svetikya Chapter 302 Saber and Caster of the Black Team
Chapter 302 Saber and Caster of the Black Team
Chapter 302 Saber and Caster of the Black Team
Sakazuki stood in the center of the flames, his bare upper body steaming with sweat, every muscle trembling slightly from the intense heat.
The three rekindled flame-shaped Command Seals on his wrist shone brightly, like three magma cracks branded into his skin.
His spirit lies ahead.
A tall, slender figure clad in heavy black armor stepped out from the flames.
The armor was ancient in style, with beast heads on the shoulders and a jade belt around the waist. It was pitch black, except for the breastplate, which was a dark golden fire pattern.
The newcomer was not wearing a helmet, revealing a face with sharp, angular features.
He was around forty years old, with a fair complexion and no beard, sword-like eyebrows that reached his temples, and a pair of eyes as deep as a cold pool, without any ripples.
What is most striking is the sword hanging at his waist.
The scabbard was also jet black, but a dark red light faintly seeped from the scabbard opening, as if something ominous was sealed inside.
"Servant, Saber."
His voice was deep, flat, and devoid of any emotional fluctuation, as if he were stating a simple fact.
"My real name is Bai Qi."
As the four words fell, the temperature in the entire summoning arena seemed to drop a few degrees.
It wasn't the cold temperature, but a sense of desolation stemming from killing and death.
Taigong Wang's movements paused slightly.
Yang Jian's third eye shone with golden light as he silently scrutinized the newly arrived heroic spirit.
"Lord Wu'an————"
Bai Qi didn't look at them.
His gaze fell on Akainu, whose deep, still eyes seemed to penetrate flesh and reach the depths of his soul.
"I have heard that you are not doing this for fame or personal gain," Bai Qi said slowly, each word as if carved into stone.
"In your heart lies a desire to burn the world and a will to purify it, yet—"
He paused for a moment.
"There is also confusion."
Akainu's pupils contracted slightly. He wanted to retort, but in that instant, countless images flooded his mind like a burst dam.
Changping.
Four hundred thousand Zhao soldiers knelt down and surrendered.
He stood on the high hill, his black armor stained with blood, staring expressionlessly at the mountain of corpses piled up in the pit.
"Lord Wu'an, after this battle, the Qin army will be renowned throughout the world, but—" The deputy general hesitated, unable to finish his sentence.
"Too many sins will surely incur divine retribution?" Bai Qi sneered. "If Heaven condemns me, then so be it."
"I have never regretted what I have done. To bring peace to the world, what is the harm in slaughtering a million?"
Xianyang.
The King of Qin bestowed upon him a sword, ordering him to commit suicide.
He knelt before the hall and accepted the longsword, a symbol of shame and betrayal, with both hands.
"Lord Wu'an, do you have anything to say?" the eunuch asked in a shrill voice.
Bai Qi looked up, his eyes showing neither sorrow nor joy.
"I have spent my entire life fighting for Qin, killing countless people. Now that the king desires my death, I will die."
"However, the world is not yet at peace, and the six states are not yet subdued—what a pity."
The image is shattered.
Akainu was panting heavily, and the veins on his forehead were bulging.
It wasn't his memory, yet it was clearer and heavier than his own.
The wails of 400,000 dead souls still seem to echo in my ears, and the cold touch of the Qin King's Palace still seems to linger on my fingertips.
"This is—your past?" Akainu's voice was hoarse.
"Yes," Bai Qi said frankly, "I have spent my life slaughtering for the greater good."
"Qin unified the six states and ended the war, which was a great righteous act for the world. For this great righteous act, I did everything I could: bury surrendered soldiers alive, flood Yan City, and burn Ying Capital."
He took a step forward, the black armor rubbing together and producing a cold metallic sound.
"Yet I have never doubted my principles. Even if I am sentenced to death, even if I bear infamy, my heart will remain as firm as iron."
Bai Qi stared directly at Akainu: "Can your sense of justice compare to my sense of righteousness? Can your beliefs be like mine, unwavering even if the world scorns them?"
Akainu remained silent.
He thought of Alabasta.
He recalled how he had been corrupted by the power of Tescatlipoca, transforming into a lava demon that nearly destroyed the entire Alabasta.
Did he still have any sense of justice back then?
"I once—lost control." Akainu finally spoke, his voice low.
"In Alabasta, I became a monster. That's when I realized that so-called absolute justice might just be an excuse for self-satisfaction."
Unexpectedly, Bai Qi did not mock him; instead, he nodded.
"Good. Only by recognizing one's own faults can one avoid repeating them."
He raised his hand and placed it on the hilt of the sword at his waist: "I made a pact with you not because you are perfect, but because of that, you have the opportunity to be tempered."
"If you wish to burn away all the evil in the world, I can help you."
"After your flames have burned your enemies, will they burn you? After your justice has cleansed the world, will it turn into a new tyranny?"
""
Akainu took a deep breath, the power of the Magma-Magma Fruit surging within him, resonating with the Flame Mark Command Seals on the back of his hand.
"I don't know," he answered honestly, "but I will keep going. With these hands, with this strength, I will prove my justice, and even if I am ultimately proven wrong, I want to see the end with my own eyes."
For the first time, a slight ripple appeared in Bai Qi's eyes.
"Alright." He loosened the hilt of his sword and placed one hand behind his back.
"I, Bai Qi, hereby make a pact with you. Your flames and my sword's edge are both forces for purifying this world. As for whether the path ahead is righteous or evil—"
He turned around, looked at Taigong Wang and Yang Jian outside the barrier, and a cold smile appeared on his lips.
Let posterity judge.
Taigong Wang smiled: "The brilliance of Lord Wu'an has not diminished even after a thousand years."
Yang Jian nodded: "Decisive in killing, yet mindful of self-reflection, good."
Shamrock let out a long sigh of relief and waved away the barrier: "Then, the contract is established. Admiral Sakazuki, welcome back to the Holy Grail War. This time, I hope you can go even further."
Akainu looked down at the three burning Command Seals on his wrist.
Power surged through his body, hotter and more violent than ever before, yet also more—clear-headed.
Bai Qi's memories showed him what the end of slaughter looked like. But he would not back down.
Just as Bai Qi said.
Even if the world despises me, my heart will remain as firm as iron.
This is the kind of heroic spirit he needs.
The western sea, outside the ruins of Ohara, was shrouded in deep night, the surface of the sea as black as ink.
Aokiji Kuzan stood at the bow of a small boat, gazing at the distant outline of an island shrouded in mist.
Ohara.
He had never returned here in the past twenty years, but every detail was etched deep in his memory.
The location of the Omniscient Tree, the village where scholars lived, and the coastline completely razed by artillery fire.
"Admiral, are we really going up there?" the young marine asked in a low voice, his voice trembling slightly. "Up there—it's said to be haunted."
"Ghosts?" Aokiji smiled, a rare occurrence. "If there are ghosts, they're the ones I know."
The small boat docked.
Aokiji stepped onto the scorched earth, the sound of gravel rubbing against the soles of his boots echoing softly.
He waved for the marines to wait where they were, and walked alone into the depths of the island.
The pale moonlight shone on the ruins, casting distorted shadows.
The wind howled through the empty window frame. This place truly resembled a ghost town, a ghost town of knowledge.
As Aokiji walked, memories surged like a tide.
Twenty years ago, he stood on the bow of a warship, watching the cannon fire sweep across the island again and again.
The scholars' cries, the acrid smell of burning books, and the tiny figure of the little girl adrift at sea.
He let her go.
At that moment, he wavered.
"General Kuzan."
The voice came from behind me, cold and mechanical.
Aokiji stopped, without turning around: "The guy with the black beard?"
"The Blackbeard Pirates' Second Fleet, Special Operations Team," the voice said.
"By order of the Admiral, we are here to retrieve any possible relics from the Holy Grail War, and coincidentally, an energy reaction has occurred here."
Aokiji slowly turned around.
Five people.
They were all dressed in black uniforms, wore masks resembling insect compound eyes, and held strangely shaped guns in their hands.
The leader was tall and had a raven-shaped metal shoulder armor on his shoulder, which was the same raven that had appeared in the sea off Zou before.
"It's a pleasant surprise to see a naval admiral here," Raven's voice came through the mask.
"The Admiral is very interested in you. After all, you are one of the few high-ranking naval officers who witnessed the entire First Holy Grail War firsthand."
.
Aokiji said expressionlessly, "No need to be modest, Lord Raven, with your countless clones—your reputation has been quite something lately."
"No, no, I wouldn't dare to be presumptuous in front of the general." Raven raised his hand, and his four subordinates simultaneously raised their guns, aiming them at Aokiji.
"However, if you're not behaving properly, we wouldn't mind taking a corpse back with us. We're in dire need of experimental subjects for summoning Heroic Spirits."
Aokiji sighed.
He raised his left hand, and the three pale blue Command Seals on the back of his hand shone faintly in the moonlight.
"You've got one thing wrong," he said.
"I'm not here to look for any relics."
Frost spread from him.
It wasn't a slow condensation, but an eruption.
Like a sudden polar storm, the air instantly dropped to freezing point, and the ground was covered with a thick layer of white frost. Before the five black-bearded members could even pull the trigger, they were frozen into five ice sculptures.
Only the raven retreated hastily at the last moment, its shoulder armor suddenly spreading its metal wings and spewing out high-temperature flames, barely melting the ice in front of it.
"Command Spell?!" Raven's voice finally showed some emotion.
"You became a participant too?!"
Aokiji did not answer. He walked step by step toward the raven, each step leaving deep icy marks on the ground.
"Ohara has already died once." Aokiji's voice was calm, but beneath the calm was a cold rage suppressed for twenty years.
"I will not allow anyone to trample on this land again."
The raven on the raven's shoulder armor opened its beak and spewed out a blazing laser beam.
Aokiji raised his hand, and an ice wall appeared out of thin air. Lasers burned the ice surface, producing sizzling white steam, but could not penetrate it.
"Retreat!" Raven made a quick decision, his shoulder armor spewing flames as he flew backward.
But he ran into a wall.
An ice wall.
At some point, the entire coastline was completely surrounded by ring-shaped ice walls.
Aokiji stood at the only gap in the ice wall, the moonlight shining from behind him, casting a long shadow.
"I said," Aokiji repeated, "It's not allowed."
Raven gritted his teeth, pulled a metal ball from his pocket, and slammed it hard onto the ground.
The sphere exploded, releasing thick black smoke and a piercing noise, clearly indicating some kind of jamming device.
However, Aokiji simply raised his hand.
Countless sharp ice spikes erupted from the ground, piercing through the black smoke and precisely striking the raven's limbs.
The raven barely managed to dodge, but its right leg was still pierced, and blood splattered on the ice, the piercing red stains spreading outwards.
"Ah—!" he screamed and fell to the ground.
Aokiji walked up to him and looked down at this elite warrior in the Blackbeard Pirates.
"Go back and tell Marshall D. Teach," Aokiji said.
"This is not a place he can set his sights on. If I see any of his people near here again—"
He lifted his foot and gently stepped on the raven's intact left leg.
"I will go to Impel Down to find him myself."
"Click."
The sound of leg bones shattering was exceptionally clear in the quiet night.
The raven fainted.
Aokiji withdrew his foot and turned to look into the depths of the island.
The battle was over, but the turmoil in my heart could not be calmed.
He looked at his hands, hands that had carried out the Buster Call and spared a child; hands that had frozen pirates and hands that had wavered and hesitated.
What exactly is justice?
He thought he knew, but now he's not so sure.
He walked toward the remains of the Omniscient Tree.
That once towering tree, which carried the knowledge of the world, is now just a charred stump, as thick as two people could hug.
The cross-section of the tree stump has been smoothed by the wind and rain of time, but traces of the fire that burned it back then can still be seen.
Aokiji reached out and stroked the rough, charred wood.
"Twenty years ago, I destroyed this place," he whispered, as if speaking to the trees, or perhaps to himself.
"Because I firmly believe that it is justice. Sacrificing a few to protect more people is the logic of the Navy, and it is also the logic of the world."
The wind whistled through the ruins.
"But now I'm not sure," Aokiji continued.
"The Holy Grail War—the Heroic Spirits—after those powers beyond reason appeared, I began to doubt: Is our so-called justice merely based on our strength?"
"If we have no power, if we are as weak as the scholars of Ohara, then what meaning does our pursuit of justice have?"
No one answered.
Only the moonlight, only the sound of the wind, only this land that buried knowledge and life, silently listened to his monologue.
Aokiji raised his left hand, and the three Command Seals on the back of his hand glowed with a soft light.
The light mingled with the moonlight, resonating with the land as if the spirits of the deceased scholars were responding to him in this way.
"I need answers," Aokiji said, his voice becoming firm.
"The answer wasn't given by someone else; it was the answer I found myself. I need a pair of eyes—eyes that can see through the fog."
I need a voice, a voice that can question my own heart.
The Command Seals shone brighter and brighter.
So—respond to me.
A burst of light erupted.
It was not a blazing flame, nor a dazzling golden light, but a blue radiance that flowed like water.
The light enveloped Aokiji, the remains of the Omniscient Tree, and the entire ruins.
A sound rang out from within the light.
It didn't resonate through the ears, but directly deep within the consciousness, gentle, wise, and with a hint of playful laughter.
"You're looking for answers? That's great. I've spent my whole life doing that, helping people find their own answers."
Aokiji closed his eyes.
"But I must remind you that the process of finding the answer is often more painful than the answer itself."
"Because you'll find that what you firmly believe might be entirely wrong, and what you hate and reject might contain the truth. Are you prepared to face this possibility?"
Aokiji was silent for a moment, then nodded.
"I'm ready."
"Then, the contract is established."
The blue light converged and condensed into a human shape.
An old man.
He wore a simple white robe in the style of ancient Greece, was barefoot, had sparse hair, a broad forehead, and small, bright eyes that sparkled with childlike curiosity and the profundity of a sage.
"Servant, Caster." The old man smiled, a warm and infectious smile.
"His real name was Socrates. An Athenian philosopher, a man who knew he knew nothing."
He looked around, his gaze sweeping over the scorched earth, the broken walls, and the remains of the all-knowing tree, a hint of pity flashing in his eyes.
"A tragedy has occurred here," Socrates said softly.
"The root of tragedy often lies not in the evil of the perpetrators, but in ignorance. People think they know what is right, but they don't."
He looked at Aokiji: "You're confused because you're starting to realize your own ignorance."
"That's a good thing, my friend. Only those who admit their ignorance truly begin to think."
Aokiji thought of the flames of Ohara, the deserts of Alabasta, Sengoku's weary eyes, and Sakazuki's burning faith.
Then he smiled.
That was the first time in a long time that he had shown a genuine smile.
"Sounds good," Aokiji said. "Then let's begin this endless question-and-answer journey."
>