Chapter 269: Shifting Vectors

"Not good! His target is... the Celestial Dragons!" The Five Elders' expressions instantly darkened.

Storm gales twisted and coalesced across the heavens, each roaring vortex tracing an seemingly wild, unpredictable path that nonetheless flowed with a terrifying, fluid precision.

Wherever the tempests swept, stone structures split wide and shattered into fine debris. Before long, each soaring vortex took the shape of a massive, black dragon tearing through the sky, surging directly toward the rear boundary of the Holy Land of Mary Geoise.

Directly into the residential domain of the World Nobles—the Celestial Dragons.

"Ryokugyu!" Atop the high platform, Akainu gestured sharply, shouting at Admiral Ryokugyu and Admiral Fujitora beside him.

At a flashpoint like this, he couldn't afford to preserve his usual unbothered composure as Fleet Admiral. If the Celestial Dragons were slaughtered right under his nose, his tenure as Fleet Admiral would be permanently over.

"Understood!" Ryokugyu's long hair whipped in the wind as gargantuan green vines suddenly erupted from beneath his boots, vaulting him high into the sky in a single fraction of a heartbeat.

Crossing his forearms in a rapid, brilliant flash of power, massive vines surged straight up into the heavens, weaving together in a chaotic, overlapping sequence.

"Evergreen Sovereign: Heavenward Web!"

Ryokugyu crossed his arms before his chest once again, driving the interwoven vines to stretch outward, forming a massive, dense net that spanned the open air.

The storm-forged black dragons opened their abyssal maws, hurling themselves headlong into the colossal wooden barrier. The exact microsecond the wind dragons smashed into the dense vines, deep fractures webbed across the green bark.

"It's the Admiral!" The Marines cheered upon seeing Ryokugyu command a boundless ocean of rising vines single-handedly.

To them, the power Dragon had just unleashed was undeniably terrifying.

Yet as long as a Marine Admiral stepped onto the field, everything would be resolved. That was their ironclad faith.

The Marine Admirals were monsters among monsters, individuals whose strength could never be measured by conventional logic, each commanding the absolute power to alter the world itself.

"Admiral Ryokugyu!" A rising tide of cheers echoed through the Marine ranks.

Up in the high heavens, however, Ryokugyu wasn't having nearly as easy a time as the troops imagined. The gargantuan green vine web bulged heavily outward under the sheer kinetic weight of the storm dragons, threatening to burst open at any moment.

"Ten-Thousand-Ton Anchor: Hold!" With a guttural roar from Ryokugyu, additional thick vines burst from the stone perimeter of the plaza, shooting upward to reinforce the sagging barrier.

"That's... even the Admiral's defense is..." A Marine Vice Admiral stared in sheer disbelief at the high-altitude clash.

BOOM!

With a thunderous detonation, stray gales finally breached the vine barrier, shooting out in all directions.

Wind was fundamentally different from solid matter; it was infinitely pervasive. The moment a single tear opened, the tempestuous gales scrambled to force their way through the gap.

The defensive density of the vines was undeniably staggering.

Yet facing the compressed atmospheric pressure, it proved riddled with subtle vulnerabilities. Before long, countless micro-tears opened across the wooden net, expanding at a rapid pace.

Within seconds, deep cracks webbed across the entire barrier. Ryokugyu's expression turned sharply grim.

"Curse it! It's giving way!"

BOOM!

At that exact microsecond, another figure shot into the sky, triggering a sonic boom across the open air.

"Horizontal Gravity!" Fujitora—standing balanced atop a floating stone slab—snapped his eyes open, revealing his completely white, blind pupils. Drawing his sword, he swung the Gravity Blade forward in a sweeping horizontal arc.

ROAR... KABOOM!

The two forces violently collided, a cataclysmic detonation saturating the entire theater.

The resulting shockwave forced the soldiers below to cover their faces with their arms, wincing as they shut their eyes against the blinding dust.

By the time the violent feedback dissipated and the troops reopened their eyes, the tempestuous sky had settled back into a quiet calm.

High above, the two Admirals stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Opposite them, Dragon stood with his green cloak snapping in the wind, his expression entirely unbothered.

To the troops below, that brief exchange had felt like an absolute cataclysm. To the titans in the sky, however, it was merely a casual probe.

Dragon understood that wiping out the Celestial Dragons in a single opening salvo was practically impossible, so he felt zero surprise when his initial strike was intercepted.

"Revolutionary Army Commander Dragon... your reputation is indeed well-deserved," the Elders noted with heavy expressions, eyeing the solitary figure suspended in midair.

Even now, they had zero data decoding the true nature of Dragon's Devil Fruit ability. Across all these years, they had never once seen him fight in person.

They had always classified his combat mass along the tier of an Admiral.

Analyzing the field now, his strength appeared to edge out even an Admiral by a distinct margin.

"He is the Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Army; commanding this level of strength is only natural," one Elder stated flatly.

"Now it falls on us! Akainu, issue the order to engage."

"Understood," Akainu grunted. Pulling a compact Transponder Snail from his coat, he barked, "Commence the offensive!"

"Sir!"

An urgent command echoed across the Marine formation.

"All units, hear my order! Fire the batteries!"

As the artillery units completed their preparations, muzzles illuminated with a cold, merciless brilliance. A heartbeat later, thunderous cannon fire roared across the field.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A sky-wide canopy of artillery shells cut through the air, plunging directly toward the Revolutionary Army's ranks.

"Bwahahaha! You subversives, I genuinely fail to understand what you hoped to achieve by marching on this ground! Does your entire force even clear the ten-thousand mark? Hm?" A Marine Rear Admiral brandishing a heavy broadsword surged forward at high velocity.

"We have a hundred thousand troops on this field!"

With a flash of his blade, several Revolutionary Army soldiers were cut down in an instant.

"Hahaha! Is this the extent of your strength? If you can't handle the heat, tell your leader—that Dragon fellow—to take you and run for your lives!"

"Moonwalk!" The Rear Admiral kicked off the air, sweeping his blade in a broad arc, his face brimming with pure disdain.

"What did you say?!" A young Revolutionary Army soldier wielding a heavy steel pipe lunged forward to meet his line.

CLANG!

Steel met iron, throwing a cascade of bright sparks into the air.

"Oh? You're not half bad, actually blocking my strike. Hm?" The Rear Admiral paused in mild surprise, but the moment his eyes landed on the steel pipe in the soldier's hands, he erupted into boisterous laughter.

"Pfft! Bwahahaha!"

"Has the Revolutionary Army decayed to such a pathetic state? Using a common steel pipe as a weapon? This is a joke! You expect to fight with a scrap piece of metal?"

"You!" The young soldier parried the heavy blade with a sharp flick, spinning the steel pipe in a rapid, continuous circle. The Rear Admiral opened his mouth to hurl another insult, only for one end of the pipe to smash squarely into his face.

BANG!

The impact distorted the officer's features. The young soldier immediately closed the distance, driving a heavy fist forward.

"Armament!"

BOOM! The Haki-infused fist connected squarely against the Rear Admiral's chest.

Sustaining the crushing impact, the officer shot backward through the air like a stray shell.

The young Revolutionary Army soldier adjusted his top hat, a faint smirk curling the corners of his lips.

"This steel pipe... happens to be the signature weapon of that man! What could a lapdog like you possibly understand?"

"CHARGE!!" A deafening war cry erupted from behind the young soldier.

A dense, sweeping tide of subversives surged forward in an all-out assault. Unnoticed by the regime's command, the Revolutionary Army's frontline mass had quietly expanded, surging past the fifty-thousand mark.

In an instant, the strategic balance on the ground shifted into a fierce, even deadlock.

"What?! How did the Revolutionary Army's numbers swell like this?!" Akainu's eyes snapped wide, his face flushing with fury.

The Five Elders' expressions turned equally dark.

"It was his doing!" They rapidly deciphered the variable. From the rear lines of the subversives, a continuous stream of fresh troops was vaulting up onto the plateau.

Carried directly by the tempestuous winds Dragon had summoned earlier!