Chapter 84: Echoes of the Clash and the Joker's Panic

The clouds parted around the Titan’s Glory as the Sky-Rift Roc pulled us higher into the stratosphere, leaving the bisected, burning ruins of Outpost G-7 far behind us.

I stood on the Adam Wood deck, watching the island fade into a speck on the horizon.

The nineteen-minute timer on Compound V had officially run out.

The drop-off wasn’t a gentle slope like I had hoped, it was a sheer, violent cliff.

The chaotic emerald-gold aura instantly snuffed out.

The Nega-Bands on my wrists dimmed, returning to standard golden rings.

And then, the absolute, bone-deep exhaustion hit me like a runaway sea train.

It felt as though every ounce of kinetic energy, every drop of stamina, and every spark of Haki had been violently vacuumed from my cells.

My vision swam, the deck tilting sideways.

My knees buckled, and the world went dark.

“Victor!”

I vaguely felt Gwen’s symbiote tendrils wrap around my torso to break my fall before I completely lost consciousness.

“Room,” Law’s voice echoed sharply through the ringing in my ears.

The blue sphere washed over me.

“His skeletal structure is intact, and his organs look good.

The Fa-Jin regeneration did its job.

But his stamina reserves are completely empty.

He essentially just ran a marathon while bench-pressing a galleon.

He needs rest, let’s take him to the medical bay.”

“Let’s drop the anchor,” Laura called out from the helm.

“There’s an uninhabited, quiet archipelago a few miles north.

We’ll settle down there and let him sleep.”

Down below, the burning harbor of Outpost G-7 suddenly grew deathly, eerily quiet.

The roaring flames that engulfed the Marine fortress began to hiss and violently extinguish as a wave of bone-chilling frost rolled across the island.

The displaced ocean, which had formed a localized tsunami, froze solid mid-crash, creating a towering, jagged wall of ice.

Admiral Aokiji stepped off his bicycle, his boots crunching against the frozen earth.

He slowly exhaled a plume of cold breath, his lazy demeanor entirely gone.

He took in the apocalyptic damage.

The island was literally split in half, a massive canyon tearing through its center.

But more terrifying than the physical destruction was the residual Haki lingering in the air the heavy, suffocating scent of an Emperor’s rage, mixed with something sharp, kinetic, and entirely foreign.

Aokiji walked to the edge of the central crater.

Standing at the bottom was Kaido.

The Emperor wasn’t raging.

He was looking down at his chest, where a massive, bleeding, X-shaped scar was permanently carved into his indestructible scales.

King the Conflagration landed heavily beside his captain, his black wings twitching.

“Kaido-san, Kuzan is here.

We have to go.

The fleet is destroyed, and the Warlord slipped away.”

Kaido let out a low, rumbling chuckle that vibrated through the frozen bedrock.

“Let him go, King.

He earned his exit.”

Kaido looked up, locking eyes with Aokiji.

For a moment, the freezing cold clashed against the Emperor’s boiling heat.

But Kaido simply grinned, transforming into his colossal Azure Dragon form.

“I’ve had my fun for today, Marine,” Kaido’s voice thundered from the clouds.

“Tell Sengoku he finally found himself a Warlord with some actual teeth!”

With a beat of his massive serpentine body, Kaido vanished into the storm clouds, King following closely behind.

Aokiji stood alone in the ruins.

He reached inside his heavy coat and pulled out a golden Den-Den Mushi.

Clack.

“Sengoku,” Aokiji spoke, his voice incredibly grave.

“I’m at G-7.

Kaido has retreated.”

“What is the status of the Warlord?” Sengoku’s voice crackled through the receiver, tight with stress.

“Did Victor delay him?”

“Delay him?” Aokiji repeated, looking at the massive chasm splitting the island.

“Sengoku, that kid didn’t just stall him.

He also bisected the island, wiped out the Kaido’s fleet, and permanently carved an X into the Emperor’s chest.

This Warlord doesn’t feel like a dog we can keep on a leash.

You’ve recruited a walking disaster.”

Two days later, the world woke up to absolute chaos.

High above the oceans, flocks of News Coos aggressively bombed every ship, island, and kingdom with the morning paper.

“Big News” Morgans had managed to secure a photograph of the bisected island and the massive, bleeding scar on the Emperor’s chest before Kaido flew away.

The front page of the World Economy News Paper was dominated by a single, massive headline:

THE DRAGON BLEEDS!

WARLORD VICTOR CLASHES WITH THE STRONGEST CREATURE!

The global balance of the Three Great Powers shuddered violently at the revelation.

At Marineford, the Fleet Admiral’s office was suffocatingly tense.

Sengoku sat at his desk, aggressively rubbing his temples while his pet goat chewed on the newspaper’s corner.

Sitting on the couch across from him was Vice Admiral Garp, who was laughing so hard he was crying, indiscriminately shoving rice crackers into his mouth.

“Bwahahaha!

He actually gave Kaido new scar!” Garp roared, slapping his knee.

“I told you that kid was a monster, Sengoku!”

Sengoku was not laughing.

A cold bead of sweat rolled down his neck.

He remembered the Warlord’s threat just weeks ago in this very office.

If they send Admirals, I will kill them…

not even the Holy Knights will be able to stop me.

Sengoku realized with profound, terrifying clarity that Victor hadn’t been bluffing.

If the World Government went after Jasmine, Victor was entirely capable of turning Marineford into the next G-7.

On the Sabaody Archipelago, inside Grove 13, Silvers Rayleigh sat at the bar, reading the paper with a wide, nostalgic grin.

Shakky exhaled a cloud of smoke, tapping the photograph of the split island.

“Your nephew certainly knows how to make an entrance into the New World, Ray.”

Rayleigh took a slow sip of his rum.

“He could have made a simple entrance, Shakky.

But he kicked the front door off its hinges and set the porch on fire.

He’s just like his uncle.”

Deep in the South Blue, hidden within a covert Revolutionary Army base, Commander Jasmine sat at a war table surrounded by rebel officers.

The room was dead silent as they stared at the newspaper.

Suddenly, a bright, crackling spark of blue lightning arched from Jasmine’s fingertips, shattering her coffee mug.

She wasn’t angry.

A massive, fiercely proud smile stretched across her face, tears of joy pricking the corners of her eyes.

“That’s my big brother,” Jasmine whispered to herself, her heart swelling with absolute pride.

Let the World Government try to come for her now.

Her brother had just put the entire world on notice.

Far away, in a gloomy, candle-lit castle on Kuraigana Island, Dracule Mihawk sat in a high-backed velvet chair.

He held the newspaper in one hand, his piercing, hawk-like eyes fixated on the X-shaped scar carved into Kaido.

The world’s greatest swordsman traced the edge of the photo, a rare, genuine spark of competitive interest flaring in his eyes.

But not everyone was smiling.

In the sunny, vibrant kingdom of Dressrosa, the atmosphere inside the royal palace had turned venomously toxic.

Donquixote Doflamingo sat rigidly on his throne.

The newspaper in his hand was crumpled, his knuckles white.

The signature, sadistic grin that usually plastered his face was completely gone, replaced by a sheen of cold, panicked sweat.

Trebol and Diamante stood nervously at the base of the throne, too afraid to speak.

Contrary to his belief Victor hadn’t just survived the New World.

He hadn’t just fought Kaido and lived.

He had maimed him.

Doflamingo’s mind raced, connecting the terrifying dots.

The massacred alliance in Jaya.

The slaughtered Kaido’s fleet.

He interrogated the fleet’s Captain before the fight, Doflamingo’s intelligence network had reported.

He asked about the supply chain.

Doflamingo’s breathing grew shallow.

Victor knew.

The Warlord wasn’t just throwing his weight around, he was trying to systematically dismantle Doflamingo’s empire, and he was targeting the most vital, vulnerable organ of the entire operation.

“Get me Caesar!” Doflamingo snapped, his voice cracking slightly with manic urgency.

Trebol hurriedly dialed a secure Den-Den Mushi, handing it up to the Joker.

“J-Joker?” Caesar Clown’s slimy, gaseous voice echoed.

“Put the Punk Hazard facility on absolute, level-one lockdown,” Doflamingo ordered, his Conqueror’s Haki leaking into the room and cracking the windows.

“Seal the blast doors.

Arm the gas weapons.

If a ship flying a Warlord’s flag appears on your monitors, you sink it!”

Doflamingo hung up and immediately dialed another highly encrypted snail.

It connected directly to the Marines’ G-5 base.

“Vergo,” Doflamingo commanded the moment the line clicked open.

“The new kid is hunting the SAD supply line.

He will be heading for Punk Hazard.”

“Understood, Doffy,” Vice Admiral Vergo’s stoic voice replied.

“I will intercept him.”

“Don’t just intercept him, Vergo,” Doflamingo growled, his red sunglasses glinting with paranoid malice.

“Kill him.

Eradicate his entire crew before he breaks my gears!”

[Victor’s POV]

I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee and the sound of cheering.

I sat up on the medical cot.

My muscles felt incredibly heavy, but the bone-deep, paralyzing exhaustion had passed.

My baseline regeneration had done its job while I slept.

I threw on a clean shirt, grabbed The Jade Wings, and walked out of the medical bay and onto the sun-drenched deck of the Titan’s Glory.

The entire crew was gathered around the main table, looking at a stack of newspapers dropped by a News Coo.

“Look who’s awake!” Gwen grinned, tossing a paper toward me.

“You made the front page, boss.”

I caught the paper, my eyes scanning the massive headline and the photo of Kaido’s bleeding chest.

I let out a small, satisfied smirk.

The nineteen minutes of Compound V had been an absolute gamble, but the payoff was immeasurable.

“Not bad,” I said, tossing the paper onto the table.

“But the statement’s been made.

The Gorosei will think twice before breathing in Jasmine’s direction, and Kaido knows we aren’t prey.”

I looked at Law, who was leaning against the railing, examining his Triple Log Pose.

“The detour event is officially over,” I announced to the Verdant Abyss crew, the easygoing atmosphere sharpening into focused lethality.

“We established our name.

Now, it’s time to get back to the master plan.

We’re cutting Doflamingo’s strings.”

Law nodded, holding up the compass.

He pointed to the needle that was completely erratic, spinning wildly toward an island hidden entirely off the grid.

“Course set,” Law said, a dark, anticipatory smile crossing his face.

“Next stop…

Punk Hazard.”

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