Chapter 309: A Volatile Situation

She dodged it!

Ace had aimed his spear straight for her heart, yet it had only pierced through her shoulder.

Down in the deep crater, Im was pinned firmly to the ground, her shoulder skewered by the spear.

The four brothers descended, surrounding Im in a square formation.

"Lord Im..." The Five Elders froze for a brief second before scrambling frantically to their feet and charging toward Drake and the others.

The surrounding onlookers had yet to recover from their shock, still wondering who this mysterious person fighting the Legendary Four Brothers could be.

The strength of the four brothers was already terrifying, yet this person was taking on all four of them at once. The destructive pressure radiating from their clash made it completely impossible for ordinary people to even approach.

A gale of wind tore through the air, and in an instant, Dragon materialized directly before the Five Elders. With a sweeping wave of his sleeve, the heavens and earth seemed to shift.

BOOM!

The Five Elders were blasted backward hundreds of meters.

"You are not to interfere in their battle," Dragon said, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression remarkably calm.

In truth, he was inwardly shaken as well. The strength those four young men displayed had clearly broken past the limits of this world—none of them were weaker than him!

Dragon knew everything about Luffy and his sworn brothers. The world was truly a wondrous place, bringing such a group of boys together in their childhood to forge unbreakable bonds.

They were this era itself!

"You bastard..." The Five Elders gritted their teeth in fury.

RUMBLE...

The ground trembled once more as a silhouette soared out of the crater. Im hovered in midair, glaring darkly at Drake and his brothers.

"Your strength is indeed beyond my expectations. To possess such power at such a young age... leaving you alive would truly be an endless source of calamity."

Just then, Im noticed the surrounding situation. Mary Geoise was practically in ruins, and the agonizing screams of World Nobles echoed from the distance from time to time.

What caught her attention most was that the forces outside were all advancing toward this position in unified cohesion, clearly acting as a single entity.

And they were enemies!

When her gaze landed on the battered, half-dead Five Elders, her hands tightened subtly.

These useless fools!

To lose so quickly despite holding such an overwhelming advantage!

Absolute trash!

BOOM!

A blur of motion streaked forward. Luffy, who had been on high alert, instantly detected Im's movement and stepped forward to block her path.

Suddenly!

In a flash, Im vanished into thin air. His pupils constricting, Luffy's eyes flared with a crimson glow as his Observation Haki expanded, perceiving everything in the vicinity.

A split second later, the light in Luffy's eyes scattered, and he whipped his head around toward the rear.

Over there!

The vanished Im had already reappeared behind Dragon, her pitch-black sword gleaming with a chilling light as it slashed toward his back.

"Not good!" Luffy instinctively surged forward at top speed, sweeping out a whip kick wrapped in dense Armament Haki.

A burst of flames ignited.

Im swatted Luffy's kick aside with a single palm, the cold gleam on her blade undiminished.

Just as the sword was about to strike Dragon, a flash of sword light intercepted it.

CLANG!

Drake blocked the strike directly behind Dragon.

BOOM!

Im's form flickered, and a brutal kick slammed into Drake's torso.

Blasting Drake away and seeing that her surprise attack had failed, Im decisively retreated to the Five Elders' side.

Dragon stood battle-ready. Everything had unfolded in the blink of an eye; the moment he had sensed the attack, Drake was already being blasted back.

Im's speed was simply too terrifying!

"Useless trash!" Im snapped, not even sparing a glance at the Five Elders. These fools were growing more incompetent by the day.

Calling them trash was an insult to the word itself.

The Five Elders all hung their heads, trembling with fear as if walking on thin ice.

Far away, behind a massive piece of debris, two figures were stealthily creeping closer to the scene. They were staff members from the World Economy News Paper.

Just moments ago, they had resolved to lay down their lives for the noble cause of journalism.

"Hey, Murray! Did you hear that? That mysterious person seemed to be chewing out the Five Elders!" a scrawny man whispered to the chubby man beside him.

"I heard it! Called them useless trash!" The chubby man swallowed hard. Who were the Five Elders?

Calling them the figures standing at the absolute pinnacle of the world was no exaggeration—they were the supreme rulers of the World Government!

Yet right now, they were being berated like useless garbage by an unknown figure. Just what kind of status did this person hold?

This was massive. It was an earth-shattering, epic scoop that would shock the entire world.

The two traded glances, reading the absolute resolve in each other's eyes.

Simultaneously, they nodded.

Finding a suitable vantage point, they pulled out a Visual Transponder Snail and projected the scene before them to the world.

The broadcast opened on Im and the Five Elders. The Five Elders were standing behind Im with bowed backs and lowered heads, looking entirely like subservient underlings.

After such a long blackout, the broadcast resumed with such a monumental revelation, leaving people across the globe completely flabbergasted.

The legendary Five Elders were actually someone's subordinates? Who was that person?

What was their true identity?

Just what other secrets was this world hiding?!

This was the burning question on the battlefield, and the question on the minds of the entire world.

BANG!

Morgans slammed both hands heavily onto his desk, his eyes gleaming with boundless excitement as he stared at the screen.

"Yes! Exactly like that! Turn around—get a frontal shot! You must capture the front!"

"Let the whole world see what secrets the World Government has been hiding!"

"BWAHAHAHAHA...!"

Suddenly, a terrifying aura erupted from Im on the screen, sweeping up sand and boulders in all directions.

A massive wave of pulverized rock and dust surged toward the Visual Transponder Snail, completely blocking the feed. The sheer display of force sent a heavy shockwave through viewers worldwide.

That person had seemingly done nothing at all... Just what kind of power was that?!

"How is that possible?!" Drake stared in disbelief at Im, who appeared completely unscathed, without even a drop of blood leaking from her body.

He was certain that Ace's spear had cleanly pierced her shoulder, as he had personally infused the spearhead with spatial energy.

"What is going on with her..."

At that moment, they all noticed a distinct mark on Im's left shoulder, though it was no longer a puncture wound.

The pierced shoulder was regenerating at an impossible speed, and miraculously, not a single drop of blood flowed from the wound.

No matter how one looked at it, this defied all logic.

That spear strike had been an undeniable direct hit, not something that could have been evaded with Observation Haki.

Even with a Devil Fruit ability, emerging completely unharmed was impossible, as that strike had been imbued with potent Armament Haki.

It seemed this was a special condition akin to an immortal body; its exact properties still required further testing.

Without deciphering the truth behind Im's physiology, winning this battle would be out of the question.

"My, my, how terrifying... this power!" Kizaru remarked in astonishment, gazing at the overwhelming aura radiating from Im.

It was a sense of mortal danger he had never experienced before.

"Allow me to test your strength!" Without another word, Kizaru surged straight forward.

"Wait, it's dangerous!" Weitian hurried to stop him, but Kizaru was simply too fast, vanishing into thin air in the blink of an eye.

"Sacred Yata Mirror: Yasakani Sacred Jewel!"

Hovering in midair, Kizaru unleashed a sweeping barrage of light bullets with both hands, blanketing the sky in a rain of lasers.

A black flash cut through the air, and for a split second, the scene seemed to freeze. A black long sword had pierced straight through Kizaru's chest in midair, dark blood dripping slowly from the blade.

"What?!" Drake was thoroughly shaken. It was too fast—even he had only managed to catch a faint glimpse of her silhouette as Im impaled Kizaru's chest in a fraction of a second.

What Drake saw was the blade emerging first, followed by her physical form.

This horrific sight was witnessed by people all over the world. Just when everyone believed the World Government was doomed to fall, such an absurdly powerful monster had suddenly emerged.

An Admiral, hailed as the Navy's ultimate fighting force, had been taken down in a single move!

The tides of war were ever-shifting beneath the surface. With Im's intervention, the outcome of this battle was once again shrouded in total uncertainty.

To turn the entire battlefield around single-handedly—such terrifying power was truly beyond imagination!