Chapter 308: Wounding Im

"Lord Im!"

The Five Elders gasped in wide-eyed horror, the title slipping from their lips before they could catch themselves.

That single cry sent a wave of utter shock paralyzing the surrounding assembly. For the esteemed Five Elders—the supreme public leaders of the World Government—to address someone else as "Lord" was a mind-boggling revelation.

It instantly forced every onlooker into deep, terrifying reflection regarding this mysterious entity's absolute identity.

The Five Elders realized their slip of the tongue immediately, yet at this milestone, proper protocol was entirely redundant—the strategic situation on the plateau had spiraled completely out of control.

"We must lend our strength to Lord Im at once!" the Elders decided in unison. Turning to Akainu, the lead Elder barked: "Akainu, hold the line here!"

Issuing that single directive, the Five Elders surged toward Drake's coordinate.

"What?" Akainu stood completely stunned. Spinning around, he found a formidable array of titans eyeing him like predatory beasts:

Aokiji, Kenshin, Bell, Dragon, Locke, Sanji, Kizaru, Weitian...

At this juncture, Admirals Fujitora and Ryokugyu had officially withdrawn from active combat. As for their specific reasoning...

When facing Vice Admiral Weitian, both Admirals had chosen silent neutrality by unspoken consensus. After careful deliberation, they stepped aside, refraining from interfering further—though naturally, they had zero intention of assisting Weitian's faction in taking down the World Government either.

To their tactical estimation, the defeat of the World Government had officially become an absolute certainty.

The combat mass commanded by the Legendary Four Brothers was simply too overwhelming.

Battered and covered in bloody wounds, Fleet Admiral Akainu suddenly felt his road had reached its absolute end. This scenario represented the most catastrophic, unwinnable crisis he had ever encountered in his entire career.

He could see zero rays of hope.

Taking a long, deep breath, Akainu resolved that since no path to survival remained, he would allow this final, desperate stand to serve as the absolute, uncompromising climax to a lifetime spent pursuing Absolute Justice.

Yet just as Akainu primed his aura to fight to the death, the ground trembled violently.

KABOOM!

The Five Elders who had just charged forward came flying straight back through the air, crashing squarely on top of Akainu with absurd precision.

Before any of them could let out a shriek of pain, the heavy impact pinned them all to the stone floor.

Ace, Sabo, and Luffy materialized in open airspace simultaneously. The sight of all three hovering effortlessly in the sky delivered a heavy psychological shock to every soldier on the plaza.

Flight abilities were exceptionally rare across these seas, yet all four of the Legendary Four Brothers commanded high-altitude mobility with absolute ease.

Every single one of them radiated an absolute, terrifying pressure domain that struck dread into the human soul.

"Luffy, can you still fight?" Ace asked softly.

"Of course!" Luffy grinned, adjusting his stance.

"In that case, how could we possibly leave Drake to fight alone?"

"LET'S MOVE!"

All three surged into the upper atmosphere simultaneously. Flames and crackling crimson lightning saturated the sky as three beams of light shot across open airspace like radiant comets:

Ace's blazing red, Sabo's roaring blue, and Luffy's brilliant gold—three colors piercing through all creation.

KABOOM!

The microsecond Drake and Im exchanged another heavy blow, Ace's spear was already surging forward, its point condensed with absolute energy.

BANG!

Im raised her black sword to parry Ace's spear, yet before she could reset her posture, Luffy's Gear Fourth form had already arrived on her flank, his Advanced Conqueror's Haki domain enveloping her completely.

BOOM!

A compressed rubber fist smashed downward with absolute kinetic weight.

Im was blasted sideways by the impact, only for Sabo's dragon claw to sweep in from the darkness. This time, the claw was not forged of simple blue flames, but rather a lustrous, dark-crimson shade—a masterclass fusion of Devil Fruit mastery and dense Armament Haki that pushed the claw's structural hardness to its absolute limit, creating a weapon capable of tearing through all matter.

SCREECH!!

Black steel met dragon claw in a blinding shower of sparks that illuminated the sky. Im's ringed pupils flickered in genuine disbelief—the combat mass unleashed by these young men seemed to have undergone a sudden, terrifying explosion!

This kinetic output far exceeded their previous assaults.

HUMMM... KABOOM!

A spatial shockwave descended from the heavens as Drake drove a concentrated, Haki-infused fist straight down onto Im's frame, pinning her violently into the bedrock below.

She was nailed straight into the earth.

ROAR... KABOOM!

Still not enough!

Swinging Canhong through open airspace, Drake shifted his spatial coordinates continuously, funneling every drop of his physical output into a single, razor-sharp point at the tip of his blade to pierce through all creation.

"IMPOSSIBLE!" Crawling out from under the pile atop Akainu, the Five Elders caught sight of the engagement and froze dead in their tracks, utterly dumbfounded.

How could the supreme, invincible Lord Im be pushed into a disadvantage?!

This defied all logical parameters!

Focusing his sword aura to an absolute point, Drake drove his blade straight down, piercing the crater floor below.

KABOOM!

The resulting shockwave shook the entire bedrock of the Holy Land.

Ace, Sabo, and Luffy dropped onto the surrounding stone, maintaining absolute vigilance; they knew this monster wouldn't perish so easily.

BOOM! The ground shuddered violently.

Feeling the staggering force transmitted through his sword hilt, Drake's expression shifted subtly. He had anticipated that a single strike wouldn't slay Im, yet he hadn't calculated that she could parry the full weight of the blow head-on.

At the bottom of the deep pit, Im held her black long sword horizontally across her chest, holding Drake's blade at a standstill.

"HYAAAH!" Im let out a sharp, guttural roar, flexing her arms with massive kinetic force to throw Drake backward through the air.

Stabilizing his posture in mid-air, Drake continuously channeled spatial and Conqueror's Haki into the steel of Canhong.

The microsecond Im vaulted out of the crater, all four brothers initiated a synchronized, simultaneous strike. Im's expression hardened into a grave mask as dense plumes of black fog erupted from her body, forming a massive, spherical defense barrier around her frame.

A blinding flash of radiant light engulfed the plateau, plunging the entire theater into a sea of absolute white.

KABOOM!!

"NOT GOOD! GRAB ONTO SOMETHING, QUICK!" The soldiers on the plaza panicked in terror. Even at their distance, the residual shockwaves from the clash showed zero signs of dissipation.

Just what level of godlike power was being unleashed up there?!

Meanwhile, far out at sea, Big News Morgans had his face practically pressed against his Transponder Snail display screen.

"AN EXTRAORDINARY SCOOP! AN ABSOLUTE SCOOP! A mysterious entity possessing terrifying, godlike strength has emerged atop the Holy Land of Mary Geoise!"

"The Five Elders publicly addressed this individual as 'Lord Im'—this disclosure will shatter the world's status quo!"

"THE GREATEST NEWS STORY IN HUMAN HISTORY!"

Morgans threw his head back, bursting into wild, ecstatic laughter. "War truly is the absolute best source for groundbreaking journalism! To think that within such a short window, so many world-shattering revelations have been laid bare!"

Even the absolute deepest secrets guarded by the World Government for eight centuries were being dragged into the light one after another.

As his mind raced, Morgans grabbed a nearby Transponder Snail microphone. "Hey! Listen up! Seize every microsecond window and make sure you capture that mysterious entity's face clearly on camera! Expose the absolute secret the World Government has strived to bury to the entire world!"

"Understood, Boss!"

Hanging up the line, Morgans' gaze deepened as he looked out across the sea. "This era unequivocally belongs to the Legendary Four Brothers... Just what kind of world will you boys forge out of the ashes?"

"It truly fills me with boundless anticipation!"

KABOOM!

Absorbing the fourfold assault behind her dark fog barrier, Im unleashed a sudden wave of black fog that saturated the open airspace, forcing Ace, Sabo, and Luffy to execute immediate backward evasions.

Yet Drake did not retreat; deploying an instantaneous spatial warp, he materialized directly behind Im's back.

BANG!

Fist met fist in a high-speed trade.

In the very next microsecond, Ace closed the gap, driving a heavy, flame-infused fist flush into Im's torso, while Drake drove the edge of Canhong straight onto her shoulder!

BOOM! Sabo's dark-red dragon claw slammed into her spine simultaneously.

Every attack landed flush on Im's frame in the exact same microsecond—a feat of absolute tactical synchronization achievable strictly through the seamless coordination of Drake's spatial warps and his brothers' elite combat execution.

"Single-Point Piercing... SHOT!" Ace rotated his spear with explosive momentum, funneling every drop of his physical output into the tip, driving the point squarely into Im's shoulder joint.

A radiant beam of fire pierced through her frame like a falling comet.

Unlike the expansive release of the Nameless Flame Spear, this technique concentrated all energy into a singular, microscopic point to shatter absolute defense—a tactical innovation devised through internal discussions among the brothers.

During their prior exchanges, the defensive density displayed by Im had proven far too absolute; without concentrating their output into a localized point, inflicting structural damage was mathematically impossible.

BOOM!

As they plunged toward the earth, fresh crimson blood sprayed through open airspace.

Ace's spear had officially broken through her absolute defense, punching clean through her shoulder joint!