Chapter 206: The Iron Wall and the Remnants

Chapter 206: The Iron Wall and the Remnants

Chapter 206: The Iron Wall and the Remnants

The slave gladiators were ultimately unable to stop the pirates from occupying the terminal of the bubble pod, and the pirates who continued to board Marijoa soon gained the upper hand.

Even though the slave gladiators who longed for freedom burst out with extremely amazing fighting power, they were ultimately defeated by the pirate army of the First Division.

However, these battle-hardened gladiators also caused considerable losses to the pirates, especially those huge giant slaves. They were so tenacious that even before their death, they could easily crush dozens or even hundreds of pirates like killing cockroaches.

The total casualties of more than twelve thousand people dealt a heavy blow to the pirates of the First Division. Perhaps Marijoa was not the huge treasure that they had imagined.

To be precise, on the way to this huge treasure, there are an unknown number of treasure guardians and even "evil dragons" waiting for their arrival.

If you want to get the ownership of this treasure, you have to find a way to destroy the 'evil dragons' guarding the treasure!
The morale of the pirates who realized this became a little low, so much so that after taking control of the terminal of the bubble pod, Esdeath had to immediately send out several groups of pirates as scouts to conduct reconnaissance.

Although the discipline of these pirates is worse than that of the new recruits of the Empire, their strength is still recognized by Esdeath.

Even the weakest pirates in the New World can become middle or lower-level officers in the army of the Empire by relying on their own military strength.

Having such a group of people act as scouts would definitely be a waste of talent, but these pirates' brains were not very good, so Esdeath had to send out several more groups of people to ensure that the intelligence she obtained was accurate enough.

"Lord Esdeath! We have found enemy walls and a large number of enemies ahead!"

However, it was somewhat unexpected that Esdeath had just sent out all her people when the earliest pirate scout who had set out to explore the way had already returned.

Soon with the return of several subsequent groups of pirate scouts, Esdeath also figured out the current situation she was facing.

With the terminal of the bubble pod as the center, an arc-shaped defense line built in advance surrounded the pirates of the first team. If they want to enter Marijoa, they must break through this defense line.

However, unlike the barricades and small fortresses in Red Harbor, which were mainly used for blocking, Mary Geoise's defense line was a veritable "iron wall".

The length of the curved city wall is more than 20 kilometers, and the left and right wings extend all the way to the cliffs of the Red Earth Continent. No matter which area you try to attack from, you will be surrounded and annihilated by the interweaving firepower network from multiple angles.

At the left and right ends of the city wall, where theoretically the firepower is the weakest, two fortresses that are truly armed to the teeth were built on the cliffs. It was obvious that they had long been prepared to prevent the pirates from trying to break through from both wings.

The city wall, which is over 25 meters high, is difficult to cross even for giants. The inside of the wall is made of extremely solid granite, and the outside is covered with a layer of unknown alloy nearly half a meter thick, which is enough to make anyone who tries to destroy the wall despair.

However, compared with the terrifying firepower of the artillery batteries every few dozen meters on the city wall, the super strong defense of the city wall itself is secondary.

Even the defenders on the city walls were top-notch elite soldiers. Even though they had discovered the pirate scouts coming to investigate, no one would launch an attack without authorization. In terms of discipline alone, they were far superior to the pirates who were no different from a mob.

The only gate for entering and exiting the city is located in the middle of the city wall. The huge alloy gate weighs more than 10,000 tons, and it is almost impossible to open it by brute force.

Even with the human and material resources that the world government has, it is not an easy task to build such an iron wall in just half a month.

Fortunately, at the critical moment, King Wapol, who had eaten the Swallow-Swallow Fruit, "stepped forward", took countless injections of stimulants, and fought for more than ten days and nights. Finally, before the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates arrived at Red Harbor, he produced enough alloy to build the city wall.

Of course, the price was that Wapol was squeezed to the point where he only had half his breath left. If it weren't for the Drum Kingdom's superb medical skills that kept him alive, the people with the ability to Swallow the Swallow Fruit would probably have to be replaced by several generations.

"Tsk, these bastards really gave me a big surprise..."

Esdeath came to the front line and just glanced at the defenders on the city wall who were on high alert. A smile with a hint of excitement appeared on her beautiful face.

Although it was her hobby to trample on the weak, compared to those allied soldiers who were not much different from a mob in her eyes, and the slaves who had not received much training, the fights between regular troops could satisfy her fighting desire better.

"Lady Esdeath, the World Government is well prepared. With this kind of dense firepower, even if we rush in, we will probably suffer heavy casualties..."

A senior fighter following Esdeath looked worried, but in fact he tried his best to speak in a nice way.

The biggest characteristic of pirates is that they are used to fighting with the wind in their favor. It is a bit too much to expect them to charge under extremely high-density artillery fire.

Rather than being worried about the heavy casualties among his pirates, the senior fighter was actually reminding Esdeath not to have too high expectations of the pirates in the First Squad.

Perhaps at the beginning, under the pressure of Esdeath, the pirates could muster the courage to charge once, but once they have tasted the pain of being covered by firepower, it will not be so easy to drive the pirates to die again.

So to some extent, Esdeath only has one chance to order a charge. If she fails the first time, she can only hope that the reinforcements that arrive later will work a miracle.

"Humph, it's just a wall. Let me say hello to them first!"

How could Esdeath, who has been hunting level one dangerous species alone since she was a child, understand what it means to "retreat when faced with difficulties"?

Although she could clearly see the dense cannon muzzles on the city wall pointed at her, she still walked slowly towards the city gate.

At this time, in addition to a candidate for the general of the army, there was also a group of masked CP0s coming to support on the city wall.

"Hiss...that woman! Hey! Have you seen her?!"

A big guy with an extremely strong and sturdy figure, whose already oversized CP0 robe was stretched extremely tight, couldn't help but exclaimed when he saw Esdeath.

Although several months have passed, they still remember clearly every battle that took place during the War of Marineford.

The man who always shouted about realizing his ambition to replace Whitebeard to become the world's strongest and the Pirate King was hunted down by this woman and the Empress of Nine Snake Island, and eventually died at the hands of the current Navy Marshal Borsalino.

Frankly speaking, they actually had no intention of revenge for Blackbeard, otherwise they would not have found the opportunity to actively surrender to the World Government and serve as dogs for the Celestial Dragons.

But who could have thought that if they didn't avenge Blackbeard, the 'enemy' would come to them on their own. What's even more depressing is that they probably couldn't beat Esdeath.

"When I was a pirate, I was her enemy. After I joined the World Government, I was still her enemy. This is fate..."

CP0, who was wearing a strange hat and carrying a weird musket, shook his head and sighed. He actually considered whether to help Blackbeard to avenge him. After all, compared with other companions, his fighting method was super long-range sniping, so even if he couldn't kill the enemy, he would have enough time to run away.

Unfortunately, the person who killed Blackbeard was Borsalino. Unless Van Oka was willing to give up the seastone bullets he had treasured for a long time, it would be impossible for him to defeat a natural devil fruit user.

If it were the top snipers of the Red Hair Pirates, they could still pose a threat to natural ability users with their Armament Haki, but Van Oka is only good at Observation Haki, and his attainments in Armament Haki can only be described as tragic.

What’s more important is that Borsalino is not only a nature-type, but also the fastest and unstoppable user of the Pika-Pika no Mi.

The only fruit that can compare with the Pika Pikachu Fruit is the Thunder Fruit, which also has the speed of light.

Even without considering that Borsalino himself is a top-level powerhouse, the power of the Pika Pika Nomi alone is enough to make anyone who wants to cause trouble for him back off.

"Try not to confront that woman, or you'll probably die a miserable death..."

CP0, wearing a top hat, sat on the parapet, playing with his cane, and spoke in a somewhat helpless tone.

According to the agreement they made with Blackbeard, the pirate group naturally disbanded after Blackbeard's death.

However, what they didn't expect at that time was that, since some time ago, they, who had always been loners, had already gotten used to the life in a pirate group.

Finally, with the help of Badgers' former agent, they defected to the World Government without knowing it, and were spotted by CP0 and became CP0 candidates.

"...No...It's okay...I can give you...your bodies a good appearance..."

CP0, who looked sick, had a lot of difficulty finishing his words. It was bad enough that Magellan of Impel Down suffered from frequent diarrhea after eating the Poison-Poison Fruit. As the user of the Virus Fruit, Poison Q's symptoms were much more serious than Magellan's.

Even his mount looked like it was about to die of illness all day long because of the Disease-Bed Fruit. You should know that Poison Q's mount, Zhuangzhuang, is a horse that ate the Animal-type·Pony-Pony Fruit·Mythical Beast·Pegasus form. As an animal-type ability user, he couldn't withstand the side effects of the Disease-Bed Fruit.

"In fact, this might not be a bad opportunity... This time the woman is alone. If we can join forces to take her down, this credit should be able to be exchanged for a powerful enough devil fruit from the World Government, right?"

The extremely strong and sturdy CP0 Badges grinned and looked at Esdeath with an extremely greedy look in his eyes.

Esdeath was almost the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, not much different even from the Queen of Nine Snake Island, who was known as the most beautiful woman in the world.

If he could catch this woman, even if he couldn't get a strong enough devil fruit in return, Buggy would be willing to accept it.

"Huh? You're so arrogant! Even the captain was chased and beaten by that woman, and you're so eager to die?"

CP0 Van Oka, who was carrying a musket, sneered with disdain. When he first joined Blackbeard's army, Van Oka was more or less arrogant.

But after experiencing the Battle of Marineford and seeing more and more ruthless characters, especially the snipers of the Red Hair Pirates who even the top powers were afraid of, Van Oka gradually realized that the marksmanship he was proud of might not be as strong as he imagined.

"Humph, do you think everyone is a coward like you? Don't forget that we have the World Government behind us. This is Marijoa. Who knows how many cards the World Government has?"

Badgers, whose greed was aroused, performed beyond his level. His verbal attack left Van Oka speechless. He wanted to refute but didn't know where to start.

"…What Badges said makes sense. We can give it a try. We also need to show our loyalty and strength to the World Government… Vote?"

Lafitte stood up, holding his top hat, and turned to look at Poison Q and his mount.

After Blackbeard's death, the remnants of the Blackbeard Pirates have been using voting to decide the team's future.

Although on the surface there are only four of them and the voting is likely to result in a tie, Poison Q's mount Zhuangzhuang also has one vote, so the decision can still be made by the majority rule.

"Ah... I still want to live a few more decades... live to be a hundred years old..."

Poison Q stood up tremblingly, holding on to the wall. The current vote count was two to one. If he supported Van Oka, the vote would be a tie.

"Bah! Bah!"

As a result, before Poison Q could finish his words, Zhuangzhuang, who was as sick as him, jumped to the side of Badges and Lafitte and chose to go against his master.

"... Zhuangzhuang, you... you stupid horse... are you so eager... to... go... to die?"

Poison Q was almost pissed off to death by his own mount, and he started to curse while coughing.

Normally, with the exception of the Human-Human Fruit, animals that eat animal-type devil fruits will still be animals.

However, their IQ will generally be significantly improved. For example, Pierre, another skybird that also ate the Ma-Ma fruit, became a good partner of the previous god of Sky Island, Sky Knight Gan Ful.

Generally speaking, apart from the fact that he cannot speak yet, Zhuangzhuang's IQ is not much worse than that of an ordinary human child.

“Hahahahaha! Now the score is 3 to 2. Get ready for battle! Champion Badgers… is about to start his show!”

Badgers laughed and tore his robe to pieces, revealing his muscular and extremely strong body.

"It's such a headache..."

Van Oka sighed, but still took off the musket from his back and prepared for the next battle.

At this time, Esdeath was still walking leisurely towards the city gate, and was about to enter the optimal range of the city defense artillery.

The candidate for army general in charge of guarding the city gate was now on full alert.

(End of this chapter)