...
At this very moment, even the most timid and cowardly slaves transformed into fearless berserkers, launching a suicidal charge toward pirates who were dozens, even a hundred times stronger than them.
"Bastards! You slaves actually dare challenge me— AAAAAH!"
The blood-soaked pirate was startled at first, then flew into a rage, swinging his blade and cleaving the fastest-charging slave clean in half.
To have broken through the Holy Land Guard's blockade, it wasn't just luck—his strength was genuinely formidable. Almost all the blood on his body belonged to his enemies. Against slave soldiers who were barely any different from ordinary people, he could easily slaughter a hundred!
In just moments, he casually cut down seven or eight slaves. But the mindless slaves surged forward like waves. By the time the pirate realized something was wrong and tried to turn and flee, his limbs were already tightly restrained by them.
To stop him from shaking them off, the slaves even forgot about the weapons in their hands, instead sinking their teeth into his body and limbs like vampires.
In the blink of an eye, the pirate was hacked into minced meat by a storm of blades. Even his head was tossed back and forth four or five times as the slaves fought over it.
Only when more and more pirates broke through the Holy Land Guard's defensive line did those slaves who failed to seize a head turn and charge toward new targets.
"Waaaah! What the hell is wrong with these lunatics?!"
"Damn it, they're asking to die!"
"Kill them!"
...
Having finally broken through the defenses and with the Holy Land of Mary Geoise right before their eyes, the pirates were caught completely off guard by the sudden onslaught of slave soldiers.
In addition, the slave soldiers' appearance and equipment were simply too miserable. The pirates, who hadn't taken them seriously at all, ended up suffering a heavy loss. Over a hundred of them were killed, and their battle line was even briefly pushed back.
However, the pirates quickly adjusted. Or more accurately, once they realized that most of these slaves were just ordinary people—and that due to years of abuse and torment, their combat strength was even inferior to the soldiers of the Holy Land Guard Corps—they finally unleashed the true ferocity of New World pirates.
From that point on, an extremely bloody battle erupted. Slave soldiers who yearned for freedom clashed head-on with New World pirates who had spilled blood countless times. Although the former were far weaker, they made up for it with sheer numbers and a fearless disregard for death. Even after having their arms or legs severed, they would still writhe forward, trying to kill their enemies with their teeth.
If the gap in strength hadn't been so overwhelming, the pirates—who only came to plunder—might have genuinely suffered a disastrous setback at the hands of these slave soldiers.
"Hahaha, as expected of Fleet Admiral Kong! To think you could hold back the pirate horde with nothing but a bunch of worthless slaves!"
The two vice legion commanders, who not long ago had been secretly resentful that Steel Bone Kong was using the allied nations' armies as cannon fodder, had already changed their tune as they now rode with him in a bubble lift toward Mary Geoise.
Having witnessed the savagery of the pirates firsthand, their mindset had also shifted.
Originally, they had still wanted to earn merit while minimizing casualties among the allied nations' soldiers.
But now, all they cared about was keeping themselves alive. The deaths of those lowly people meant nothing to them— not even to the captain of the Dalwesk Kingdom Guard, who had once been of military background.
"Fleet Admiral Kong, is it really fine for us to just withdraw back to Mary Geoise like this? If there are more bombs like the ones from before, maybe we could let those pirates suffer a bit more?"
The King of the Chello Kingdom proposed maliciously. In any case, the Holy Land Guard Corps had already been wiped out, and the losses of the allied nations couldn't possibly get any worse. In this situation, they naturally wanted to squeeze out as much benefit as possible.
As for the Holy Land Guard Corps and the slave soldiers who were still fighting desperately on the front lines, His Majesty clearly couldn't care less about their fate.
"There's no need. The Five Elders already have their own arrangements."
Steelbone Kong decisively rejected King Chero's proposal. Back when he had originally planned to blow up half of Red Port, there had also been people suggesting that the entire port be destroyed in one go, wiping out the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates completely.
However, Steelbone Kong refused on the grounds that Red Port was the face of the World Government, and the Five Elders ultimately chose to tacitly approve his decision.
Of course, the real reason was that Steelbone Kong needed to cooperate with Kizaru's plan. If Red Port were completely destroyed, then without the bubble lift capsules, the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates would find it far more difficult to assault Mary Geoise. That would run counter to Kizaru's original intention of letting the World Government and the pirates cripple each other.
As the bubble lift capsules began to rise, the battle at Red Port grew increasingly fierce. The first division of the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates, the Holy Land Guardian Corps, and the slave soldiers became embroiled in an incomparably brutal three-way melee.
In theory, the Holy Land Guardians and the slave soldiers should have been on the same side. But among the troops assigned to the Guardian Corps were many former guards of Mary Geoise.
When the blood-soaked slave soldiers realized that the "allies" fighting alongside them were the very same holy land guards who had once humiliated and suppressed them, they naturally took the opportunity to settle old scores and repay old grudges.
Even after enduring consecutive bloody battles and a massive explosion that had wiped out tens of thousands in one strike, the total number of combatants still locked in the chaos at Red Port exceeded one hundred thousand. "Corpses everywhere and rivers of blood" was nowhere near enough to describe the horror of the battlefield.
"Ghk… was it really necessary for things to escalate to this extent…?"
Aboard the Tyrant, Fubuki — who believed herself to have seen plenty of large-scale conflicts — couldn't help but feel her scalp tingle as she watched the live broadcast on the massive screen.
In theory, a Demon-level disaster could already destroy an entire city, and a Dragon-level disaster could threaten several cities at once. But most of the time, the Hero Association managed to minimize the damage as much as possible, and with timely evacuations, casualties numbering in the hundreds or even thousands were already considered shocking.
Yet even the most catastrophic Dragon-level disaster Fubuki had ever witnessed had never resulted in over a hundred thousand casualties. And now, at Red Port, the number of confirmed dead alone had already surpassed that figure — and the three forces still fighting likely weren't far behind it either.
What was even more terrifying was that, with no retreat possible, the three sides could only continue their death struggle on this coliseum-like peninsula until only one side remained standing.
"If you don't want to watch, then go rest, Fubuki."
Tatsumaki, who had spent years fighting monsters on the front lines, clearly had far greater mental resilience than her sister. But seeing the pitiful look on Fubuki's face, her tone softened almost immediately.
°°°
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