The marine soldiers stared blankly at the trajectory that Dragon of The Darkness Flame had ravaged, only to feel a sense of creepiness.

If Admiral Kuzan didn't ask them to stay away before, wouldn't more people be incinerated by this terrifying blow?

A group of marine soldiers turned their heads with lingering fear and looked at Aokiji with grateful eyes.

However, at this time, they saw Aokiji lying on the ground sweating heavily.

“Admiral Kuzan!?”

The marine soldiers were surprised and hurried toward him. Then they saw clearly that a part of his right leg, at the calf position, was partially gone!

“Are you okay sir?” The soldiers were terrified.

“I didn't completely avoid it!?” Aokiji also stared at his calf, thinking of it like this.

The flying speed of The Dragon of the Darkness Flame was actually very fast. At the moment when it was getting close to him, Aokiji escaped to the side by the “Soru”. However, although he didn't touch the body of the black fire dragon directly, he didn't expect that the scope of the h.e.l.lfire Dragon was very wide, so it still rubbed his calf by its extraordinary heat.

Even if he was in his elemental state, the ice parts of his right calf were vaporized by the huge heat at that moment!

In the beginning, Aokiji didn't feel a thing. After returning to his senses, he found an extreme pain rus.h.i.+ng to his mind, coming from his leg, as if someone had cut a huge piece of flesh from his leg.

That's why he fell to the ground…

Aokiji's right leg was cold out by his ability, and then he began trying to re-elementize his Ice to regain the missing part of his calf. However, when he tried to do so, he discovered that the missing part wouldn't re-grow!

So Aokiji immediately understood that this was physical damage!

The surrounding marine soldiers, after seeing this scene, they also understood that Aokiji, the invincible Logia Fruit User in everyone's eyes, one of the most powerful representatives of Marines, was injured!?

For a while, all the soldiers felt a sense of collapse…

On the contrary, Aokiji was not surprised. As a Logia Fruit User, he certainly knows that the so-called invincible statement was just people's wishful thinking, and all the Logia Fruit Users can certainly be injured!

“What was that black flame?” Aokiji, lying on the ground, turned to look at Ian, who was climbing the rope ladder, and thought to himself: “So intense flames, I am afraid that it's even stronger than Sakazuki's Magma… is that guy a Devil Fruit User?”

Ian didn't know that the flames of the Black Dragon wave he released, inadvertently damaged Aokiji, just like In the fight between Sakazuki and Aokiji in the Punk Hazard two years later…

This was a victory of Ian in the elements battle.

Aokiji was injured, and Ian has also suffered. Now he was gritting his teeth, while climbing up the s.h.i.+p. His legs and left hand hurt so much that he felt as something was p.r.i.c.king his heart and crus.h.i.+ng his bones. So with every step up he takes, he became sweating profusely.

At the same time as Ian climbed up, the giant and the fish-men were pulling the s.h.i.+p, dragging it forward, step by step, and they were approaching the downward channel.

Gritting his teeth, Aokiji struggled to stand up. The order he received was to arrest the mastermind, Ian. He could let go of the slaves because of his compa.s.sion, but he still had to execute his mission.

He wasn't able to rely on his right leg, so he had to use his left leg to jump into the air, and then launched his ability “Ice Block: Partisan”, and immediately shot a spear of ice, whistling in the air, at Ian.

Ian had just been pulled up by the slaves and fell over the deck of the s.h.i.+p. Because he was laid on his back, he didn't see Aokiji's attack, but the slaves saw it and started screaming.

Due to the injuries of his legs, Ian had no time to respond effectively. At this time, a male slave rushed up from the side, ran towards Ian, stood in front of him, blocking the direction of the shot. Then, his right chest was pierced by the ice spear!

Not only Ian, but even Aokiji was also stunned. He didn't expect that these slaves would sacrifice their lives to protect Ian.

Ian also recognized the male slave who saved him. It was the first slave he rescued in the prison of the Mjosgard family. Although Ian still doesn't know his name, he really didn't expect that he would do this to save him. (T-T)

The male slave fell to the deck with blood flowing out of him, and then the other slaves surrounded him quickly, ripped off his s.h.i.+rt, and rushed to bandage him.

Ian forced himself to stand up, walked over to the slave, and asked him, “ARE YOU OKAY?”

“I'm… Not dead!” The man even gave a smile to Ian, but then spit out a blood spurt…

“It damaged his lungs!” A slave in the crowd said, “I'm a doctor. Let me take care of him!”

Ian nodded, stood up and went to the side of the s.h.i.+p, and shouted angrily to Aokiji, “So it's like this, Admiral Kuzan. Do you still want to fight me!!??”

“As I said, my mission is to arrest you!” Kuzan had already landed on the ground, but because of his right leg injury, he almost fell to the ground again. So he shook his head and said to Ian, “If you really care about them, you have to surrender!”

“So what about you??” Ian angrily pointed to the marine soldiers on the sh.o.r.e: “Would you care for these marine soldiers??”

“What do you mean!?” Aokiji frowned.

“What do I mean!?” Ian shook his head and said, “You have seen the true power of my previous move. How many of them will survive if I launch it at them again?”

As he spoke, Ian held his wrist up high, which was once again burst into fire.

In fact, at the moment, Ian was so exhausted. Just now, the small amount of Nen recovered from resting a little bit, and regaining his Stamina was slowly injected into this fire. This amount of Nen was not enough to even launch a normal Flying Slash.

But the good thing was… Aokiji doesn't know this!

Turning his head to the soldiers behind him, Aokiji hesitated. He didn't expect Ian to use the marine soldiers to threaten him.

The Dragon of The Darkness Flame was so powerful that even Aokiji was injured. So he could imagine what would happen to these weaker soldiers if they face this h.e.l.lfire Dragon.

Although as Marine soldiers, they should have the consciousness of death in battle, but after all, Aokiji was not a ruthless person like Sakazuki. He can't ignore the lives of these soldiers. If he went on to capture Ian by force, and that leads to the death of these soldiers, Aokiji would not accept it.

The two sides fell into a stalemate, Aokiji stared at Ian tightly, and Ian also kept looking at him.

At this time, the flames in Ian's hand suddenly disappeared.

Aokiji was surprised for a moment, not knowing what happened.

Ian was a little embarra.s.sed and said with a smirk, “Oh Sh*t! I'm sorry Aokiji, but to be honest, I can't launch another Black Dragon wave!”

Upon hearing this, Aokiji became hollow with a gloomy expression…

However, he was too late to react because Ian's s.h.i.+p was at the edge, the whole hull of the s.h.i.+p has begun to tilt!

The giant and Fish-men have pulled the s.h.i.+p to the edge of the channel.

“Quickly, jump on the bow!” The giant called out to everyone, and when they jumped up, he was the last one to jump, and then landed on the bow.

His huge weight was the last straw. When the bow was pressed hard, it immediately accelerated and began to dive in.

“Everybody, hold on!” Ian shouted to the slaves, then moved towards Aokiji and waved, “Goodbye, Admiral Kuzan. Thanks for making this ice slide for us!”

As the words of this sentence fell, Ian's s.h.i.+p disappeared completely from Aokiji's eyes.

This kind of downward channel was similar to the Reverse Mountain. If the water was flowing normally, the speed of the s.h.i.+p may not be that fast. But because Aokiji used his ability “ice age” to freeze all the rivers, it became a little different.

That was basically a slide made of ice!

The bigger the boat was, the wider the keel would be. This is common sense. Their s.h.i.+p's keel was nearly two meters long, which was enough to support the whole s.h.i.+p to slide on the ice.

And it was pretty fast!

Watching the disappearance of the s.h.i.+p, some officers ran to Aokiji and said, “Admiral Kuzan, what should we do? Should we chase them?”

Aokiji shook his head and said, “How could we catch up with them?”

After listening to him, the officers immediately stopped talking. Yeah, how could they chase them? Do they want to bring another s.h.i.+p and take a slide?

“First, go back and report this!” Kuzan sat cross-legged on the ice, and said, “By the way, I need a stretcher. I can't walk now…”

“Ah! Yes, sir!” The officers came back to their senses and hurriedly called for medics to carry Aokiji away.

Then, they stay in place and look at each other in dismay. Then they can't help s.h.i.+vering. Even the Admiral Kuzan was injured in this battle. Even if they were able to get a boat to catch up with them, how can they fight back?

On the stretcher, Aokiji pulled down his blindfold, put his hands behind his head, and dived in his thoughts.

In fact, it can be said that the escape of slaves was completely caused by him. His ability “ice age” has frozen the water surface, which made it easy for them to slide off and made it hard for the Marines to chase them. The ability of his Ice-Ice Fruit was capable to reduce the temperature, but it can't increase it back, so Aokiji can't turn the frozen river into running water again.

This was what Aokiji thought about for a while. He really wanted to let go of those slaves, but he was determined to arrest Ian. It was just the final development result, which was somewhat unexpected for him

He was finally fooled by Ian! He was stunned when he found that Ian can't release the black dragon wave again!

So he let Ian, the mastermind, escape with the slaves…

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