68: Chapter 68 Severing the Gods of Water

In the early hours of Water 7, the needle of the barometer plummeted to the bottom.

The salt-laden sea breeze, mixed with cold torrential rain, lashed mercilessly against the coastline of Scrap Island like dense steel needles.

The physical height of the sea level was rising at a visible rate; millions of tons of seawater, affected by the abnormal pressure changes in the deep sea, were converging crazily towards this city on the water.

This was the annual natural disaster, the Aqua Laguna.

Inside the main cabin of ship.

Kalifa knelt on the mahogany floor with both knees, holding a soaked white cloth in her hand, struggling to wipe the floorboards.

The originally tight-fitting black hip-skirt she wore was now covered in wrinkles, its fibers torn in many places, barely covering her fair skin, which was mapped with blue and purple finger marks.

Her gold-rimmed glasses perched on her pert nose bridge, the lenses fogged over by a thin layer of mist from the heat inside the cabin.

Every time she bent over to exert force, a low, stifled groan uncontrollably escaped from the depths of her throat.

An agent's dignity had been completely shattered, leaving behind only an instinctive fear of that body of steel.

Rice sat in a large office chair, his black trousers wrapping around his powerful legs, his upper body bare, his bronze skin radiating an astonishingly high heat.

Blue electrostatic arcs danced along the contours of his pectoral muscles, emitting faint crackling sounds.

Rice looked down at the busy woman on the floor, his cold eyes devoid of any unnecessary emotional fluctuation.

"Take out the nautical chart to Enies Lobby, spread it on the table, and mark the coordinates of the Sea Train tracks."

Rice issued the cold command, his vocal cords vibrating to produce a sound like raw iron rubbing together.

Kalifa's body shuddered violently; she quickly dropped the white cloth in her hand and pushed herself up from the floor with both hands.

She pulled open the drawer of the mahogany desk, took out a precise parchment nautical chart, spread it flat on the table, picked up a red dip pen, and accurately outlined a straight line spanning the sea.

"Captain, the route coordinates have been confirmed. The Sea Train tracks are laid two meters below the sea surface; the draft of ship is just enough to avoid a direct collision with the rails."

Kalifa kept her head down, her voice hoarse, her tone devoid of the arrogance she once held as a CP9 agent, leaving only a statement of absolute obedience.

Rice stood up, grabbed the black trench coat from the back of the chair, draped it over his broad shoulders, and strode towards the cabin door.

"Stay in the cabin; don't come out and get in the way."

The brass door pushed open, and the gale instantly flooded the cabin. Rice's silhouette disappeared onto the wind- and rain-swept deck.

The door slammed shut, completely sealing Kalifa inside this mobile steel fortress.

On the deck, rain lashed against the dark golden wapol metal armor, creating a dense drumming sound.

Nami, wearing a yellow waterproof raincoat, stood before the helm, her hands gripping the mahogany wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white from the exertion.

The complete clima-tact was tucked into the holster at her waist, ready to draw in cold and hot air currents at any moment.

Raki held the heavy sniper rifle equipped with a Wind Dial, lying prone on the lookout platform of the main mast, letting the rain wash over her wheat-colored skin.

Through the crosshair scope, her gaze pierced the curtain of rain, locking onto the movements in the sea ahead.

Paula, Mikita, and Alvida stood at the stress nodes of the warship respectively, their Devil Fruit abilities ready to be unleashed, prepared to deal with the impending impact.

On the water to the right of ship, the going merry had also completed preparations for departure.

This originally delicate wooden sailing ship, after having its keel reshaped by Franky with wapol metal, had seen a massive surge in its hull quality.

Its dark golden shell radiated a cold luster in the torrential rain.

Luffy stood on the sheep-head figurehead, his hands pressing down on his straw hat, which was flapping loudly in the gale, his black pupils staring fixedly ahead.

Zoro stood on the left side of the deck with three swords hanging at his waist. His right hand gripped the hilt of the wado ichimonji, his thumb pushing the guard, revealing a section of the gleaming blade from its scabbard.

Sanji had a cigarette in his mouth, dampened by the rain. His leather shoes stepped onto the dark golden deck, his leg muscles tense, ready to burst into action.

Usopp wore windproof goggles, holding a heavy flintlock in his hands, his legs planted on the wooden planks like nails, overcoming his inner fear of the natural disaster.

Two armored warships, radiating a dark golden luster, stood side by side on the shoals of Scrap Island.

The engines in the bottom cabin roared, propellers churning crazily in the seawater, tearing out trails of white whirlpools.

Rumbling—

A dull physical vibration came from the end of the horizon, as if the rocky plates of the seabed were fracturing.

In the darkness ahead, a white waterline approached rapidly.

A few seconds later, that waterline transformed into a massive wall of water that blocked out the sky.

The Aqua Laguna revealed its violent true form, capable of destroying everything.

The tsunami, three hundred meters high, carrying hundreds of millions of tons of seawater, pressed forward like a collapsing mountain.

The immense water pressure squeezed the air in front, forming a high-pressure hurricane with astonishing destructive power.

The mountains of junk on the edge of Scrap Island were instantly dispersed by this hurricane, countless scrap iron pieces and rotten wooden planks swept into the high air, then swallowed by the giant waves of the tsunami, turning into fine powder.

The roaring of the waves shattered the eardrums, completely drowning out the rumble of the mechanical engines.

The three-hundred-meter-high wall of water blocked all light, completely shrouding both warships in a despairing physical shadow.

"It's here! Steady the helm!"

Nami roared at the top of her lungs, her voice torn to shreds in the gale.

On the going merry, Luffy stretched his arms backward, the rubber fibers emitting a tense creaking sound, preparing to use his Physical Body to withstand the crashing giant waves.

Zoro drew his two swords, a cold, chilling light flashing on the blades, preparing to cut through the approaching seawater.

Just one second before this earth-shattering natural kinetic energy was about to crash onto the two warships.

Rice moved.

He took a step from beside the helm of ship, his figure turning into a black afterimage, instantly appearing at the very front of the warship.

His feet stepped on the dark golden ram, the bones, muscles, and wapol metal of his soles undergoing high-frequency resonance, anchoring his massive physical mass firmly onto the ship's hull.

The gale whipped up his black trench coat, revealing his hard, bronze chest.

Rice lifted his head, his violent black eyes staring straight at that three-hundred-meter-high wall of violent water.

There was no retreat, only absolute contempt for this natural physical phenomenon.

His right leg slowly stretched backward.

The quadriceps on the outside of his thigh and the gastrocnemius of his calf contracted to the limit at this moment.

The muscle fibers were like twisted steel cables, emitting a teeth-grinding friction sound.

Jet-black Armament Haki, like ink bursting from a dam, overflowed crazily from his pores, instantly covering his entire right leg.

The high-density Haki not only hardened his skin and flesh but also formed a high-frequency oscillating destructive force field on the surface of his leg.

At the same time, the Qi and blood in his body were fully detonated, his lightning cells releasing blue plasma that coiled around the black Haki, forming a dark blue spiral energy layer.

[Iron Body] superimposed with [Armament Haki Hardening] superimposed with [Lightning Intensification].

Rice gritted his teeth, twisting his waist and abdomen, concentrating all his kinetic energy into the knee joint of his right leg.

Facing the hundreds of millions of tons of collapsing seawater, his right leg, like a black iron battle-axe capable of splitting the heavens and earth, kicked out fiercely from bottom to top.

[Six Powers Profound Truth · Tempest Kick · Sea Severing].

The speed of his leg swing broke the sound barrier several times over in an instant.

His instep cut through the air, the friction generating temperatures of several thousand degrees, instantly vaporizing the rain along its path.

A semi-circular dark blue vacuum slash, hundreds of meters long and tens of meters wide, shot out from the tip of Rice's foot with a boom.

This slash was not merely an air current, but a destructive physical cutting plane composed of highly compressed vacuum, Armament Haki, and lightning ions.

The vacuum slash collided straight into the three-hundred-meter-high tsunami water wall.

There was no violent explosion, only a scalp-numbing tearing sound.

The moment the vacuum slash cut into the water body, it forcibly pushed away the surrounding water molecules.

The hydrogen bonds inside the seawater were directly severed by the violent kinetic energy.

In the shocked gaze of everyone, that wall of tsunami water that blocked out the sky was forcibly split open from the center, creating a massive rift a hundred meters wide.

The edges of the rift were as smooth as a mirror, the seawater firmly blocked on both sides by the vacuum force, unable to close towards the center.

The physical inertia of hundreds of millions of tons of seawater was forcibly changed by this slash, pouring crazily backwards along both sides of the rift, crashing into the sturdy breakwaters of Water 7, kicking up white water columns a hundred meters high.

And in the very center of the tsunami, a wide, waterless passage appeared, leading straight to the end of the horizon.

On both sides of the passage were crystal walls three hundred meters high, overhead were gloomy rain clouds, and beneath their feet were the exposed deep black seabed reefs.

"Now! Full helm, charge!"

Rice withdrew his right leg, his soles landing back on the deck, his voice exploding like muffled thunder.

Nami snapped out of her shock, exerting force with both arms to push the mahogany wheel to the limit.

The main drive shaft in the bottom cabin operated at full speed, the raw iron propellers churning crazily in the shallow water area.

The massive dark golden hull of ship, like a crazed rhinoceros, boomed into the rift of the tsunami, following the physically split passage.

The going merry on the right also reacted quickly.

Luffy yelled excitedly, withdrawing his stretched arms.

"Charge! Catch up to the Sea Train! Get Franky back!"

Usopp turned the helm, and the going merry, relying on the formidable structure brought by its wapol metal armor, followed closely behind the side of ship, sailing together into this suffocating sea canyon.

The two warships sped at high speed within the narrow passage.

The three-hundred-meter water walls on both sides emitted a deafening roar, the immense water pressure attempting to close in, but was constantly cut by the residual Armament Haki force field, turning into torrential rain that lashed down on the decks of the warships.

Rainwater slid down Rice's bronze face.

He stood at the bow, his gaze locked onto the sea rails at the end of the passage.

His Observation Haki captured the outline of the train speeding in the distance.

The intelligence agency of the World Government, the elite forces of Enies Lobby.

All obstacles would be crushed into powder before this pure physical mass.

The metal ram of ship tore through the air, carrying an unstoppable, violent kinetic energy, launching a physical pursuit without reservation towards that train transporting the cyborg.