50: Chapter 50 Admiral!

Click. The mechanical sound ceased abruptly, and the transponder snail fell back into silence.

The air inside the conference room seemed to be sucked dry in that instant.

Paula stood by the mahogany table, her curvaceous body trembling uncontrollably beneath her blue cotton coat.

Her beautiful eyes, accentuated by dark purple eyeshadow, were locked onto the transponder snail on the table, her originally rosy lips quickly draining of color until they were pale as paper.

Mikita gripped her pale yellow skirt tightly with both hands, her nails digging almost into the flesh of her palms.

They knew all too well what the words "Marineford Admiral" represented.

On this sea, it represented the ultimate humanoid weapon capable of suppressing any rampaging force.

During their time lurking in Baroque Works, Crocodile had warned them countless times that once they attracted the attention of such a monstrous level, the only outcome would be to have their existence completely erased.

Not even a complete skeleton would be left behind.

"Admiral... that monster who can even freeze the ocean..."

Paula's voice was laced with hoarseness, and an uncontrollable chill shot up from the depths of her spine.

Bang. The mahogany doors of the conference room were pushed open by a brute physical force.

Rice, barefoot, stepped onto the plush Persian carpet and strode in.

He was still shirtless, and the blood and qi within his body had completely calmed down under Dr. Kureha's bloodletting treatment.

No more high-heat white smoke rose from his skin; instead, it took on an introverted, pig-iron luster.

Below his right shoulder, the black scab burned by the medicinal powder looked like a striking black medal.

He didn't look at the two pale women. He walked straight to the mahogany table and extended his large, calloused hand.

Click. His five fingers, like steel pliers, gripped the heavy brass transponder snail.

"Captain! That is an encrypted frequency directly connected to Marineford!"

Paula exclaimed.

Rice didn't even blink.

The muscles in his right arm contracted suddenly, and pure physical destructive power poured into the brass shell through his fingers.

Crack! Sizzle—!! A harsh sound of metal shattering exploded in the conference room.

The special transponder snail, cast from high-strength alloy, couldn't even hold on for a second. It was crushed into a ball of twisted scrap metal.

Tiny fragments, accompanied by a few weak electric sparks, fell through Rice's fingers and hit the carpet.

Rice casually tossed the smoking scrap metal into the corner. He raised his head and swept his gaze over the rigid bodies of Paula and Mikita.

"Just a dog's hide wearing the cloak of justice."

Rice pulled the white shirt hanging on the back of the chair and draped it over his broad shoulders, his deep voice shattering the fear in the cabin:

"Since I've brought you onto this ship, no one on this sea can take your lives."

"Whether it's that stinking Crocodile or an Admiral, if they dare to reach out, I'll smash their bones with my fists."

He strode out toward the cabin door. "Notify Nami, set sail at full rudder according to the route map. Target, the Alabasta underground waterway."

Paula watched that broad back as he walked away without looking back. She took a deep breath, exhaling all the stale air from her chest.

In her deep purple eyes, a cold beauty was rekindled. "Yes, Captain."

... Three days later. The Grand Line.

The massive steel hull of The white dove, ship, plowed a straight white wake across the sea.

The weather underwent a drastic reversal. The extreme cold blizzard that had enveloped the Drum Kingdom seemed to be cut off by a blade after they had sailed for hundreds of nautical miles.

A scorching sun hung in the sky once again. Moisture in the air was rapidly evaporated by the high heat, and the sea breeze was mixed with rough sand particles typical of a dry desert.

The temperature approached fifty degrees. On the deck.

Chopper, wearing a pink top hat, was sweating profusely as he used his two hooves to pound a stone mortar. Inside were several plant roots emitting a pungent odor.

He was trying to concoct a special potion that could quickly lower body surface temperature to cope with the upcoming desert climate.

Nojiko sat under a parasol nearby, holding a silver scalpel, practicing precision cutting on the bone of a sea beast.

At the helm. Nami had changed into a cool camisole, revealing a sliver of her fair waist.

She held the mahogany steering wheel steadily with both hands. On the navigation table beside her, the "Nefertari Royal Underground Secret Map" was filled with dense navigational markings she had made with a pencil.

"The Log Pose direction hasn't shifted. The air humidity has dropped below fifteen percent."

Nami glanced at the barometer beside her, a flash of certainty in her clear, watery eyes:

"At this speed, at most half a day, we will reach the western coastline of Alabasta. The underground water gate entrance hidden under the cliff is right ahead!"

Deep in the hold. The sea beast Sea Cow Mohmoo had shaken off the torment of the extreme cold and regained its violent stamina in these warm waters.

Its huge tail fin slapped the water tank frantically, the pure steel chains pulled taut, dragging the thousands-of-tons heavy steel warship in a high-speed sprint.

Rice stood at the bow, barefoot, one hand in his jeans pocket. There, the outline of an endless yellow coastline could vaguely be seen.

The Sand Kingdom, Alabasta.

Just at the moment ship was less than ten nautical miles from the coastline. A change occurred.

The scorching heat waves of the tropical sea were cut off in an instant.

In front of The white dove, ship, the yellow coastline had already been faintly visible. That was the edge of the Sand Kingdom, Alabasta, and the air had even begun to mix with dry sand particles typical of a desert.

However, the next moment, the color of the sky changed.

An indescribable, ghastly blue chill spread frantically from the very bottom of the coastline.

The originally surging dark green waves, while rising several feet into the air, encountered the bone-chilling cold and were forced to maintain their splashing posture, freezing into transparent ice sculptures rising from the sea.

Crack, crack, crack—!! The continuous sound of ice shattering echoed across the entire sea area.

The blue sea within a radius of more than ten nautical miles turned into a dead, flat, hard ice sheet in just a few breaths.

The heavy steel bow of ship was stuck hard in a gap in the ice several meters thick, emitting a harsh, screeching sound of metal breaking, and the entire warship's forward momentum was forced to a halt instantly.

"What's going on?! The thermometer just shattered!"

At the helm, Nami clutched her shoulders tightly, her thin camisole unable to withstand this sudden, severe cold.

A layer of goosebumps instantly broke out on her fair skin, and white frost began to form on her short orange hair.

In the water tank in the hold, Sea Cow Mohmoo let out a fearful whine, its massive body curling into a ball, completely losing the strength to paddle.

On the steel deck, Paula, who had changed into loungewear, had a grim expression, her stunningly curvaceous figure taking a step forward.

[Spike-Spike Fruit · Iron Net Defense].

On the surface of her ten fingers, countless thorn-like steel needles glowing with the cold light of pig iron spread forward frantically, attempting to build a defensive net in front of ship.

However, in the center of the flat ice field ahead, a tall, thin man nearly three meters tall was riding an old-fashioned bicycle, pedaling slowly on the ice.

He wore a white suit vest with a Marine coat over it. On the back of the coat, two pitch-black characters fluttered in the wind: [Justice].

The man braced one foot on the ground, stopping on the ice less than thirty meters from ship. He lazily raised his right hand and waved it gently toward the front.

"Ice Age · Instant Freeze."

Whoosh— A pale white storm of cold air, like the giant wings of the Grim Reaper, swept directly across the entire deck of ship, skimming the ice.

This cold air was too fast and too brutal.

The thorn-like steel needles that Paula had thrust out, which were capable of piercing rock, had their internal flesh and tissue instantly and completely frozen the moment they touched the cold air.

Accompanied by a crisp cracking sound, dozens of thorns shattered in mid-air into countless tiny blue ice crystals.

Paula let out a muffled groan, her whole body remaining in the stance of her attack, and from her feet up, she was quickly and completely encased in a layer of thick, transparent ice, turning into an immobile ice sculpture.

"Big Sister Paula! Damn it... Gravity Pressure · Maximize!"

Seeing this, Mikita, who was to the side, had eyes burning red. She stomped her rounded calves hard on the deck, attempting to use her newly broken-through fruit ability to slam the rules of tens of thousands of kilograms of gravity directly onto that Marine along the ice.

However, just as the rule fluctuations that changed the weight of surrounding objects were emitted, the cold air around Kuzan (Aokiji) flowed backward along the trajectory of the gravity fluctuations.

Click. The cold air brushed directly over Mikita's ankles. "So cold..."

Mikita's voice hadn't even had time to fully escape her throat. The layer of deep blue ice had already spread upward along her slender legs, waist, and chest.

Under everyone's trembling gaze, this deputy helmsman who had just experienced a breakthrough and possessed a trump card couldn't hold out for even half a second before she was likewise locked into the center of a block of solid ice several meters large.

One strike. A casual wave. The two high-level combatants of the White Dove Adventure Team, these seasoned beauties, were as fragile as paper puppets in front of the Marine's highest combat power.

Nami slumped in the helm chair, looking at the two lifeless ice sculptures, her watery eyes filled with an indescribable despair.

Princess Vivi and Nojiko, who had walked down the gangplank, were equally pale, their bodies trembling at a high frequency in the face of the absolute zero temperature, which was tens of degrees below zero.

This was the Marineford Admiral. A true humanoid natural disaster, thunderous and mighty, suppressing the rampages across the entire Grand Line.

"Ara ara... what a headache."

Kuzan braced himself on the bicycle with one foot, reaching up to push the green eye mask on his head upward, revealing a pair of dead, ripple-less black eyes.

He looked at the remaining women on the deck, his tone full of listless laziness:

"The old men up there are in a very bad temper. They say a beast that doesn't follow the rules has run out of the East Blue, not only injuring people from headquarters but also touching secrets that shouldn't be touched. So... this ship cannot sail any further."