The Seraphim factory was the beating heart of the Marine war machine.
It was a massive, sprawling industrial complex where countless war weapons were assembled by Marine soldiers and engineers, then shipped to the front lines.
This delegation of labor was a strategic move by Leon.
He had handed over the production blueprints to the Marine engineers, freeing himself from the monotony of an assembly line so he could focus on exploring the next frontier of science.
But in doing so, he had created a vulnerability.
When Admiral Aokiji and his adjutants arrived, the factory's foreman—a man with a long nose and a square face—rushed out to greet them, ten engineers in tow.
"Sir! The Seraphim factory is ready and awaiting your command!" the foreman shouted.
"Good. Have your men stand back. I will handle the activation of the new units personally," Aokiji said calmly.
But as he turned to speak to his adjutants, the foreman's face suddenly twisted into a grotesque, square-nosed grin.
In an instant, she was no longer a foreman but Catarina Devon, the Crescent Moon Hunter, a dagger flashing in her hand as she lunged straight for Aokiji's throat.
"Admiral, look out!" his lieutenants shouted, but they were too late.
The attack was impossibly fast, aimed at a vital point.
Catarina smiled, her eyes filled with the thrill of the kill, already seeing the Admiral's head rolling on the floor.
WHOOSH.
Aokiji's eyes widened in surprise—not at the attack, but at the sheer audacity.
His body, however, reacted with an Admiral's instinct.
He moved a fraction of an inch to the left, the fatal blow passing harmlessly by, and simultaneously delivered a powerful, Haki-infused kick to Devon's chest.
BOOM!
Catarina was sent flying, crashing into a steel bulkhead meters away, blood spraying from her mouth.
She stared at the Admiral, her face a mask of pale, stunned disbelief.
"How...?" she choked, clutching her chest. "Impossible! The Captain's weapon... it sealed your powers! You should be helpless!"
"My strength..." Aokiji mused, a cold, dangerous mist beginning to gather around his fingertips.
"It's not quite what it was... Arara, but there's no need to explain the details of a top-secret experiment to a corpse."
He had already deduced the truth.
The production slowdowns, the "accidents" at the factory... it was all starting to make sense.
"Ah! Help me, Captain!" Catarina screamed in despair, seeing the lethal frost creeping toward her.
"I said, there's no need to waste your breath," Aokiji said, his hand outstretched, ready to freeze her solid.
Just as he was about to deliver the final blow, an unruly, mocking voice echoed from the shadows of the factory.
"Now, now, Kuzan... don't be so cold to my crewmate. Zehahahaha..."
A massive figure emerged, his laughter filling the cavernous room.
"Blackbeard, Marshall D. Teach," Aokiji said, his expression turning grim.
He never thought the pirate would be here himself.
"Zehahahaha! Long time no see, Admiral!" Blackbeard grinned. "Or... has it been? We've been hiding in this factory of yours for over a month now, watching your every move!"
Aokiji's blood ran cold.
He finally understood.
The production delays, the compromised staff... the enemy wasn't at the gates.
They were already inside the heart.
"You bastard," Aokiji's voice was dangerously low, and a cold mist began to radiate from his entire body.
"Are you trying to take command of the Seraphim?"
Seeing the Admiral's barely contained fury, a deep, satisfying sense of revenge filled Blackbeard's heart.
"Zehahaha! So what if I am? All I want is this factory. I don't intend to harm a single one of these beautiful machines. Hand them over, Kuzan, and I'll let you live."
"This is Marine Headquarters, Teach. Not your back garden," Aokiji stated, the temperature in the room plummeting.
The threat was met with cold, killing intent.
"It is now," Blackbeard grinned, his greed and ambition burning in his eyes like a starving wolf.
"I'm looking forward to this fight!"
With a roar, Aokiji charged.
The two forces of nature collided, and a deafening bang erupted, shaking the entire factory to its foundations.
Aokiji's body trembled slightly from the impact, but his eyes were still full of a determined fighting spirit.
"Dark Cave Road!" Blackbeard bellowed.
A terrifying, unholy river of darkness erupted from his hands, a power far more sinister than his normal Devil Fruit.
The jet-black energy instantly covered the floor and walls, and ghostly, skeletal figures began to rise from the shadows.
"These are the playthings I brought back from that damned world, a gift from my masters!" Blackbeard sneered, a bloodthirsty glint in his eyes.
"I want to see how many seconds you can last against them, Kuzan!"
Countless white bone corpses burst from the dark river, an overwhelming tide of undead rushing at Aokiji.
"What the hell are these things?!" Aokiji's eyes widened in horror.
"Zehahaha! Not just bones, Kuzan!" Blackbeard roared with excitement.
"They are the resentful souls of the dead! A gift from Rocks and his Necromancer Staff, paid for with the hundreds of lives I've already taken! Can you resist an endless army of the undead?"
An endless sea of white bones, an army of destructive, resentful souls, swarmed him.
Faced with an enemy thousands of times his number, even Aokiji felt a flicker of dread.
BOOM!
The skeletons slammed into him, a relentless, clattering tide.
Aokiji took a long, deep breath and exhaled a blast of pure cold.
"Ice Age!"
A wave of ice-blue energy erupted from him, and the air itself froze.
Ice arrows, sharp as spears, shot from the ground, piercing through the bone-soldiers, shattering them by the hundreds.
Each arrow contained enough power to shatter a mountain.
"Is that all your new power is?!" Aokiji yelled.
"Not even close," Blackbeard's smile turned into a dark sneer.
He slammed his other hand onto the ground.
"Dark Tide!"
The power of his original Devil Fruit surged, a deep, dark undercurrent of gravity that instantly tore Aokiji's ice to pieces, shattering his attack.
"You can even control the tide of darkness itself?!" Aokiji cursed, his expression grim.
"Zehahaha! I've mastered more than you can imagine, Kuzan. You should try my other new toy!"
Blackbeard stretched out his right hand, and a pitch-black scythe, pulsing with a sickening, malevolent power, materialized in his palm.
The moment it appeared, Aokiji felt a wave of pure malice and murderous intent wash over him.
"Go to hell, Kuzan!" Blackbeard screamed.
"This is a scythe that thirsts for death! One touch, and it will drain every last drop of your vitality!"
He swung the scythe, and it shot through the air.
Aokiji threw his arms up, and a wall of thick, reinforced ice, a dozen layers deep, appeared in front of him.
CRACK!
The scythe didn't just break the ice; it shattered it into dust, flying straight through and striking Aokiji in the chest.
A loud, booming sound echoed as the Admiral was sent flying.
"ZEHAHAHAHA! I'VE GOT YOU!" Blackbeard raised his arms and shouted in triumph.
He had done it! He had landed a fatal blow on an Admiral!
"I told you, Kuzan! You can't escape!"
He waved the scythe again, and the boundless aura of death churned wildly.
The weapon expanded, growing to over three meters long, a gloomy, terrifying radiance emitting from its blade as strange energies, like ferocious, spectral centipedes, squirmed along its length.