Chapter 502: Parting Gift
Sengoku arrived quickly, accompanied by Vice Admirals Tsuru and Garp.
The reason Sengoku brought Tsuru and Garp along was that he considered that Admiral Kizaru was not at Marine Headquarters, so he wanted to intercept Ian with absolute force.
When the three veterans arrived at the harbor, what they saw was the entire Crescent Moon Harbor swarming with Marines surrounding Ian’s ship.
A large number of artillery and firearms were all aimed at Ian’s ship, and even Marine soldiers had boarded their warships, turning their cannons in this direction.
Seeing this situation, Sengoku breathed a sigh of relief. With this ironclad encirclement, Ian couldn’t possibly escape!
Wearing a Marine coat, Sengoku approached and took a megaphone, shouting towards Ian on the Ark Maxim, “Ian! What do you want to do? If you come down from your ship right now, I can pretend nothing happened!”
“Oh, Sengoku, you’ve come,” Ian jumped onto the bow of the ship and waved at him and his colleagues, saying, “And Vice Admirals Tsuru and Garp, are you here to see me off too? I… I’m truly honored!”
Vice Admiral Tsuru looked at Ian expressionlessly, while Garp laughed heartily and said, “You brat! Come down obediently. You can see the situation; there’s no way for you to escape!”
“Is that so?” Ian smiled faintly. He held a different perspective.
Sengoku, seeing that Ian didn’t seem worried at all, felt something was amiss. At this moment, he also noticed something unusual about Ian’s ship.
The Ark Maxim was still floating on the sea surface, not moving, but there were huge splashes of water surging around the ship’s hull, spreading outwards in both directions.
This phenomenon was due to the Jet Dials not operating at full power. Once activated, the Ark Maxim could instantly ascend.
However, Sengoku remained unaware of these details. Puzzled as he was, he couldn’t fathom that Ian and his crew intended to make their escape from the sky. He assumed they were planning to sail out of the harbor. Thus, he once again used the megaphone to shout at Ian, “Ian! Take a look around you! The Marine Headquarters has over fifty ships in its fleet now. Even if you manage to leave the harbor, do you think you can get very far?”
“Fleet Admiral Sengoku!” Ian shouted back, “Why would I want to leave? You should know this well. Since you’re not willing to grant me my Pacifistas, I’ll go out and get it myself. In fact, we could have left just now, but leaving without saying goodbye wouldn’t be right. That’s why I waited for you. I want to tell you one thing: if you want to retract my status as a Shichibukai, then go ahead!”
With that said, Ian didn’t waste any more words. He gestured and commanded, “Depart!”
Hearing Ian’s command, Sengoku was taken aback. He hadn’t expected Ian to be this resolute.
But the Marine’s plan was already in motion, and Sengoku couldn’t allow any slip-ups at this critical moment. In the next second, he shouted loudly, “Open fire! Sink his ship!”
The Marines surrounding Crescent Moon Harbor had their nerves on edge, and as soon as they heard these commands, they instinctively pulled their triggers!
In an instant, Crescent Moon Harbor erupted into a deafening roar. It was the combined sound of hundreds of Marine soldiers and over a dozen warships opening fire, a display of firepower that was truly unimaginable.
At this moment, Kuina was also in the crowd. Upon hearing the commotion from the base earlier, she hurried to the scene along with Smoker, Tashigi, and Hina.
When Kuina had been gathering information about Ian earlier, she had no idea what his intentions were. However, now that she saw Ian attempting to forcefully leave the harbor, she understood that she might have messed things up. Perhaps it was her intelligence that had convinced Ian to make the determined decision to depart from Marine Headquarters.
As the Marines unleashed their firepower, Kuina’s heart skipped a beat, and she almost let out a cry!
She wasn’t alone; Smoker and Tashigi, at that moment, thought Ian was done for as well!
No one could survive under such overwhelming firepower, even if they were a Shichibukai!
However, what took everyone by surprise was that, at the very moment when the Marine guns roared, Ian took action.
A massive quantity of purple flame appeared in his hands, and he pressed it onto the deck!
In the next second, an enormous pillar of purple flame erupted, enveloping the entire Ark Maxim.
The towering flame not only failed to harm the Ark Maxim in the slightest, but the cannonballs fired by the Marines from all directions strangely halted when they entered the range of this purple flame!
“What… what is happening!?”
Large groups of Marine soldiers stared in terror at the scene before them. Normally, bullets or cannonballs traveled at such speeds that they were impossible to see with the naked eye, yet at this very moment, they could see the bullets and cannonballs they had fired frozen in the gel-like purple flames. These projectiles, big and small, just remained motionless within the flames, showing no signs of movement.
Not to mention the marines, even Enel on the Ark Maxim, wore an astonished expression as he looked at the flames enveloping him. Though the flames appeared tumultuous, they strangely caused him no harm.
As for Fleet Admiral Sengoku, when he witnessed this scene, his eyes nearly popped out of his head!
He was not unfamiliar with this particular color of flames, as it was the same type of flames that had burned down Mary Geoise in the past!
That’s right; this was Ian unleashing a special move of Iori Yagami a large-scale “Sanjingi no Ni”!
Rather than being expelled outward, it erupted from the center of the Ark Maxim. After equipping Iori Yagami’s card with the exclusive treasure, the Yasakani no Magatama, Iori’s abilities received a unique “stasis” effect. Ian, who has been familiar with their various abilities, was able to manipulate these flames to prevent them from harming his allies.
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This was the reason he remained calm in the face of the Marines, no matter how fierce their firepower. With his current abilities, he could intercept their attacks with ease.
Standing up slowly, Ian clenched his right hand, causing the temperature of the purple flames to rise sharply. The cannonballs that had been suspended in stasis immediately turned into molten iron. As the flames disappeared, the molten iron fell from the sky and into the sea, solidifying once more into lumps of iron.
This move was nothing short of supernatural! It dealt a devastating blow to the Marines. No one had expected that such a formidable firepower assault would be neutralized by Ian single-handedly, bringing it to an abrupt end!
They stared in dumbfounded awe at this miraculous scene, unsure of how to react.
Before Sengoku and his team could recover from their shock, they suddenly heard a whooshing sound. In the next moment, Ian’s massive Ark Maxim, as if by magic, lifted off from the sea surface and ascended to a height of over ten meters in the blink of an eye.
“Damn it! It’s an airship!?”
Sengoku’s shock at this moment was beyond measure. He had never expected that Ian’s ship would be capable of flying, similar to the Golden Lion Shiki’s vessel!
With the Ark Maxim rising into the air, the naval cannons could no longer reach them. The firing angle was limited, and in this world, naval vessels didn’t have anti-aircraft missiles.
“Garp!” Sengoku quickly shouted.
Vice Admiral Garp was somewhat reluctant, but he still took a mortar from a nearby Marine soldier, removed one of the shells, weighed the lead ball-sized projectile in his hand, and then forcefully hurled it into the sky!
The projectile emitted a piercing whistling sound as it flew toward the Ark Maxim with even greater speed and force than a mortar.
Fist Meteorite!
However, just at that moment, Ian, standing at the bow of the ship, suddenly opened his palm and aimed it in the direction of Garp’s incoming projectile. A pitch-black disc of energy emerged from his hand and was sent hurtling towards the projectile.
The incoming projectile instantly collided with the black particles Ian had unleashed, resulting in a thunderous explosion. Simultaneously, the black particles Ian released also burst, emitting a sound reminiscent of shattering glass.
Garp’s attack proved ineffective, and Sengoku contemplated joining the fray himself. However, just at that moment, he noticed that beneath Ian’s ship, a massive thunderball had appeared, crackling and hissing with electricity.
“Hahaha!” Enel stood at the ship’s railing, holding his golden staff with outstretched arms, and addressed the Marines below, “This is a parting gift!”
“Raigo: Thunder Greeting!”
As his voice resounded, the colossal Thunderball erupted with intense lightning, sending dozens of bolts streaking toward the harbor below!