The lookout's strangled cry froze the decks. Every head turned as one.
What they saw struck like lightning. A figure lurched out of the treeline, staggering over the snow.
Golden hair—once gleaming like a crown—hung in matted clumps. A jeweled hunting coat was soaked through and clung to a body streaked with blood. Tears and snot smeared a ruined face.
A Celestial Dragon.
"Quick… Marines!"
"That man—he's gone mad…"
"They're dead… so many are dead…"
"He's on a killing spree…"
Red veins crawled across the noble's eyes. He waved frantically at the warships, voice cracking to a ragged scream.
"Help—!"
The plea cut off.
A towering, blood-red silhouette appeared behind him, swallowing him in shadow. The noble's pupils pinpricked; his whole body began to shake.
"No…"
Terror devoured his expression.
Time seemed to hitch. Even the snow hung motionless.
On every deck, Marines stared at the distant shore, breath turned to ice.
The Celestial Dragon's twisted face. The Celestial Dragon running for his life. And that godlike, demonic figure.
Sengoku's eyes widened. A cold dread rose and seized his heart.
The blood-soaked Vice Admiral smiled.
"Slipped away while I was busy with the old coot, did you?"
He sighed, almost weary. Then he lifted a finger, raised his right boot, and pressed it to his lips.
"Shhh."
The smile sharpened.
Under the Marines' shocked, horrified gazes—under Sengoku's glare—his boot came down.
Splat.
The noble's skull burst like overripe fruit. Red and white sprayed the snow.
Men reeled as if shocked through the soles of their feet. Some stumbled back; a few young recruits collapsed where they stood, faces chalk-white.
"V–Vice Admiral Darren…"
"He… he killed… a Celestial Dragon?"
"Then those screams we heard—"
"N–no… impossible…"
Dread spread like frost across the fleet.
Silence fell so deep the glint of drawn sabers seemed to ring.
Somewhere in that hush, the faint magnetic haze over the island unraveled. Alarms shrieked awake across the line of battleships—short, stinging notes, highest-tier war alerts.
In the thin edge between clamor and silence, Sakazuki adjusted his cap and let out a long, slow breath, face unreadable. Borsalino drew his hands from his pockets and smiled a little too brightly. Kuzan jerked to his feet as if struck, eyes bloodshot.
"DARREN!!!"
Sengoku's roar snapped the spell. "What the hell are you doing?!"
He stared at the Vice Admiral, fury sawing through his control.
Is he following Dragon's path? Throwing away everything he's clawed toward—power, rank, a name? Why couldn't he endure a little longer? He was on the verge of becoming an Admiral…
He could not make sense of it.
Darren only looked back at him, calm, a faint, contempt-tinged smile on his lips.
Sengoku flinched. He saw the mockery.
Then—
Rumble.
The far mountains detonated. Snow and ice geysered into the clouds. A monstrous shape, hundreds of meters tall, hauled itself howling from the torn ridgeline: a fiend's spider-body wreathed in black smoke like living flame.
"Marines… what are you doing?!" Saint Saturn's voice bellowed across sky and sea. "Why haven't you landed to rescue the nobles?! Rogers Darren is butchering Celestial Dragons—at least two hundred are dead already!"
Even an "immortal" body couldn't choke his rage. The highest authority of the World Government—divine bloodline heir—had been carved up and trampled by a Marine brat, and the Marines did nothing.
He glared from the mountain toward the warships, black fire flaring. His fury crested.
Sengoku stood frozen, mouth open for an explanation that didn't come—because the Marines around him took three steps back in perfect unison and pointed at him.
Sengoku: "..."
Color climbed his neck in a savage flush.
"How terrifying," Borsalino said mildly. "A moment ago he said he'd take full responsibility…"
The flush darkened to black in Sengoku's face. He ground his teeth, wrestled with himself—and made the call.
"By order of the Marine Headquarters Admiral—everyone, land on the island at once!"
He lifted his head, eyes rimmed in red, and pinned the blood-streaked figure onshore with a stare like a drawn blade.
"—Arrest the criminal who slaughtered the Celestial Dragons… Rogers Darren!!"
To be continued...