government and the information he freely shared about them helped many of the Players.
Rather than answer, Mimic looked over Rayleigh again and replied, "I'm curious how you were able to completely hide your own Force presence while fighting her. I haven't figured out that trick yet."
"Ah, that's not hiding my presence, that's cutting it off completely. If every Force user is an antenna, you simply changed the frequency of your broadcast while I shut off the power."
"What?! But that means you have to give up all your Force Powers!" He honestly could not believe someone would take such a risky step. Without Force powers, life saving skills like Danger Sense didn't work.
"That's right, and it makes Haki so much easier to learn."
Tired of being ignored, Justice ran over and shouted, "Hey! I asked you a question!"
Mimic looked over at Justice and said, "I'm a CP9 Agent, I don't need to answer your questions. But I will if you ask nicely."
Goddess of Ice asked, "Were you the one who touched my face a few years ago?"
Mimic tapped his face with one hand, turning into a duplicate of Goddess of Ice. What was interesting was that this duplicate was the same age.
Rayleigh asked, "Is it always the same age?"
Mimic changed back and shook his head, "No, but I don't need to touch a face to update an existing one, any skin contact will do for an update. In any case, I came here for two reasons. One, I wanted to see if I could get a copy of you. Two, I also wanted to thank you."
"Well, that's direct. What did you want to thank me for?"
Mimic changed back to Goddess of Ice and a moment later, an Ice Sword formed in her hand.
Justice exclaimed, "You copied her Devil fruit too?!"
Mimic changed back and shook his head. "Not exactly. You see, after hearing your theory on how Devil Fruits make up the laws of the world, I started my own investigation and came to a few conclusions. As a thank you for telling me what you discovered, I wanted to tell you what I discovered in turn."
"Oh? What did you find out?" Although Rayleigh could make his sword cold, he could not just make a Sword of Ice as easily as Mimic had using Haki alone.
Mimic continued, "If we're going to use Cultivation Terms, then you could say that each Devil Fruit grants power over a certain law, but that is only half of what it does. Each Devil Fruit also grants the user the Physique most capable of using that Law. Before realizing this, even if I copied a Logia User, I could not use the power of a Logia Fruit. But now I can. I can copy the Physique of a Devil Fruit User and activate it using the Law associated with that Devil Fruit."
Goddess of Ice asked, "You mean like Heavenly Ice Physique or Pure Yin Physique, that sort of thing?"
Mimic nodded to the politely asked question and continued, "Yes. Without that physique, even if you master the Law of Ice, you cannot recover your body from Ice like she can because you lack the innate physique to do so. And I also think I understand the main difference between us and the Warrior, Ninjas, and Wizards. Again, using Cultivation terms, our classes cultivate the Dao while they are Body Cultivators."
Rayleigh asked, "So you think that they can continually remake and reforge their bodies while we can obtain the power of the world?"
"That would make the most sense, wouldn't it? Body Cultivators are usually much stronger in Light Novels." He then stared at Rayleigh for a moment before adding, "Behind Sword Cultivators of course. In any case, I have paid off my own debt to you, goodbye."
He then turned to leave, with Justice saying, "Creepy bastard. At least we know what he looks like now."
Rayleigh gave Justice a skeptical look and asked, "Do you really think that was his actual appearance just now?"
Justice looked stunned for a moment. Trying to change the subject, he pointed out, "Wait, so who is going to show you where you're going to stay?"
The three remained silent at the question. This was awkward.
A few days passed and the mood around Marineford got tenser and tenser.
The day of the execution arrived and the Pirate Chatroom was surprisingly quiet. It was obvious that many plans were to be set in motion this day and the Players responsible did not want those plans advertised. Rayleigh even felt a small threat to his own life coming, but it wasn't enough to concern him.
Three hours before the execution, the prisoner, a young man with black hair and freckles, was brought to the newly built execution platform. The whole of the inner part of Marineford was arranged like a layered cake with the Fleet Admiral Sengoku, Vice Admiral Garp, the prisoner, and two armed guards set on the top of the platform. Below the platform stood the three Admirals, Kizaru, Aokiji, and Akainu. Below them were the Seven Warlords, or at least five of them. Crocodile and the Fishman Jinbei were missing. Below them were lines of Vice Admirals, and the lowest layer below that, standing in front of the harbor to Marineford, were one hundred thousand Marines.
Of the group, the one who attracted the most eyes was the Warlord Boa Hancock. She had pale, flawless skin, ebony black, perfectly straight hair, and a large snake at her side that had curled itself into a standing chair for her. In addition to being ridiculously beautiful, the woman radiated pure SIMP aura, turning any lesser man who looked upon her or got too close into her SIMP. Rayleigh had not seen such a phenomenon before and figured it must have been the woman's Devil Fruit. Without it, she would have just been an attractive woman who could probably place 2nd or 3rd in a major Beauty Pageant at most, but with it, she seemed to be the most beautiful woman alive.
That said, the effect was close to zero on him. Rayleigh effectively spent his puberty doing the harshest training, so the discipline he forged kept his mind and hormones where they needed to be. He recognized the effect in the same way he recognized that ice was cold, but that didn't mean he felt cold. Still, it was best not to look down on her. For all he knew, that was just her passive SIMP aura and she could magnify it a hundred million fold, making everyone around her unable to think of her as anything but a Goddess descended to Earth who must be worshiped, adored, and obeyed. That was very unlikely, but Rayleigh would rather over-estimate her than get caught off-guard.
The other Warlords each had their own unique quirks. The man called Doflamingo had sharp sunglasses, wore a coat with pink feathers, and had a malicious smile of enjoyment at the fear the Marines were showing. For some reason, he kept one leg in the air.
The man the Players referred to as a Robot Bear had a massive frame and chest, but oddly skinny legs and arms.
The one called Gecko Moria looked even less human than Robot Bear, he was way taller, had purple skin, two horns on his head, and vertical stitches down his chest.
And then there was Mihawk, just standing there being his usual badass self with his arms crossed, overlooking the scene that would soon fall into carnage.
After looking them all over again, Rayleigh realized that each of the Warlords seemed to be associated with an Animal, either in name or appearance. Crocodile, Shark, Snake, Flamingo, Bear, Gecko, and Hawk.
At the moment, Rayleigh did not have his sword. Keeping his Empty Sword out left him defenseless while keeping out the Sword of Babylon required way too much aura since it could only be used when using both Babylon and Overdrive. He didn't know when the fighting would start or how long it would last, so he had to save his reserves for the moment.
It wouldn't matter though. Even without the sword, Rayleigh could use Overdrive to boost his speed, transform his aura into sharpened sword aura, and fight using martial arts and boxing. No need to go all-out until there was something to actually fight.
Rayleigh, Goddess of Ice, and Justice actually stood on the third level, where the Vice Admirals were standing, but instead of being in front of the execution platform, they were standing closer to the sides.
Once everyone was standing in their positions, Fleet Admiral Sengoku, a man with round-rim glasses and a thick black afro took out a communication snail and started speaking into it.
"Gentlemen, I have something to tell you. Portgas D Ace. This man will die here today. And there is great meaning in that death."
Since the execution should not be starting for three hours, Rayleigh figured that they either intended to make a long show of it, or they were scheming something.
Sengoku placed the little communication snail next to the prisoner and ordered, "Ace, say the name of your father!"
Not only were there speakers around the whole of Marineford, but there were also TV-Snails and this picture was being broadcast, live, to some areas while other areas got the audio from Radio-Snails.
Ace shouted in protest, "My father is Whitebeard!"
Sengoku argued back, "No!"
The man bearing the tattoo of Whitebeard on his back declared, "It's true! The only father I have is Whitebeard! Nobody else!"
The Fleet Admiral seemed to give up convincing him and entered story mode. He told the world, "A long time ago, we were desperately searching. Because on some island, somewhere, that man's child might be alive. Cipher Pol could only give us the smallest bit of information. So we checked all the newborn children who were born soon after, as well as their mothers, and still we found nothing."
"That should have been it... But your mother gave her life for your birth, using sheer willpower to perform a trick. She deceived us, no. She deceived the entire world! In the South Blue, there's an island by the name of Batelira. Your mother's name was Portgas D. Rouge. We never imagined what she was capable of. Out of love for her child. She carried him in her womb for twenty months. And when she gave birth, her strength finally gave out and she died right there."
"One year and three months had passed since the father died. A child born with the blood of the world's greatest villain running through his veins. That child was you. There's no way that you don't know! Your father... Was the Pirate King! Gol D. Roger!"
Rayleigh thought to himself, 'Well, I'm sure this won't end badly at all.'
Chapter 74 The Whitebeard Pirates
The atmosphere of the whole of Marineford was struck with an oppressive silence following the Fleet Admiral's announcement of Ace's lineage. Shock and awe radiated from the assembled army of Marines and even from some of the gathered guests.
A few parties from the Seven Warlords seemed intrigued by the revelation and their anticipation of the coming chaos only deepened.
Rayleigh glanced over at Justice and Goddess of Ice, noticing that they were trying to hide some of the shame they were feeling. They, just like every other Player and man of common sense, were easily able to read between the lines. Would the Marines patiently wait for every pregnant woman to have their kid and do a DNA test to confirm it wasn't his?
It was obvious that the Marines had killed every pregnant woman and newborn child and since they didn't even get the right one, it meant that they had killed numerous innocent lives for literally no reason at all.
After he took a moment for the tension to rise, the Fleet Admiral continued, "Was it two years now? You took your mother's name. As the Captain of the Spade Pirates you ascended through the pirate world with your superior strength and we finally noticed that Roger's blood had survived. But Whitebeard realized it at the same time we did. In order to raise you to be the next Pirate King, he took in his former rival's son onto his own ship!"
Ace shouted in rebuttal, "No! I joined his crew to make Whitebeard the next Pirate King!"
The Fleet Admiral shot down, "You're the only one who thinks that. We couldn't take any rash action against you because you were protected by Whitebeard! If we left you alone, slowly but surely, you would start to gain the qualities to stand at the summit of the Pirate World! That's why there is so much meaning in cutting you down today! Even if it means total war with Whitebeard!"
Rayleigh could not help but ask a certain question in the Chat Room.
[Swordsman: So does anyone plan on saving Ace?]
[Justice: Wait, are you really gonna help the Pirates?]
[Swordsman: I have yet to hear a crime he has committed other than being a pirate. Is that alone worth execution to you?]
[Dragon Chef: He's right. Ace can't inherit Roger's crimes since Roger was already executed for his crimes. And executing him for something he hasn't done yet is even more pointless. I'd get him out of there myself, but Titan got me in our match so it's up to him now.]
[Titan: Don't worry, I'll save him. Whitebeard plans to die today so I'm gonna try and take in as much of his crew as possible.]
[Captain Jack: Don't worry, if he does die, I'll destroy the entirety of Marineford and every Marine in it.]
[Goddess of Ice: You wouldn't dare!]
[Captain Jack: If you don't want to find out, then you'd better make sure Ace successfully escapes. The party is about to start.]
As if on cue, a panicked Marine ran up to the execution platform and shouted to Sengoku, "Fleet Admiral Sengoku! We have a report! The Gates of Justice have begun to open without anybody's orders! We can't contact the control room!"
The Fleet Admiral ordered to the assembled army, "Here they come! All men to your battle stations!"
Rayleigh looked past the open space that led into Marineford's inner harbor and saw dozens of irregular ships, all with a variation of the Jolly Roger on their forward flag.
Every flag was recognizable and many of the gathered Marines started listing off the flags and crews they knew while shouting for orders so they would know what to do. The problem was that Whitebeard's pirate vessel did not seem to be leading the pirate fleet. He definitely had to be there, so where was he? The Marines in charge couldn't decide what to do before they found him.
Luckily, or unluckily depending on how one perceived it, they did not have to look for long as bubbles started surging up from the center of Marineford's inner harbor. With a massive surge of water, three massive ships and a fourth that was even larger rose from beneath the water's surface.
None of the ships looked part-submarine which meant they used a different method to sail beneath the Marine's sight before breaching the water's surface. Rayleigh figured they used bubbles.
Marineford was very close to Sabaody Archipelago, a place that had massive trees which produced a soap bubble-like resin. This resin could be used to coat ships, allowing them to go underwater, but the bubbles popped if you were too far from Sabaody and the resin-saturated water, so this was the only place that such a tactic could be easily used.
The largest of the four ships was carved to look like a massive white whale and appropriately named the Moby Dick. On the sculpted head of the deck, in plain view, was another of the strange humans with impossible body proportions. Standing over three times taller than a normal human adult was the heavily muscular titan known as the world's strongest man, Edward Newgate, also known as Whitebeard.
The man did not shout but his voice carried throughout the venue. "My beloved son had better be unharmed." His eyes locked on Ace's position and he chuckled. "You wait right there Ace."
After announcing himself to Ace, Whitebeard then announced himself to the Marines. With his fists.
Whitebeard smashed the air on both sides of him. The sound of cracking was noticed before the actual cracks in the air became visible. It was like a pane of very thick glass was around the old man and had just been smashed and the spiderweb of cracks just hung in the air, relative to the man's position on the swaying ship.
Rayleigh's expanded senses noticed the invisible shockwaves from the cracks that propagated out and down. Moments later, a dull sound inaudible to humans reverberated beneath their feet. It was something that happened prior to earthquakes, the vibrations of seismic plates shifting against each other. Whitebeard's fists had caused the earth beneath the sea floor some distance from Marineford to crack and shift, causing an earthquake.
From the platform, Ace mumbled a few things before shouting, "Why couldn't you guys have just forgotten about me?! It's my own fault I ended up like this!"
Whitebeard seemed to have no problem lying aloud, "No. As I recall, it was I who told you to go after him, my son."
The large old man ignored Ace pointing out his lies and continued, "I told him to go, right Marco?"
Behind him, one of the few Division Commanders with a normal body shape, Marco the Phoenix, confirmed aloud, "Indeed, I heard it with my own ears. We're sorry for putting you through this trouble, Ace."
He then gave a speech about how they were here to send a message about what happens to those who touch the crew of Whitebeard.
A moment later, the physical reverberations of the earthquake Whitebeard created were felt by all in Marineford. Windows and foundations cracked and hundreds of soldiers toppled over from the intense shaking. Those with a bit of experience knew that the shaking was only a prelude to the true consequence of Whitebeard's previous action.
The water that had been jutted up from the seaquake had flowed toward Marineford and now created two massive tidal waves, both taller than an 80-story skyscraper. If nothing was done, Marineford and everyone within would be underwater in another twenty seconds.
Aokiji moved quickly, using Moonwalk to gain altitude, and froze a line of ice from his hands to both waves. The moment the lines of ice extending from his palms reached the waves, they seemed to instantly freeze. Aokiji then tried sending lances of ice at Whitebeard but the attacks were shattered with a wave of his hand, causing Aokiji to fall toward the water of the inner harbor. The moment he touched the surface, Aokiji flash froze the water, preventing the ships from getting closer and stopping further ships from entering the inner harbor.
The inner harbor of the Marineford had hundreds of defenses and once the ships were rendered immobile, every cannon started opening fire to destroy the ships and kill the pirates within.
Whitebeard's crew had no intention of remaining sitting ducks so many vigorously launched themselves into the fray, leaping off the ships onto the ice to rush into the harbor on foot. Others stayed on the ships and used their own cannons to attack Marineford from within.
The Vice Admirals stood in front of the common cannon-fodder Marines at the head of the harbor to take the first wave and push them back while the Marines used their rifles to fire shot after shot, trying to thin the numbers.
Rayleigh's attention turned to the side when Mihawk took a step forward and gripped his blade. After locking eyes with Whitebeard, Mihawk slashed down, sending a flying slash in Whitebeard's direction.
Rayleigh did not know why, but Mihawk's slash did not contain any Conqueror's Haki. His own flows did not command the flow of the world to move forward. Was he hiding it from the Marines or was he just being lazy?
In either case, the slash was halted before it reached the ship by a man only a little smaller than Whitebeard. The shine that reflected off the man's body was something Rayleigh recognized as the effect of the same Devil Fruit as the Player Glitter, the fruit that allowed a person to turn their body into diamond.
Normal diamond should still have been split, even with Mihawk's lazy slash, but the Diamond-bodied division commander likely used Haki on top of his ability, granting him an invincible level of defense.
Kizaru the Light Logia user tried attacking with rapid fire lasers but those were blocked by Division Commander Marco who turned into a flaming phoenix to take the attack while ignoring damage, something his Mythical Zoan fruit was capable of.
A half dozen Vice-Admirals, all members of the Giant race, were called forward to crush the pirates when the diamond guy performed the Ultimate Tatami Mat Flip.
As in, he reached into the crack that Mihawk's slash made into the ice, grabbed the entire ice chunk between him and the harbor, and tossed it at the execution platform. Those who blinked and missed it realized too late that a massive ice block had been yeeted toward the center of the Marine formation.
Rayleigh turned to ask Justice, "Can you do that?"
All of Rayleigh's Nen-enhanced weights at the same time weighed about 2.56 million kilograms. Though he used it for speed training, not weight lifting training. Without using Nen or the Force, he was confident that he could lift ten to twenty times that pretty well. But that ice block soaring through the air had to weigh at least 300 million kilograms, well over a hundred times what Rayleigh used. And it hadn't been simply lifted, it had been Yeeted at least the length of two football fields in distance and ten stories in height.
Akainu used a Magma fist to block and evaporate the ice into steam. The fist then continued forward and broke into pieces, raining fireballs of magma down on all the pirates and the four pirate ships.
Justice confidently answered, "Of course I can, who do you take me for? I'm definitely the strongest Player."
Justice had stored years worth of Sunlight converted Nen within his body and when used, could likely exhibit more power than any other player than did not walk down a similar path.
Rayleigh started walking forward and Goddess of Ice called out, "Whose side are you on right now?"
Rayleigh answered, "I'm gonna play with the Pirates at the moment. After that, we'll see."
After confirming that he would not be harming the Marines, Justice and Goddess of Ice nodded to each other and jumped into the fight as well.
Rayleigh had to consciously regulate his breathing and heart rate, for both were threatening to go out of control. Never before had he needed to exercise so much self-restraint, but looking at the battle playing out before him, he couldn't help it. This was what he had been looking forward to his entire life. This was what all that murderous training had been for. It was all he could do to not just rush off into the fold.
Oh, he was going to, but certain things had to be done first. He had a checklist and everything.
First, he had to divide the combat zones into regions and determine which was appropriate, how much time would it take to wipe out every pirate within, and how the pirates around that region would react.
Honestly, the main reason he was going after the Pirates rather than the Marine was that the latter wasn't worth it. The Vice Admirals, with one exception, weren't a challenge, the giants among the Marines didn't have decent combat standards, and the Admirals were too busy playing with the Whitebeard Division Commanders.
Before Rayleigh could make a decision, a figure Rayleigh could only think of as a Giant-Giant emerged from the water at the far end of the pirate fleet. When this creature stood upright, the seawater only came up to his knees. Marine ships opened fire on the human-form godzilla but the behemoth grabbed one of the Marine ships, lifted it out of the water, and proceeded to use it as a club to smash the other Marine ships.
As he walked forward, the fleet of pirate ships started lining up behind him as he made a path through the blockade of Marine ships toward the entrance to the inner harbor. At the moment, only pirates from the four ships within the inner harbor were fighting with the Marines, but if the blockade was broken, tens of thousands of other pirates would swarm into the base and the delicate balance would shatter in the pirate's favor.
"HEY SWORDSMAN!" A familiar shout, something Rayleigh figured was meant for him, echoed through the space. The same voice then shouted at the giant-giant, "Have you ever been punched at the speed of light?" The source of the voice then turned into a mass of light that shot from the ground directly at the face of the giant-giant. Justice re-materialized at the last moment as a thud and crack could be heard from on high. Those who turned up to look had their jaws drop as the giant-giant was lifted into the air and backwards. His flying figure sailed over the fleet of Marine ships and all the way back to the pirate ships where he crashed into one of them and made a large wave that disrupted the others.
The giant-giant sunk into the water for a moment before he floated back up, his form unmoving.
Justice had used the rebound from the punch to jump back to the shore and shouted, "Who's next?!" Those capable of seeing Haki would also be able to see the sun-like glow of blinding aura around him.
Rayleigh smirked. The giant-giant was definitely bigger than that ice block and that yeet was much further than the diamond dude's, so that confirmed that Justice wasn't completely filled with hot air.
At least Rayleigh had finished analyzing the combat regions. Besides paying close attention to the Division Commanders, he also needed to pay attention to the Warlords as they had no problem with friendly fire. Boa Hancock even seemed to take out as many Marines as she did Pirates.
Rayleigh vanished from his position and reappeared over a fallen Marine, picking up his sword. He used En, Clairvoyance, and Danger Sense to cover his bases and find where the Marines were being the most overwhelmed and started clashing swords.
Rayleigh was not wearing a Marine Uniform, but he was wearing a black suit with a tie that he requested from a Marine tailor. He had no intention of going into battle bare-chested or wearing samurai robes. Since he wore a clean suit and used a Marine-issued sword, no one questioned which side he was fighting for.
At least at first.
Rayleigh found a pirate and lightly slashed the man's side, shoulder, and forearm, causing him to drop his sword. Before it reached the ground, Rayleigh struck the man's shatterpoint to knock him out, grabbed the pirate, and yeeted him into an open space near one of the pirate ships. Rayleigh then nabbed the pirate's sword and started attacking another pirate.
Seeing a 'Marine' steal a pirate's sword had the other pirate fuming and caused him to viciously fight back.
Said pirate faltered when he realized that his thieving opponent was using the exact sword style of the man he had just taken that sword from.
Once Rayleigh finished digesting the experience of the sword using Psychometry and combat, he quickly sped up, disarmed his opponent, knocked him out, yeeted him where the other one was, and took his sword next.
In three minutes, he had defeated ten pirates and a pile of defeated pirates was already forming where he had been yeeting them all.
Yes, Rayleigh was in a mood to yeet things. It happens to the best of us.
Five sword-using pirates were already surrounding him with two more trying to shoot him but Rayleigh didn't even consider this fair. These were low level guys and Rayleigh was just using them for a warm-up until the real fun started.
The sound of shouting and screaming announced the arrival of new guests.
Over one hundred Sea Kings started attacking the Marine ships outside. The Giant-Giant was still out cold but the path to the inner harbor was being widened by the sea kings.
This meant that the Players who were not already hanging around Marineford had arrived.
While keeping a few Wills on standby to watch for Players, Rayleigh continued adding to his repertoire of combat experience while warming up. Most of the irregularly sized pirates had equally irregular swords, but Rayleigh's physical strength was far above his size. Not as strong as that diamond guy, but none of his opponents were division commanders, so that wasn't a problem and Rayleigh quickly got used to each of the large blades he used and digested each of their experiences in the heat of battle.
Some swords looked like over-sized cutlasses, others like giant cleavers. A few pirates used two swords and Rayleigh would disarm them both, yeet the fellow into the pile, and use both at the same time to digest that pirate's style, adding it to the list.
His Clairvoyance could cover the entirety of Marineford and he witnessed many things. Kizaru was faking an injury near the execution platform but was actually on standby in case it was needed. Akainu was standing near the western residential district of Marineford, killing any pirate who tried to leave the battle area. He also killed a few Marines that tried to run away.
Aokiji seemed to be discussing various things with some captains, likely plotting something.
Several of his Wills then detected a change in the flow of the world. Something was coming. The sound of screaming from above made Rayleigh raise an eyebrow.
A ship was falling from the sky. Well, from the top of the new glacier that stood over Marineford. On it were clearly pirates, prisoners, one pervert with a very large head, and someone Rayleigh recognized from his wanted poster. Monkey D Luffy.
By either coincidence or plot armor, the ship fell into the segment of the inner harbor where the Diamond Guy had yeeted away the ice, meaning that the ship landed into the relatively soft patch of water rather than the hard sheet of ice.
Most of the pirates onboard swam to the nearest shore while others were dragged or thrown from the water. Rayleigh guessed that they were devil fruit users.
Rayleigh got a very good look at Luffy and sighed. He was pretty sure what he was seeing was not normal.
Rayleigh did not know if it was because of the method he used to awaken his Observation Haki or if it was due to the interaction between his Force senses and his Observation Haki, but he was 100% certain that he could feel things using it that others could not. Or maybe they did notice it, but could not define or recognize it.
The flow of the world circled Luffy almost lovingly. Did he eat the Human Human Fruit Model: Main Character? Was that how Plot Armor worked?
Rayleigh only had to wonder what he was doing here for a moment before Luffy shouted, "Ace! I finally found you!"
Rayleigh rolled his eyes. Of course, the soon-to-be executed, son of the pirate king, person who had not actually committed any egregious crimes, was close to the Main Character. This battle would determine the future of the world. Of course, the Main Character should fall from the sky and end up in the heart of it.
Rayleigh also felt some Force presences sneak into the group from the sea, near where the Sea Kings were wreaking havoc. Some entered the fight against the Marines while others snuck deeper into Marineford.
Goddess of Ice stationed herself outside and froze the water surrounding Marineford after getting the Marine vessels to point their cannons at the Pirate ships. This stopped the Pirate ships outside from getting through via ship and sealed the water's surface to block the sea kings from entering combat without breaking the ice.
Like the Pirates inside, the pirates outside thought to jump off the ships and charge forward, but Justice stayed at Goddess of Ice's side and rained rapid-fire light shots faster than the Pirates could charge forward. These two essentially halted the 43 Whitebeard ships outside, preventing the inner fleet from receiving any reinforcements.
Some Giant Marines and one sandy pirate tried to attack Whitebeard but the former were crushed by Whitebeard and the latter was stopped by Luffy who then took a moment to chat with Whitebeard before bouncing off in the direction of the execution platform.
Rayleigh kept a Will using Clairvoyance on Luffy and the world seemed to move to assist his every step. This was worth paying attention to because Rayleigh learned more about the flow of the world and because there was a lot of collateral damage from those attacking Luffy and Rayleigh intended to avoid it.
Like Kizaru shooting a laser at Luffy. Luffy was pushed out of the way by the wink of the large-headed pervert, but the blast from the laser was like that of a hundred grenades. Rayleigh was far enough away to be fine, but he wore his Mandalorian Melee Shield and would activate it if that kind of explosion got too close. His body didn't need the protection, but his new clothes did.
Ace shouted at Luffy to run away and get out of there, but Luffy shouted back, "I'm your brother!"
At this announcement, Fleet Admiral Sengoku got back on the transponder Snail and reported that Luffy, "Is the flesh and blood son of the Revolutionary Dragon."
The pile of defeated pirates had grown quite large at this point and Rayleigh was looking for either a Swordmaster or a Devil Fruit user. Even among the Division Commanders, there weren't a lot of Devil Fruit users.
The problem of who to challenge solved itself though when he noticed the screams of Marines. The pirates in prisoner getups from the fallen ship happily joined the fight and many of them were very strong. They were also very excited to torture and kill Marines so it didn't take long for a new pile to start forming near an open space next to where that weak, red-nosed pirate had been shouting at Whitebeard from.
At one point Mihawk played with Luffy, seemingly intent on testing Luffy's Plot Armor to see if he would survive. One slice that Luffy dodged split the frozen tidal wave horizontally, causing it to slide forward and into the Marine ships outside the walls of Marineford.
What stopped Mihawk's game was the Division Commander named Vista, someone Rayleigh had been wanting to fight after warming up, but it seemed that Mihawk had gotten him first. That wasn't fair.
Seeing his chosen target taken by his teacher, Rayleigh couldn't see another Swordmaster among the Whitebeard Pirates so he decided to fight that Diamond Guy and see if he could cut through his Shatterpoint and break him, something even Mihawk had not done with his less-than-serious slash.
The Diamond guy was fighting a Sand Logia user who also seemed to be a pirate. From the context of their shouting, the sand guy wanted to kill Whitebeard and the Diamond dude was getting in his way. That meant the sand guy would not mind in the slightest if Rayleigh took his dance partner for himself.
Or at least that had been the plan.
Rayleigh waved a hand to the side to send the fired explosives coming toward him back to their senders.
The pair of figures took the impacts point blank without dodging, causing a deafening explosion Rayleigh used a bit of Force Muffle to shield himself from to prevent hearing loss.
Once the smoke cleared, Rayleigh spotted the pair of Players. One he recognized, the other he did not. Neither had the slightest bit of damage from the explosion.
Dyna Might shouted, "I've got a score to settle with you, Swordsman."
Rayleigh ignored the bombastic idiot and addressed the lady at his side, "And why are you here? Have we met?" The pale-skinned Player had short, white hair and wore sunglasses. She was a bit taller than Dyna Might who was stockier.
The lady answered, "No, this is our first meeting, but I'm here on business. You remember Enigma, right?"
"The guy who got in my way during the Chimera Ant thing? Yeah. What about him?"
"Well, he made a new character after Hisoka killed his first one and made a little deal with me. If I kill you, he swore to be my subordinate."
Rayleigh asked, "And is that price worth it? Is the power of a guy who had to start over worth making an enemy of me?"
"Well, it's worth an attempt at least. His potential is quite high."
Rayleigh shook his head. He guessed that this girl was also a 20-Talent Player and knew that Enigma was as well. A 20-Talent Player with another 20-Talent Player as a minion would have an excellent advantage against others when the Players started fighting each other in the future.
Too bad she had to target him. He wondered how she would feel when she figured out how much she lost from this deal.
Rayleigh raised his sword into a defensive posture and said, "Ladies first."
She smiled and raised her hand. From it, her aura expanded faster than a bullet, something Rayleigh detected using Force Danger Sense and calculating the future through the senses he felt using Observation Haki. Rayleigh vanished from his position and reappeared, sword swinging.
Rayleigh didn't intend to cut off her head. Her arm would do just fine as a test to see if this Hunter had the right to hunt him.
The moment Rayleigh's borrowed sword made contact with her aura, the aura started propagating itself, expanding endlessly. Rayleigh pushed his Haki-infused, Nen-coated sword further, but the closer to her skin the sword got, the greater the degree of expansion of her aura, pushing the sword away.
Rayleigh's danger sense went into over-drive and before Rayleigh could remove the sword, her aura expanded out like a battering ram, launching Rayleigh into the hull of one of Whitebeard's ships, neatly planting him into it.
All of Rayleigh's Wills analyzed what happened and arrived at the same conclusion. Gojo Satoru. This girl made a Gojo Satoru build. And she was here to kill him. Rayleigh couldn't help but smile.
ความคิดเห็นย่อย
คุณลักษณะความคิดเห็นย่อหน้าอยู่ในขณะนี้บนเว็บ! เลื่อนเมาส์ไปที่ย่อหน้าใดก็ได้แล้วคลิกไอคอนเพื่อเพิ่มความคิดเห็นของคุณ
นอกจากนี้คุณสามารถปิด / เปิดได้ตลอดเวลาในการตั้งค่า
เข้าใจแล้ว