Thorn Jade Hardening!
A layer of pale purplish-red jade armor instantly covered Bane’s body.
Boom!
A cannonball struck him head-on.
The jade armor shattered on impact.
A violent shockwave erupted outward, sweeping across the air above the ship and detonating the other incoming cannonballs before they could reach the deck.
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Explosions filled the sky.
Bane dropped back onto the deck and landed steadily on his feet.
Completely unharmed.
For a moment, everyone aboard could only stare.
Then the bald vice captain finally snapped out of his daze.
“Faster!”
He threw himself toward the helm, his face flushed with excitement.
“Full speed! Charge!”
The crew erupted into action.
Against all expectations, the small pirate ship that should have been blown apart managed to break through the barrage and continue racing toward the Marine fleet.
The Marines were just as stunned.
No one had expected a pirate to leap directly into the incoming cannon fire, much less survive it and somehow destroy the rest of the barrage.
An officer’s furious shout finally brought them back to their senses.
“Reload! Hurry!”
The gun crews scrambled to prepare another volley.
But they were too late.
The distance between the two fleets had already closed.
Bane bent his knees and jumped.
With a single leap, he crossed the remaining gap and landed on the nearest Marine warship.
Shakushi!
His figure vanished.
Panic spread across the deck almost immediately.
Every few moments, another Marine collapsed with his throat cut.
Yet no one could follow Bane’s movements.
They could only catch brief glimpses of him appearing among them before disappearing again.
“Over there!”
“Fire!”
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Rifles erupted across the deck.
But by the time the Marines pulled their triggers, Bane was already gone.
Their bullets missed him entirely.
Worse, several shots struck their own comrades instead.
“Stop firing!”
The Major commanding the warship couldn’t endure the chaos any longer.
“Hold your fire! Regroup and—”
A blade suddenly burst through his chest from behind.
His body stiffened.
Bane leaned closer.
“Shh. Be quiet.”
And since his quest required him to kill one hundred Marines, panicked soldiers were far easier to deal with than an organized formation.
He had no intention of letting their commander restore order.
The Major collapsed.
A Marine’s face went pale.
“Major Green is dead!”
“Run! That guy’s a monster!”
“Form up! Avenge the Major!”
“We can’t beat him! Go tell Colonel Ryan!”
The deck descended into complete chaos.
With Major Green dead, the remaining Marines lost what little coordination they had left.
Some tried to flee.
Others called for reinforcements.
A few attempted to rally their comrades, but their voices disappeared beneath the panic.
Bane’s crew finally reached the warship.
Pirates poured over the side and immediately attacked the disorganized Marines.
The deck became a bloody melee.
The pirates’ morale was soaring.
The Marines’ had already collapsed.
And Bane was moving through the battlefield whenever an opportunity appeared, cutting down Marines as quickly as possible to push his quest toward its hundred-kill requirement.
The defenders were soon driven back.
Other Marine warships noticed what was happening and attempted to move in to support them.
But Bane’s ship was only one vessel among more than thirty under Krieg’s command.
It wasn’t even part of what Krieg considered his main force.
When Bane—someone Krieg had effectively sent forward with the expendable ships—actually broke through the artillery barrage and became the first pirate to board a Marine warship, Krieg was stunned.
Then he grinned.
“All ships, full speed ahead!”
This was exactly the opening he needed.
He had no intention of letting it disappear.
Even if the Dreadnaught Sabre took some damage in the process, Krieg wanted the entire fleet forward before the Marines could recover.
The pressure on the Marine formation immediately increased.
Dozens of pirate ships were now bearing down on them, led by the massive Dreadnaught Sabre.
Compared to that, the Marines being slaughtered aboard one isolated warship suddenly seemed far less important.
Colonel Ryan watched the battlefield with barely contained fury.
If the consequences wouldn’t have been disastrous, he might have ordered the surrounding warships to open fire on the compromised vessel and destroy both the pirates and his own men with it.
Instead, he rounded on his subordinates.
“Who the hell is that?”
“I… I don’t know, Colonel.”
“You don’t know?”
Ryan’s expression twisted.
“Did he just appear out of nowhere?!”
His officers had no answer.
Before the battle, their information had identified Krieg’s notable fighters as “Demon Man” Gin and “Iron Wall” Pearl.
Then an unknown pirate had charged through a wall of cannon fire, boarded a warship alone, and thrown their entire formation into disorder.
Even Krieg himself wanted to know exactly who had pulled it off.
Whoever it was, he had earned a reward once the battle ended.
Pearl was equally confused.
Then one of the pirates beside him reminded him which ship had broken through.
“Admiral, wasn’t that Bates’s ship?”
Krieg paused.
“Bates?”
“Isn’t that idiot dead?”
Just hearing the name irritated him.
If Bates hadn’t died fighting the Marines, this entire conflict might never have escalated in the first place.
And Bates’s subordinates had made matters worse by going far beyond simple revenge, humiliating the Marines and dragging Krieg into the center of the resulting scandal.
Krieg hadn’t forgotten any of it.
He had planned to deal with them after the crisis was over.
But now those same men had made the first breakthrough of the battle.
That forced Krieg to reconsider them.
More importantly, the man currently commanding Bates’s former ship was someone Krieg himself had appointed as acting captain.
What was his name again?
Bane.
Right.
Bane.
Krieg folded his arms and lifted his chin.
“That kid Bane isn’t bad.”
His expression quickly became smug.
“Looks like promoting him was the right call.”
He nodded to himself.
“When this is over, confirm him as captain.”
Krieg spoke as though everything had unfolded exactly according to his expectations.
As for how Bane had managed to survive the concentrated cannon fire, almost no one had seen clearly enough to understand.
Krieg simply assumed he’d been lucky.
After suffering considerable losses, the Krieg Pirates finally closed the distance.
The naval bombardment gave way to boarding battles.
Pirates and Marines crashed into each other across multiple decks.
Blades swung.
Guns fired at close range.
Men fell into pools of blood and never rose again.
It was only then that Krieg himself entered the fight, accompanied by Gin and Pearl.
Krieg grinned.
“Go.”
“Show these Marines what real fear looks like.”
Gin and Pearl charged ahead.
Pearl’s body was almost completely covered by his composite shields.
He proudly claimed that he had never shed a single drop of blood in battle, and the way he fought made it easy to understand why.
He barreled straight through the Marines without caring about their weapons.
Bullets struck his shields and ricocheted away.
The Marines in front of him were simply smashed aside.
Gin was even more vicious.
He opened fire with a single-barreled pistol and a double-barreled handgun, pouring bullets into the Marines and throwing their formation into further chaos.
When his ammunition ran out, he discarded the guns and drew his iron-ball tonfas.
Then he unleashed his Demon Tactics.
Each blow was brutal.
Those who were lucky suffered broken arms or legs.
Those who weren’t had their chests crushed or their skulls shattered on impact.
But the most dangerous man among the Krieg Pirates was still Krieg himself.
He had armed himself from head to toe.
His body was protected by heavy steel armor, while his arsenal included diamond knuckles, spiked armor, poison gas bombs, and numerous other weapons.
Most imposing of all was his enormous one-ton Great Battle Spear.
Despite the weight of both his armor and the weapon itself, Krieg could still wield the spear with one arm.
Whatever his other flaws, his physical strength was undeniable.
In the relatively weak East Blue, that monstrous power was more than enough to give Krieg confidence in his own supremacy.