Chapter 158: Meteor Volcano
“Commander, all members of the Olu Pirates have been arrested, but······ when we found them, all of them had already been subdued by someone.” The officer reported the latest battle situation······ rather than calling it a battle situation, in fact, no combat had broken out at all.
They were the fleet of the G2 branch.
They received an emergency distress call from the Den Den Mushi in this village, saying they had been targeted by the infamous Olu Pirates. Vice Admiral Gumir made a snap decision and rushed over at the fastest speed, only to arrive and find that things were different from the distress message on the Den Den Mushi.
This was also a common occurrence,
The civilians tormented by the Pirate Era often suffered from groundless fears, which was perfectly normal. Navies everywhere had received false reports more than once.
But this time the situation was different from the usual false reports. Although the village didn’t look like it had been attacked, for safety’s sake, they still sent troops ashore to patrol around, and then right at the edge of the small grove at the village entrance, they saw the pirates who were tied up tight.
They were indeed crew members of the Olu Pirates.
The captain ‘Bloodhand’ Olu, with a bounty of 37.22 million, was also bound hand and foot. The Marines effortlessly captured this group of despicable pirates stained with blood debts, who only knew how to bully ordinary civilians.
“So, this was a false report?”
Vice Admiral Gumir stood on the beach, looking at the village not far away. The village under the moonlight was peaceful and tranquil, showing no signs of pirate invasion at all.
“It should be a diversion tactic. The person behind it······ might be aiming to do harm to Admiral Sakazuki.”
The officer hesitated for a moment but still voiced his suspicion.
He was Vice Admiral Gumir’s secretary. All confidential intelligence of the G2 branch couldn’t be hidden from him. This time, why they had hastily left the base and wandered around the sea area near Alabasta······ he knew the reason full well, so after this happened, he immediately connected the two matters.
“I understand even without you saying it. Spreading false news to lure me here, and leaving us these trophies······” Vice Admiral Gumir watched the Marines escort the pirates onto the ship, paused, then continued in a slow voice: “This style of action is definitely not the Beasts. Excluding the Beasts······ it can only be the Revolutionary Army!”
He sighed lightly.
Revolutionary Army······ The Navy had dealt with the Revolutionary Army more than once or twice in the past two years. Vice Admiral Gumir had always been paying attention to the Revolutionary Army’s trends. It wasn’t that he had any shady dealings with them; it was just that he had once thought highly of the Revolutionary Army’s leader.
Yes, before Monkey D. Dragon left the Navy, he had also been a superstar in the limelight, no less than the current Three Admirals.
Even with Garp, the Navy Hero, as his father, he had a large number of supporters in the Navy. Many believed he was the nailed-down next Fleet Admiral after Sengoku, and Vice Admiral Gumir happened to be one of them.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned. Dragon left the Navy and chose a path that many saw as utterly rebellious and deviant.
To the point that the once red-hot superstar became a forbidden topic within the Navy.
“Commander······”
“Let’s go! Since it’s a false report, it means something might happen to Admiral Sakazuki’s side. Hurry over there! Hopefully······” The last words were suppressed to the extreme, so even the secretary standing beside him couldn’t hear what Vice Admiral Gumir said at the end.
Hopefully?
Hopefully they could rush over in time? Or hopefully the Revolutionary Army could succeed and withdraw quickly······
The secretary shook his head lightly, shaking out the bold idea in his mind.
Vice Admiral Gumir was not that kind of person!
————
Time had already reached late at night.
Thick dark clouds unknowingly surged in from the distance, blocking the moon and stars, plunging this night into pitch blackness where one couldn’t see their hand in front of their face. The lights on the Navy fleet became the only brightness in this ink-like dark environment.
“This damn weather.”
“Storm is coming!”
The officers sat in the bridge. Unlike the Marines below who needed to stand watch, when there was nothing to do, a few of them could gather to drink tea, chat, and pass the boring time of the sea voyage. Tonight, the few with no sleepiness gathered in the bridge.
Of course, this wasn’t the flagship. No one dared to relax in front of Admiral Sakazuki.
“This kind of weather is the most prone to accidents.” One of them joked.
“Hey, Holo, don’t jinx it.”
“Ah! No way! Toka, you really think some foolhardy guy would dare come looking for trouble? Admiral Sakazuki is sitting on the flagship!”
The officer called “Toka” frowned and looked out the window. “Don’t you think this weather is strange?”
“Huh? What’s strange about it? The Grand Line’s weather is just like this, right? Clear skies one second, pouring rain the next······ Hey, Toka, if you didn’t sleep well, go lie down for a bit.”
The others also looked at Toka with strange gazes.
The Grand Line’s ever-changing weather was well-known to all. Except for the top-tier navigators who relied on talent, basically no one could predict the Grand Line’s climate changes. Not everyone present was from the Grand Line, but they had long grown accustomed to such harsh weather shifts.
“No······ I······”
Toka frowned deeply. Looking at the extremely dense darkness outside the window, the hidden unease in his heart lingered, always feeling like something pricking at his back, making him restless at every moment······ But apart from this intuition that no one would believe, he had no evidence to prove anything wrong with the weather changes.
At this moment,
“Whoooosh————”
Fierce wind howled in from outside into everyone’s ears. The warship, which had been proceeding calmly, suddenly rocked violently. Caught off guard, the empty cups in the box on the coffee table clattered and smashed onto the floor.
“Ahh! Careless.”
Holo bent down and reached out, picking up all the cups that hadn’t rolled far with lightning-fast hand speed and putting them back in the box.
The earlier jolt happened too suddenly, so the group whose attention had involuntarily focused on Toka reacted a bit slowly. They only managed to grab the teapot and their own cups; those empty ones were flung away.
“Such a big gale. Looks like tonight will be rough.”
“Sigh! What bad luck, didn’t even finish the pot of tea.”
“Enough, drink less. Later when things get busy, you won’t have time to go to the toilet.”
The officers sighed one after another. Once the storm came, they couldn’t sit in the bridge drinking tea and chatting. To resist the storm’s assault, they would probably be busy to the point of exhaustion next, as countering such a mighty storm required physical abilities beyond ordinary people.
The wind grew stronger and stronger.
The gull flag fluttered and rattled in the wind, the intense noise making one wonder if it would tear apart the next moment.
Silver-white serpents flashed between the dark clouds, instantly illuminating the sea and sky in white. The next second came a massive roar like the sky splitting open, as if the thunder god stood by everyone’s ears roaring an earth-shaking bellow.
Colonel Toka, still feeling uneasy, climbed to the observation platform high on the mast. He snatched the lookout’s telescope, straining his eyesight to scan the sea area around the fleet, using the intermittent lightning flashes to check all around.
Nothing was found.
Within the range of his telescope-enhanced vision, he didn’t see even a single ship. Under this blanket of dark clouds, aside from their fleet, it seemed no other vessels existed.
“Am I overthinking it?”
Recalling his friends’ reassurances, Colonel Toka grew puzzled.
But just then—
“Boom!!!”
An explosion rang out.
Colonel Toka jolted. Explosion? The deafening thunder had almost kept him from reacting. Following the direction of the explosion, he saw flames and thick smoke. The explosion wasn’t on the flagship; it was on an escort warship.
Judging by where the flames were burning, it wasn’t the ammo depot catching fire. That position······ was a torpedo.
It suddenly dawned on him, the fog in his mind clearing.
There were indeed no ships on the surface, but underwater······ His eyes couldn’t see the pitch-black depths. He had forgotten that a submarine might be lurking below······ This wasn’t his fault for being slow; the Navy simply hadn’t developed the habit of guarding against underwater attacks.
Submarines had been invented not too long ago, nor too far in the past.
This thing wasn’t Doctor Vegapunk’s patent. The initial creators of submarines were from a country on the Grand Line, known as the country of endless war. Scientists there developed submarines as war weapons, but poor tech secrecy led to the technology spreading quickly, with many countries mastering submarine construction.
However, building submarines was clearly more expensive than traditional warships, and with Sea Kings and other massive beasts in the sea, plus no country having won a major victory with submarines yet······
Under multiple constraints, submarines hadn’t been widely used in wars.
If even wars between nations didn’t employ submarine tech, pirates were even less likely to. Factors like funding and technology made pirates stick to chasing the Navy on traditional warships across the sea, thus leaving the Navy lacking experience against submarine attacks.
This was an issue of overall awareness, not individual capability.
In any case,
Colonel Toka’s intuition about the danger was correct, but unfortunately, he couldn’t harness that ability. Moreover, his position limited what he could do. Thus, the Navy fleet was caught completely off guard.
Under the submarine’s attack, three warships were hit right away. Two were severely damaged, sinking uncontrollably due to leaks, while the lightly damaged one was fine and cooperating with other warships to rescue the two sinking ones.
The remaining warships opened fire one after another.
Unfortunately, lacking underwater combat gear, the roaring cannon fire did nothing but vent the officers’ and soldiers’ anger and frustration. The Navy was stuck passively taking hits with no means to strike back.
Until—
Sakazuki walked out of the cabin.
“Meteor Volcano.”
He raised his molten rock fists high, launching a shocking number of lava fists into the sky. They tore through the howling storm, climbing desperately to the heights of the sky, then fell like a meteor shower, smashing viciously into the seawater below.
“Sizzle sizzle sizzle————”
The high-temperature lava fists met the icy seawater, instantly producing vast white steam that enveloped the sea surface. The endless steam was hard for even the gale to blow away all at once, and the nearby seawater temperature rose rapidly, bubbling like a boiling pot.
Sakazuki’s attack seemed to have worked.
The submarine’s reckless attacks halted, letting the exhausted helmsmen on each ship breathe a sigh of relief.
They were truly worn out. With no prior experience fighting submarines, they could only rely on their instincts and skills to maneuver the warships dodging underwater attacks—evade if possible, or take it on non-critical parts if not······
In just those few short minutes, it felt like centuries had passed. Several helmsmen fainted from relief, forcing vice helmsmen to hurriedly take over and maneuver the massive warships across the sea.
In fact,
Sakazuki realized that if he didn’t act, the entire fleet would be ruthlessly annihilated······ Faced with no choice, he had to hand Nico Robin over to his subordinates for guarding, step onto the deck himself, and intervene to curb the mad underwater attacks, turning the tide.
“Admiral! Invincible! Admiral! Invincible!”
The Marines’ cheers echoed in the gale.
After seeing Sakazuki’s earth-shattering attack, the frustration of being passively beaten vanished. The greatly boosted Marines cheered sincerely, but unlike his excited subordinates, Sakazuki’s expression was exceptionally grave.
His Observation Haki pierced through the steam ahead, ‘seeing’ a terrifying aura fluctuation rapidly heading toward his position.
“Revolutionary Army.”
Veins bulged on his forehead as he muttered the name of the enemy flying in from the sky in a low voice: “Monkey D. Dragon.”
With Meteor Volcano ending, without the continuous heating from falling lava fists, the boiling seawater began to cool. The gale finally blew away all the steam, allowing the Navy soldiers to look up and see that lone figure riding the wind from the sky.
The deep green coat flapped loudly in the wind. As the distance closed rapidly, they could make out the red tattoo on the man’s face, his fierce expression······ just like the photo on the bounty poster of the world’s most wicked criminal.
“Monkey D. Dragon! You’re courting death!”
Sakazuki roared in anger.
Blazing lava fists shot into the sky amid the roar, the scorching hot lava intent on burning the intruder to less than ashes.
“Crack!”
A thunderbolt struck down.
Like a divine sword from the heavens, it easily shattered the lava fists and plunged into the sea, without even touching the hem of the intruder’s deep green coat.
“Sakazuki, long time no see!” The world’s most wicked criminal Mister greeted the Navy Admiral proactively.
