Elio spoke with a calmness akin to the breeze above the clouds, yet every word roared like thunder in the ears of the five members of the God's Knight Order standing behind Gunko.
The incident at God's Valley thirty-two years ago had long since been erased from history. Not just the event itself, even the island where God's Valley once stood had vanished from all maps.
Because of this, only a handful within the Marine Headquarters knew anything about it. And of those, only Garp, who had personally participated in the so-called "hunting game" back then, held firsthand knowledge. Even the Fleet Admiral Sengoku had no idea about the full truth.
Most baffling of all, the five God's Knights were certain this was their first meeting with Elio.
Even if Garp had revealed the story to him, there was no way Elio could recognize them at first glance!
It wasn't just the God's Knights who stared in disbelief. The three Admirals standing behind Elio also raised their heads, their expressions clad with astonishment.
Though they were now powerful Admirals of the Headquarters, during the God's Valley incident, they had merely been young Marines in their teens or early twenties. Kuzan, the youngest among them, had been only eleven at the time. As such, they knew little about what had transpired. Only through access to certain top-secret documents and sparse information related to Rocks, the tyrant of the seas in that era, did they manage to grasp scattered pieces of truth.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was, while they, the Admirals, had never fully grasped the truth of the God's Valley incident, Elio, who had just been promoted to Vice Admiral not long ago, not only understood it clearly but even named those who had participated in the "hunt." In that moment, they couldn't help but feel like mere juniors standing before an unfathomable veteran.
"You actually know about the God's Valley incident?!"
After a brief moment of shock, the long-haired woman beside Gunko stepped forward abruptly. The skeleton-masked man instinctively gripped his long scythe, and the hooded one leapt backward, raising his spear in a battle stance.
Faced with their reactive hostility, Elio remained unfazed. He took a single step forward and said coldly, "I told you, you filthy bottom-feeders have no right to negotiate with me. Return to the Holy Land immediately and send the Five Elders themselves to speak with me."
He paused shortly, then suddenly changed his tone, his next words like a thunderstrike, "No, the Five Elders didn't respond. Instead, it was you who came through the teleportation array. Should I assume, then, that it wasn't the Five Elders who sent you... but Imu?"
At the moment Elio uttered that name, Imu, the expressions of all six God's Knights, including Gunko, changed drastically.
"Damn it, how do you know about Lord Imu?!"
"You know far too much!"
The moment those words echoed, a sharp killing intent flickered through their eyes. Gunko activated her Devil Fruit power in silence. A massive arrow wrapped in bandages tore through the air, aimed directly at Elio at terrifying speed.
None of the Admirals or Gion, who had kept her distance beside Elio, expected such a sudden attack.
Firstly, they were unfamiliar with the name Imu. They hadn't imagined that a single utterance of it would cause such panic, to the point where the enemy launched an all-out assault without hesitation.
Though Gion knew of Imu's existence, she never imagined the knowledge of it was so taboo, so much so that even speaking the name would trigger immediate warfare. In that moment, she finally understood why Elio had told her not to rush into investigating the truth behind the Room of Flowers and Imu.
"You wish to rival the brilliance of the full moon, little firefly?"
Before the three Admirals or Gion could react, Elio's voice suddenly brimmed with killing intent.
In the next instant, his hand moved. He gripped the hilt of Gion's blade at her waist.
As Elio unsheathed the sword, an overwhelming burst of black-and-red Conqueror's Haki erupted. But unlike ordinary Haki, it wasn't released from his body or feet. Instead, it surged out bizarrely from the sheath itself.
Even before the blade was fully drawn, the terrifying aura had already blanketed the entire platform.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The massive arrow that had just shot toward Elio shattered instantly under the crushing pressure of the Haki, disintegrating into ashes before it could even reach him.
Gunko's pupils contracted, her voice trembling with horror, "Conqueror's Haki!"
"No, this can't be...!"
The long-haired woman beside her widened her eyes, her voice filled with disbelief. "Stronger than even Rocks's Conqueror's Haki... Who are you?!"
"Damn it, I can't take this much longer!"
The remaining two God's Knights felt as if their bodies and souls were being torn apart the moment the aura engulfed them. Their limbs were frozen, and an unprecedented fear surged from deep within.
Under the horrified gazes of the God's Knights, Elio, still gripping the sword's hilt, did not hesitate. In one swift motion, he drew the blade from its sheath.
Hummmm-
As the sword was fully unsheathed, an even more domineering wave of Conqueror's Haki erupted, sweeping out like a tidal wave, flames rolling in its wake, engulfing the God's Knights in an instant.
A low, rumbling vibration rippled through the air. Gunko and the other five God's Knights could no longer stand their ground. They stumbled backward uncontrollably.
"Get out of my sight!"
"Tell Imu, From this moment on, the one you should fear isn't just Nika. You'll have to fear me, Elio, as well!"
As his words dropped, the long blade wrapped in Haki at its absolute peak swept sideways in a single slash.
In that instant, hurricane-like winds burst across the platform. Thunder seemed to roll in from the heavens, and a shockwave, visible to the naked eye, surged forward. It carried with it the black-and-red energy of Conqueror's Haki, sweeping over Gunko and the five other God's Knights.
"Ugh-AAAH!"
Several agonized screams echoed in the air. The six God's Knights, who had just arrived via the teleportation array, were launched into the sky by the overwhelming force. Like cannonballs, they shot toward the Holy Land atop the Red Line.
"!!!!"
Behind Elio, the three Admirals stood wide-eyed, expressions of utter shock frozen on their faces.
They didn't know how strong the God's Knights were exactly, but the sheer force Elio had unleashed far exceeded their imagination.
Even among all the Conqueror's Haki users they knew, not even Gold Roger could have sent enemies flying that high and that far with Haki alone.
At that moment, whether it was Sakazuki, Borsalino, or Kuzan, they were utterly convinced of Elio's power. They finally understood where Elio's confidence came from in launching this coup.
It wasn't from the Marines and officers who had chosen to follow him because of his years of help.
It was from the fact that Elio himself bore the aura of a true king.
Having blasted six God's Knights skyward with a single slash, Elio returned the sword to Gion's sheath with a fluid motion, then turned and gazed down coldly at the Marine warships approaching the outer wall of Marineford.
"Borsalino, sink those ships. They're an eyesore."
"Understood."
Borsalino quickly recovered from his shock, and without hesitation, leapt into the sky.