The report Fleet Admiral Sengoku received from the Marine was not groundless.
The broadcast Den Den Mushi had truly vanished.
All three of them.
Those three broadcast Den Den Mushi corresponded to the three giant relay screens on the Sabaody Archipelago, and by now, every single one had lost its feed.
The abnormality had actually occurred before Sengoku intended to reveal Ace's identity.
One of the Marine reporters responsible for guarding a broadcast Den Den Mushi had been knocked unconscious on the spot by the sudden eruption of Conqueror's Haki from Cain and the others.
By the time Kizaru woke him up, that Den Den Mushi had already disappeared.
As for the Den Den Mushi responsible for the other two camera angles, they had vanished along with their guards, as though they had evaporated from existence.
Not a single trace was left behind.
As for the three missing Den Den Mushi, they had indeed all been knocked unconscious by Conqueror's Haki, only to be slapped awake again not long after.
However, once they woke up, their eyes were tightly covered with black cloth.
Only their ability to receive sound had been left unblocked.
On top of that, the amplified Den Den Mushi in Sengoku's hand had never left his grasp from beginning to end, and it was already linked to the three broadcast Den Den Mushi.
As a result, even though the outside audience could only see complete darkness, they could still hear every word coming from Marineford with perfect clarity.
Because of this, from the moment Cain and the others released their Conqueror's Haki, the people on the Sabaody Archipelago—and even viewers across the world watching the broadcast—had been left staring at a deep black screen.
No matter how shocking Fleet Admiral Sengoku's revelation of Ace's birth was, no matter how world-shaking the truth being made public might have been, the three giant screens remained pitch-black.
The audience could only distinguish what was happening through sound.
Who had taken those three Den Den Mushi?
No one knew.
Although Sengoku was burning with anger, he still maintained the composure expected of a Fleet Admiral.
In a low voice, he ordered those beside him, "Send people to search for them at once!"
…
At the same time, on another side of the battlefield.
Cain looked around. After confirming that nothing seemed abnormal, he immediately forced Aokiji back.
After several exchanges, Aokiji had already tested things out.
Ordinary freezing attacks could not harm the enemy before him at all.
Perhaps the only way to clash with him properly was through pure physical strikes.
"Arara. A Zoan-type ability user, are you?" Aokiji narrowed his eyes. "Would a normal animal have that color? Pink scales… Looks like a Mythical Zoan too. A Dragon-Dragon Fruit? What a troublesome opponent…"
"Still, even then, I have plenty of confidence in my fists."
Ice spread down from his shoulder, covering his entire arm in the blink of an eye.
His fist gradually transformed into an elemental mass of frozen power.
Pitch-black Armament Haki coiled over it, forming what looked like an "ice glove."
This was a technique he had created by combining his Devil Fruit ability, Armament Haki, and the essence of the Iron Fist taught to him by Garp.
The first requirement in training the Iron Fist was that neither Haki nor Devil Fruit powers could be used.
One had to rely on nothing but bare fists, hammering away at the Sea-Prism Stone bottoms of warships day after day, year after year, over decades, until the bones of the fists were forged into something unyielding.
Only after being tempered by countless life-or-death battles could the technique truly be considered polished to perfection.
If Aokiji added his Devil Fruit power and Haki onto that hardened foundation, the power of the strike would only climb higher and higher.
That was precisely why he dared to face an opponent with the monstrous body of a Mythical Zoan and the ability to use Conqueror's Haki coating head-on.
Aokiji's earlier attacks had already proven that Cain's strength was far beyond what his bounty poster suggested.
This time, even Aokiji had no choice but to take him seriously.
And Cain, as Garp's grandson, had also trained in this technique.
Although he had only practiced it for three years, far less than Aokiji had, still…
Seeing Aokiji take his stance, Cain slowly lowered his weapon as well and assumed a punching posture.
A hint of surprise flashed through Aokiji's eyes.
This guy actually wanted to trade fists with him?
But his surprise lasted less than half a second.
Aokiji took the initiative first, swinging a fist toward Cain's head.
Yet the more one took the initiative to attack, the easier it was to expose a fatal opening.
Cain's tail suddenly wrapped around the long staff that was about to fall to the ground and yanked it downward.
In that same instant, both of his hands were already gripping the weapon.
Jet-black Conqueror's Haki lightning erupted violently, wrapping around the body of the staff.
As the lightning spread in all directions, Cain poured the full strength of his body into this single blow.
"Eighty Gods Vacuum Strike!"
It was true that Cain had not trained Iron Fist for nearly as long as Aokiji had.
But—
"Who the hell said I was going to have a serious, fair one-on-one duel with you? I don't have that much time to waste here!"
This strike was completely different from the casual swings he had covered in Conqueror's Haki earlier.
Conqueror's Haki coating had been compressed to the extreme, then combined with a technique he had specifically developed. Its power multiplied several times over.
It was an ultimate attack created by fusing together Roger and Shanks' Divine Departure, Kaido's Thunder Bagua, and Cain's own Eighty, among other techniques, until they merged into one.
Purple lightning and black-red lightning twisted together, becoming black thunder.
Around the outer layer, invisible wind blades of Demolition Gust spiraled violently.
This was Eighty Gods Vacuum Strike!
A hammer blow that could unleash a slash!
Although he had shamelessly stolen the name from someone else's work, Cain did not feel embarrassed in the slightest.
Claaaaang—!
The explosive impact shook all of Marineford.
Cain's long staff smashed viciously into Aokiji's head.
From the sound alone, it was clearly a good head.
Cain himself also took Aokiji's ice fist head-on.
The instant the cold invaded even the slightest bit toward his heart, it was burned away by the flame dragon breath innate to his Devil Fruit.
That attack had indeed injured Cain.
Fortunately, the scales on his chest blocked most of the impact. The scales neither shattered nor left a scar the way Kaido's had before.
They were only swollen and bleeding, and not even his organs had been affected.
But Cain's staff strike directly sent Aokiji flying.
Along with the enormous Conqueror's Haki lightning and Demolition Gust slash, the frozen tsunami glacier was cut apart and shattered.
Aokiji's figure turned into a meteor, vanishing from the skies above Marineford in an instant.
If there had been a battlefield announcement at that moment, the entire screen would probably have been flooded with the same message.
Aokiji, out!
Aokiji, out!!
Aokiji, out!!!
Aokiji, who had been blasted away, felt as though his skull were about to split apart.
His eyes were shut tight, and it seemed like his head might explode in the very next second.
His consciousness swayed at the edge of darkness.
The force of that strike had been far more vicious than he had expected!
However, when he forced his heavy eyelids open and squinted just enough to catch sight of a shadow streaking rapidly across the sky, his heart suddenly clenched in shock.
"What the hell is that?!"
…
Back on the battlefield, Cain rubbed his chest.
This level of injury did not count for much to him at all.
He lifted his head and looked toward the sky, then said silently,
"Sorry, Kuzan. If this were before, I'd have been happy to have a proper fight with you. But right now, I'm a pirate."
"For Ace's sake, I don't care even if I have to use a sneak attack."
With that, Cain continued advancing toward the execution platform.
The fighting pirates and Marines hurriedly dodged the falling chunks of ice and seawater caused by Cain's slash.
All of them stared in disbelief in the direction Aokiji had been sent flying.
"Admiral Aokiji was blown away!"
"Are the Marines… are the Marines going to lose?!"
"That was a Marine Admiral! How could he…"
"GARPP!"
Sengoku had yet to finish dealing with the problem on his own side, and now something had gone wrong on Cain's end as well!
Cain had even sent Aokiji flying out of Marineford.
At last, Sengoku could no longer hold back.
He roared furiously at Garp.
"How long are you going to let your grandson run wild like this?!"