In the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, the blaze spread in an instant, transforming the entire sanctuary into a towering beacon of fire.
Even beneath the blazing midday sun, the inferno's brilliance could not be overshadowed.
The navy elites, who had just finished dismantling the last of the colossal beasts, raised their heads in unison, gazing up toward the holy city they revered.
On the other side, pirates and revolutionaries alike stood dumbstruck, staring at the roaring pillar of fire.
Had the world already fallen?
At the very peak of the conflagration, a massive burst of fire erupted outward. Within it flickered the vague outline of a humanoid figure, trailing a long tail of flame behind.
Only those with the keenest eyesight — Whitebeard, Kizaru, Aokiji, and a select few others — could discern the truth.
That trailing blaze was not born of the figure itself. Rather, it was the tail-flame that transmitted the strange fire onto the figure's body.
It was the spore miasma!
The burning spores, driven by their primal survival instinct, chose to return to their source, leading this strange fire — which only consumed spores — back onto Green Bull himself!
Whitebeard and the others, realizing the cause, had no time to feel relief.
From the sea of fire, another colossal figure burst forth!
As the leader of the Revolutionary Army, Dragon recognized him instantly and cried out:
"Kuma!"
Even across a distance of over a thousand meters, Kuma seemed to hear the call. His head turned, gazing toward Dragon's position.
Though his eyes were no longer human — now nothing but two flickering, ghostly blue flames — the sincerity within them surged forth with every tremor of the fire, transmitting raw emotion directly into Dragon's consciousness.
In that instant, Dragon understood. His most steadfast comrade, who had once made the cruelest of sacrifices, had at last returned — reborn in a form that surpassed the very limits of this world!
Kuma's burning emotions flared for but a moment before collapsing inward, transforming into murderous intent aimed solely at Green Bull.
With both fists thrust forward, his arms reached full extension — his hands transforming into flamethrowers.
From their muzzles, concentrated jets of pale-blue flame erupted, so intensely compressed they nearly formed scorching rays, lancing straight toward Green Bull!
With a furious roar, Green Bull dove downward, hurling himself at the sea below with even greater speed, narrowly avoiding Kuma's blazing assault.
Kuma snorted coldly. From beneath his feet, high-pressure blue flame jetted outward, propelling his body after Green Bull at even greater speed.
At the same time, with a sweep of his arms, the flames he had expelled before twisted into two searing whips of fire — lashing brutally across Green Bull's back!
Snap! Snap! Two sharp cracks split the air.
Green Bull's ensuing screams were even more wretched.
The whips tore across his back like barbed scourges upon bare flesh, stripping away vast swathes of his synthetic flesh and revealing the densely packed fungal mycelium within.
The blue flames showed no mercy, flooding into the exposed fibers.
In an instant, they spread like an incurable bone-devouring plague, drilling into every crevice between Green Bull's filaments.
Green Bull was horrified beyond belief.
Never could he have imagined that this fire… was actually part of Kuma's consciousness!
To manifest consciousness as energy that could affect reality — this was a technique reserved for beings on the level of his master!
How could a lowly mechanical puppet, only just ascended through mechanical apotheosis, wield such a power?!
To Green Bull — who had willingly endured tens of thousands of years as a slave knight in the hopes of one day achieving such a state — this was unbearable humiliation.
Worse still, the invading flames had a clear purpose: they were searching directly for his spore core!
If that were found, under this flame's burn, he would die without question.
In that instant, the sheer terror of death broke his delusion that he could suppress this rebellion through his own strength.
"You've forced me to this!"
Plummeting through the sky, Green Bull twisted mid-fall, his hateful eyes locking onto Roya, who floated above the sea of fire, gazing down upon him.
"My master may punish me… but you will die regardless!"
He thrust a hand into his chest, his fingers closing with precision upon a hidden object embedded within — an emergency beacon.
With a vicious snap, he crushed it.
A spark of green light burst forth from the beacon.
In an instant, it transformed into a dark green beam of energy that shot straight toward the moon.
Kuma, closest to the beacon, lunged desperately to seize it, but he was already too late!
The beam flashed, and Kuma's reaching hand sliced through it uselessly.
No matter how he clawed and grasped, how could one capture a beam of pure light?
From Imu's eyes, two lances of blue energy also shot forth, colliding with the green beam — only to scatter harmlessly upon contact.
Roya's spiritual sense surged, coiling tightly around the beam and racing after it.
In the span of a breath, he had pierced the heavens, riding the beam all the way to the moon's surface.
The beam made no attempt to divert, striking directly through the moon and piercing into the city hidden on its far side.
There, it landed upon an unremarkable shipping container.
Roya's spiritual sense could barely keep pace — enough to follow, but far too slow to intercept.
The spot struck by the beam revealed a rhomboid, dark-green crystal embedded in the container. As the beam sank into it, its hue grew ever more vivid and radiant.
Then, bit by bit, it dissolved into nothingness.
The container too began to fade, like lines erased at random by a rubber, until it vanished completely.
From within, two neat rows of skeletal figures — twelve on each side, twenty-four in total — flared to life.
In the hollow sockets of their bio-metal skulls, emerald fire ignited.
At the same time, viridian flames burst within their ribcages, sweeping outward to engulf every bone.
The true combat forces of the Alien Harvesters — activated!
There was no hesitation.
No wasted movement.
No exchange between them.
The twelve skeletal warriors of bio-metal surged forward at once. Within only a few strides, they reached such astonishing speed that they shattered free of the moon's gravity.
In the void of space, they hurtled downward toward the blue planet.
In the blink of an eye, they pierced the atmosphere, transforming into twelve massive emerald meteors.
At that moment, Green Bull finally crashed into the sea below. The flames consuming him vanished instantly under the ocean's wash, deprived of Kuma's continued support.
Lifting his head, he beheld the line of descending meteors — a string of emerald fireballs tearing the heavens apart — and laughed with wild abandon.
"You dared ruin my chance at ascension? You lowly creations… all of you must die! All of you!"
The twelve emerald meteors streaked across the sky in formation, staining the entire firmament with their unholy glow.
Day turned to night.
The heavens themselves were shrouded in a veil of dark green — the color of endless death.
And within the genes of every living being, the instinctive terror of domination awakened as one.
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