Chapter 289: Ace and Luffy

"Sabo..." Ace raised his head, gazing up at the apex of the Red Line, a spark of pure flame flashing in his eyes.

A formidable group slowly stepped up behind him—anchored at the front by Marco, Yamato, and the primary division commanders.

"Go on, Ace. Leave things down here to us," Marco said with a quiet smile and a wave of his hand. Anyone could see the electric surge of excitement racing through Ace's frame right now.

"He's right, Ace! This war is truly something else—how are there still so many Revolutionary Army soldiers down here...? What are they even doing?" Vista mused, stroking the corner of his mustache with a curious expression.

Under the astonished gazes of the crew, Ace spun around sharply. "In that case, I'll leave this line to you guys. I'm heading up to check out the situation on the summit!"

The moment the words left his lips, a swirling vortex of fire erupted beneath his boots, vaulting him high into the sky.

"I'm coming too!" Yamato leaped up with explosive force, clamping a hand tightly around Ace's arm.

Ace offered Yamato a quick, brilliant smile. "Right!"

Within a few rapid heartbeats, the two shot straight up the face of the Red Line.

Down along the coast, Marco and the others disembarked from the warship. Before them, both the Big Mom Pirates and the Red Hair Pirates were already showing clear signs of battle fatigue, with wounded soldiers scattered across the ground.

Lucky Roux's earlier earth-shattering strike had completely cleared out the lower-tier fodder, though a localized collapse of that scale was nowhere near enough to injure a combatant of Katakuri's caliber.

Without a word spoken, Katakuri could already read the grim reality facing the Big Mom Pirates—they were completely pincered, caught in a desperate pincer movement.

His brothers and sisters had all sustained varying degrees of physical trauma. The absolute combat mass of the Red Hair Pirates was simply far beyond their original calculations.

Beyond their First Mate, Benn Beckman, there was actually another ridiculously formidable monster among their ranks!

Katakuri locked a grave, hyper-focused gaze onto the exceptionally casual figure of Locke standing before him. It was Locke's intervention that had suddenly placed an overwhelming pressure on his shoulders.

That man's absolute combat output seemed subtly, dangerously capable of edging out his own by a narrow margin!

"Have any of you noticed...? It looks like the Revolutionary Army's troop numbers down here have dropped significantly," a member of the Big Mom Pirates pointed toward the dense sea of subversives, voicing his confusion.

"Hm?" Nusstorte cast a puzzled glance over the ranks, rubbing his eyes twice to confirm his sight, before his jaw dropped in absolute shock: "Wait... there really are fewer of them! No—it's not just a few, more than half of them are gone!"

His voice escalated into a sharp, hysterical shriek by the end of the sentence.

Who could have simulated a reality where an army nearly two hundred thousand strong—a literal human sea—would vanish into thin air without a trace?

"How is this possible?!" Katakuri stared intensely at the Revolutionary Army's military alignment, his expression growing increasingly dark.

From the looks of it, the Revolutionary Army had clearly initiated a major strategic pivot; otherwise, they would never have redeployed such a massive volume of troops. Their original frontline force of one hundred and eighty thousand had suddenly dwindled to merely thirty or forty thousand!

Over a hundred thousand troops—that was a terrifying, astronomical figure!

If a force of over a hundred thousand initiated a covert operation, zero strategists on the field could predict the ultimate fallout. No—they had definitely executed a massive move!

The Revolutionary Army would never waste their military assets so carelessly. Assembling a force of this magnitude at this specific coordinate implied an extraordinary, overarching objective. What was their true endgame?

Where on earth had those hundred thousand-plus soldiers vanished to?

For a moment, every mind on the field was left completely in the dark. The newly arrived Whitebeard Pirates were equally bewildered, lacking the context of the events that had transpired prior to their arrival.

They could only marvel at the sheer scale of the Revolutionary Army—even after redeploying a vast portion of their forces, the remnant force stationed along the coast still numbered a formidable thirty to forty thousand men.

Densely packed silhouettes continued to cling to the sheer precipice of the Red Line, as the remaining subversives below climbed steadily toward the summit.

Yet the active density on the cliff was indisputably far lower than before.

High above, the primary battlefield froze for a brief microsecond as a streak of fiery red shot up into the sky. Ace—carrying Yamato alongside him—landed smoothly atop the plateau with complete ease, instantly capturing the undivided attention of every soul present.

"Ace!" Old man Garp's eyes snapped wide to absolute circles, his face a complete mask of flabbergasted disbelief. This scene was terrifyingly familiar.

Two years ago during the Summit War of Marineford, Luffy and his three brothers had crashed onto the battlefield in this exact, outrageous fashion, declaring war on the World Government and Marine Headquarters before the eyes of the entire world!

"SABO!" The absolute first thing Ace did upon setting foot on the field was throw his head back and roar at the top of his lungs.

Mid-motion on the platform, Sabo's body stiffened slightly. Slowly turning around, his sharp gaze met Ace's incoming focus, their eyes locking in mid-air.

Just as Sabo opened his mouth to speak, Ace suddenly broke into a wide, brilliant grin, declaring to the entire battlefield: "The Whitebeard Pirates... have arrived to reinforce the line!"

"Ace..." Sabo's pupils contracted. He parted his lips as if to say something, but ultimately swallowed the words back down, allowing every complex emotion to dissolve into a silent, shared smile.

Ace couldn't hold back a boisterous laugh either.

The surrounding assembly failed to comprehend their joy—to stand on a world-shaking battlefield that dictated the fate of all humanity, laughing so freely and without restraint. They needed zero understanding from the world; all they cared about was cherishing these rare, precious moments of brotherhood.

"GARP!" Sengoku glared sharply at Garp, his expression practically screaming: Look at this! This is exactly how your grand mess is unfolding!

Knowing he was entirely in the wrong, Garp offered only a sheepish, awkward grin. Casting a quick glance around the plaza, he let out a subtle sigh of relief.

Thank goodness... at least Luffy hasn't shown his face here.

Yet in the very next microsecond, his relieved smile froze dead on his face, leaving him standing dumbfounded on the spot.

"ACE! SABO! HA-HA-HA-HA! Long time no see!!" A loud, boisterous voice echoed from the edge of the Red Line as a silhouette burst out from the precipice, landing heavily atop the exact same stone spire Red-Haired Shanks had occupied earlier.

KABOOM!

A wave of crushing kinetic force slammed downward, forcing a sharp, explosive crack from the rock.

That poor stone spire—since the war initialized, it had served as a stepping stone for an endless line of powerhouses. Every time a titan vaulted onto the plateau, it was the absolute default landing zone.

Under this latest heavy impact, a faint fracture webbed across the base of the rock.

"Luffy!" Both Ace and Sabo erupted into instant, wild delight. Neither of them had anticipated Luffy stepping onto the field at this exact microsecond.

The timing was simply too unbelievable!

"Hey now, Luffy, that's not quite accurate! Didn't we just meet a short while ago?" Ace said with a wave of his hand.

Sabo offered a knowing smile. He and Luffy had parted ways mere moments ago, yet this unbothered, living-in-the-moment attitude was the quintessential essence of Luffy.

"Don't sweat the minor details!" Luffy pouted with a quick wave of his hand, before taking a bold, confident step forward.

"The Straw Hat Pirates... ARE JOINING THE WAR!"

The moment the words cleared his lips, two formidable figures dropped smoothly onto the stone directly behind his back.

A three-sword swordsman with a single eye—Zoro!

A fiery-legged cook with curly brows—Sanji!

"OK, frontline shock troops Zoro and Sanji have landed safely! Pilot Usopp, prepare for high-altitude deployment!" High up in the atmosphere, Chopper held a pair of military-grade binoculars, speaking with an intensely formal, serious tone.

"Copy that!"

Wearing his protective goggles, Usopp flashed a crisp hand signal, yanking the control stick hard to his chest as the fighter aircraft's engine roared violently, rocketing straight into the cloud layer.

"What on earth is that thing now?!" This time, old man Garp didn't even dare open his mouth to defend himself. Luffy showing up at a timing like this was the absolute worst possible scenario.

At this point, even Sengoku lacked the energy to mock Garp. The strategic balance had plunged into its absolute most critical, volatile phase. If the crisis escalated to the absolute limit, the two of them might be forced to step onto the front lines themselves.

That represented the absolute nightmare scenario Sengoku dreaded most—after all, asking Garp to treat those young men as true enemies... how could any ordinary human pull off something like that?

"This time... we've truly hit the absolute worst-case scenario..."