On Aeridar's side, he waited a moment and realized that nearly everyone had arrived—everyone except the Lion of the Guardians.
"That dumb lion... off retrieving his so-called trump card?" Aeridar muttered, rubbing his chin in curious speculation.
"The Lion's making his move?" High above, the Eagle hovered in midair, gazing at the crumbling terrain below with a deep, unreadable expression.
RAAAHHH... HSSS... KEEEEE—!
A thunderous rumble echoed in waves, accompanied by swirling dust clouds. At first, it sounded like an army mobilizing. But the sharp, bestial cries that followed were far from human, more like a tidal wave of wild beasts.
"L-Look! In the sky! Look at the sky!!"
A veteran from the Triangle Pirates suddenly pointed upward, his face twisted in horror.
Everyone followed his gaze, and froze.
Under the pale moonlight, a swarm of dark shapes swept across the sky. As they drew nearer, their forms grew clear: massive stone-carved eagles, golden hawks, and even mythical creatures, winged dragons and gargoyles straight out of legend.
The terrifying part? These massive stone birds weren't just suspended, they moved. Their wings flapped with thunderous force, and they let out piercing, lifelike shrieks that cut through the night.
"What the hell are those?! A sky regiment?!"
Otto screamed next, utterly shaken.
More gasps followed as the crowd turned again, this time toward the ground.
Charging across the earth was a stampede of stone-carved beasts: lions, boars, bears, all sculpted with uncanny precision. Alongside them marched legions of armored stone knights, their formation rigid and disciplined. The beasts roared. The knights chanted as one:
"Eliminate the intruders!"
"A... an army?" Aeridar stood on a crag of stone, wide-eyed at the surreal sight, an army of living sculptures. Between the winged predators circling above and the war beasts charging below, what force in the world could stand against this?
Not even the elite soldiers of Totto Land or the infamous Germa 66's brutal science-born army could hope to match this kind of force. This was a legion that knew no fear, no fatigue... no death.
The Tiger burst into laughter at the stunned expressions around him. Mocking Aeridar's crew and Vito's party, he roared:
"You damned pirates are already in hell! Face the invincible army of the Gamas Kingdom, you'll be buried in stone!"
Vito and the others clenched their fists. This many stone soldiers? Tonight might be their end.
"That bastard Lion! He's trying to wipe us all out?!"
Nekk's face turned a shade paler. As the one tasked with guarding the altar, he had no access to the "trump card." Only the Lion knew its location, and had the authority to unleash it.
Nekk's original plan was to let the Triangle Pirates strike first, then capitalize on the chaos to betray the others and crush the remaining members of the Five Guardian Council.
But Aeridar's unexpected arrival disrupted everything, and gave the Lion just enough time to unleash this trump card. Nekk had wrongly assumed the weapon was hidden with the treasure... He hadn't expected it to be buried within the altar itself.
"The Gamas Kingdom? Invincible army?"
Aeridar's eyes lit up. "So that legendary 'Prosperous Country'... it must be the Gamas Kingdom!"
And this was it, the kingdom's ancient secret. This fearsome stone army... or rather, the method to create it.
The implications sent a rush of excitement through Aeridar's veins. If he could seize this secret, if he could build an army , then his future kingdom would be untouchable. He'd finally have the military might to rival the greatest powers in the world.
After all, every Emperor commands overwhelming forces. Whitebeard, Edward Newgate himself, could summon tens of thousands of elite pirates to wage war against Marineford with a single command.
Even one tier below, like the Vinsmoke family's Germa Kingdom, boasted the nightmare-inducing techno-army known as Germa 66.
In this world, strength starts with an army. And Aeridar had none.
But now... the path to power stood before him in stone.
"Boss, leave these things to us."
Oliver stepped forward, wielding Nagamitsu and Yubashiri. He charged first.
"Captain, go for the trump card! We'll handle the grunts!"
With his sharp wit, Arlan had already reached the same conclusion: this stone legion was the Lion's trump card. And it had to be taken.
With a leap, he launched into the air using Geppo, soaring straight at the airborne Eagle.
Dimitri readied his flintlock pistol.
Backan unstrapped his massive greataxe.
Otto underwent his transformation, his form bulged with muscle, his head morphed into a massive beastly skull with wide jaws and rows of razor-sharp teeth. His limbs elongated into clawed paws, brown fur sprouting across his towering four-meter frame, taller even than the humanoid Cave Lion.
Every time Aeridar saw Otto's beast form, he couldn't help but marvel at Dalt's biotech genius. With just a few fragments of savage beast DNA, Dalt had created a Supernova with a bounty in the hundreds of millions.
Now, if he could combine this with the secrets of the stone army...
The future was a dream so bright it might wake him laughing.
Suddenly, a roar, piercing and laced with the clang of metal, ripped through the battlefield. Aeridar snapped his gaze toward the source.
Charging forth from the stone horde was a lion—no, a massive metal beast, bronze-like in sheen, barreling forward with the thunder of a war machine. It measured at least five meters long, its entire body forged from glimmering alloy. Atop the lion sat a rider.
His disheveled brown hair was streaked with white, a telltale sign of age and battle-worn wisdom. His face was sharp and resolute, exuding a commanding presence, though the creases at the corners of his eyes revealed a man in his fifties. His left hand was gloved in black, while his right held nothing, except a gleaming golden weapon, a hybrid between spear and axe.
Among the onrushing stone legion, more metallic beasts surged forward, each one cast in bronze and terrifyingly lifelike.
A tiger of equal size to the lion. A smaller, but no less savage, bronze-fanged wolf. A twenty-meter-long metal python, its coils rippling like living steel. Overhead, a giant bronze eagle spread its wings, spanning nearly six meters across the sky.
Aeridar had seen these before, silent statues once enshrined at the altar's summit. But the armored warriors trailing behind them were new: metallic knights, easily a dozen or more, clad in iron-forged armor, their footsteps heavier than the stone beasts around them.
Then the man on the lion raised his left hand, the black-gloved one, and bellowed with theatrical ferocity:
"Quake in fear! Tremble before judgment! You filthy pirates from beyond the sea, and you, traitor most vile, shall all perish under the might of the Living Glove: Edvishen!"
His voice rang out like a war cry forged in fire. That manic grin, that wild intensity radiating from his body, he was like a lion mid-hunt, fearless and ravenous, ready to shred anything in his path.
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