The pirates sat and forgot, and they really believed the nine truths and one lie.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

The clamor of the world and the shouts of battle from the distant battlefield all became distant background noise.

The only sensation, both real and cold, was the warm touch of blood gushing from the shattered chest cavity.

The last flame of Steelbone Kong, the old admiral who had fought for naval justice his entire life, was rapidly being extinguished.

His body lost all strength and he slowly knelt down, but his eyes remained wide open, staring at Zefa, who was both familiar and utterly unfamiliar to him.

However, what flickered in those eyes in the end was not hatred or resentment, but a kind of guilt that was hard to let go of.

"It's my fault for failing to protect your family."

"It's because I made you suffer too much."

"If only I could..."

Even when a person is about to die, his words are good.

All the estrangement, anger, and ideological conflicts transformed into a final apology to his former comrades at the moment of his death.

In this final moment, he poured out all the burdens of his life and the responsibilities he had failed to fulfill.

Hearing his old friend's dying confession, Zephyr's ghoul eye, which shimmered with a cruel red light, involuntarily welled up with a faint, almost imperceptible, glimmer of moisture.

A single, murky tear, mixed with the blood on her face, silently slid down her cheek; the tear was icy cold.

It stirred up the deepest memories in Zephyr's heart, memories that had long been buried by darkness and hatred.

He recalled how ridiculous and naive he had once been to uphold the principle of non-killing!

It was precisely because of this ridiculous persistence that his wife and children were brutally murdered by pirates, and his students, whom he regarded as his own children, fell one after another in pools of blood.

If he had abandoned this pointless kindness sooner, if he had possessed the power he has now to crush everything, would the outcome have been different?

This may be the last tear he shed as a human being.

From then on, his heart would be consumed by the flames of revenge and an endless thirst for flesh and blood.

Finally, Steel Bone's empty head drooped limply.

He knelt before Zefa, his eyes wide open, utterly devoid of life, his unclosed eyes filled with lingering regret.

A deathly silence enveloped the ruins, with only the faint sound of distant artillery fire as proof that time was still flowing.

After a long silence, Zefa slowly spoke, "You may not be a qualified marshal, but you are definitely a qualified comrade-in-arms."

Rest in peace, old friend...

After saying that, he slowly pulled the scarlet scales that had pierced the steel-boned hollow chest out of the old marshal's body.

The movement was unusually gentle, and blood dripped from the kagune onto the ground, blooming into tragically beautiful blood flowers.

As a former comrade-in-arms, he ultimately gave Steelbone Sky a relatively dignified ending.

I did not use my kagune to absorb or devour the remains of my old friend.

This may be the last shred of humanity he could retain after falling into darkness.

He crouched down and gently laid Steel Bone Hollow's body flat on the ground with his blood-stained hands.

Then he stretched out his fingers and very carefully closed the old marshal's eyes, which refused to close.

Zephyr whispered, "Just get some sleep, and stop looking at this filthy world..."

After doing all this, he raised his head and glanced at the huge naval flag that was still fluttering in the wind on the broken flagpole not far away.

The nimble tail on his back spanned dozens of meters, precisely wrapping around the white flag with blue seagulls, and with a slight effort, it tore the entire flag off.

With his tail retracted, Zephyr personally draped the naval flag, stained with countless drops of blood and fire and carrying the faith and pursuit of most of his life, over Steelbone Sky's gradually cooling body.

The pristine white flag was quickly stained crimson by the blood still seeping from the old marshal's chest wound, like a huge and mournful blood-red medal.

Seeing this, Zephyr knew it was all over. Marineford had nothing left for him to cherish.

"It's time to leave."

He muttered to himself, "Take the remaining two little ones, leave this place, and live our own lives."

He took one last look at the blood-stained naval flag covering his best friend's body, then resolutely turned away, etching the death of Kong Steelbone and the heavy sin of killing his comrade into his soul.

In his view, it was better for the old marshal to die at the hands of pirates, to be humiliated because of his old age, than to die at the hands of him, to die at the hands of a comrade he once trusted most.

On the contrary, it's a relief. Kong has been too tired in his life, carrying too much burden. He deserves a good rest.

"Zefa, you beast!!"

A roar, brimming with boundless rage and endless sorrow, ripped through the deathly silence of the area like a thunderclap.

The sound was both so familiar and so strange, because the pain and rage it contained were beyond what ordinary people could bear.

The sound came from the relatively intact medical tent area further back.

Suddenly, the curtain of a tent was flung open, and a tall, imposing figure, yet revealing an undeniable weakness, stepped out.

It was a resolute face covered in blood and weathered by time; it belonged to the former naval hero Garp, but at this moment his condition was extremely poor.

His head was wrapped in thick bandages, completely soaked in blood and turned dark red. It was from when his own grandson Luffy fought with all his might and finally broke his skull, leaving him severely injured.

The injury had been barely stabilized after emergency treatment, but now it seems that the wound has reopened due to extreme emotional distress.

Crimson blood was seeping out from under the bandages, flowing down his forehead and across his cheeks, which were twitching violently with extreme anger.

Garp witnessed the second half of the fight; he saw Zeff pierce Steelbone's chest with his hideous khat.

He witnessed firsthand the old marshal kneeling before Zefa, his life extinguished.

He saw Zephyr drape the naval flag over the empty body.

Those incredibly impactful scenes were like red-hot branding irons, scorching his head.

Anger, grief, disbelief—all sorts of emotions erupted wildly in his chest like a volcano, causing his old head wound to burst forth with excruciating pain.

But the physical pain was insignificant compared to the pain in his heart. Garp asked himself when Zephyr had turned into this state and why he hadn't noticed it at the beginning.

It's too late to make amends now. Zeffa murdered the Fleet Admiral with his own hands, making him worse than any other traitor in the Navy.