Hmph—what's all this panicking about?! Charge forward!"
Esdeath let out a disdainful snort. Dressed in her white Imperial uniform, she strode straight onto the deck and shouted loudly at the pirates gathered there.
This pirate ship—chosen by Esdeath as her temporary flagship—was the largest vessel of the First Division, but it was also the easiest target to focus fire on.
However, faced with the orders of Esdeath, a top-tier combatant, none of the pirates dared defy her will, even though moving forward likely meant certain death.
Boom boom boom boom boom boom…
As the flagship of the First Division began its charge, the defenders stationed along the coastal line immediately concentrated their firepower on Esdeath's ship without hesitation.
A barrage of cannon shells rained down like a storm, and the flagship was moments away from being swallowed by a sea of fire.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang…
But at the exact moment the bombardment began, a hemispherical dome of ice appeared out of thin air, covering the flagship from above. No matter how violently the cannons roared, they only managed to leave densely packed craters on the surface of the ice.
But the rate at which the artillery damaged the ice was far slower than the speed at which it regenerated. One moment, the exploding shells would carve countless pits into it; the next, by the time a new volley fell, the dome had already restored itself completely.
Shattered chunks of ice blasted outward in all directions, and a pale white chill spread across the ocean's surface. Even the smoke of gunpowder was gradually swallowed by the thickening ice fog.
Just as the defenders tried to gather more artillery to break through the dome, a soldier with exceptionally sharp hearing rubbed his ears in confusion. Between the constant thunder of explosions, he could faintly hear… hoofbeats.
Da-da-da-da…
As the sound of hooves grew denser and closer, a heavily battered ice knight suddenly burst out of the fog—charging across the surface of the sea, which had somehow frozen solid.
An instant later, tens of thousands of ice knights surged out of the mist at impossible speed, charging directly toward Red Port through the hail of cannon fire!
"Enemy attack! Prepare to engage!"
Although the idea of cavalry appearing on the open sea sounded utterly absurd, the stunned defenders reacted quickly, diving into trenches and bunkers to intercept the incoming ice cavalry.
What they didn't expect, however, was that the ice knights—who should have maneuvered around fortifications to engage them—did nothing of the sort. Instead, they charged straight into the coastal defenses.
Whether it was reinforced concrete walls or iron gun batteries ahead of them, nothing made them break formation.
Bang bang bang bang bang bang bang bang…
Countless ice knights slammed into the fortress-like coastal defense line, shattering themselves to pieces. But before the defending troops could even breathe a sigh of relief, they suddenly felt the temperature around them plummet. The very ramparts and gun batteries that had just withstood the ice knights' impact were now freezing over.
"Drink! Grand General of the Ice Storm!"
At some point, Esdeath had already risen to stand atop the frozen sea. She extended her hand toward Red Port, and countless ice knights burst forth from beneath the ice sheet and the frozen seawater. Like a sweeping glacial flood, they surged toward the coastal defenses.
Having pushed the Teigu Demon's Extract – Manifestation of the Demon God to its limits, Esdeath could not only freeze space and time, but also store the Teigu's power within the ice knights she created, releasing the accumulated energy when necessary.
The defenders on the coastline simply could not withstand temperatures cold enough to crack steel. Even worse, under the relentless collision of the endless ice knights, the steel-reinforced fortifications were smashed open, massive gaps torn straight through them. From those gaps, ice knights wreathed in freezing mist charged straight into the interior.
"Stop these monsters!"
Forced to retreat from the walls due to the extreme cold, the soldiers nevertheless had no choice—as ordered—to grit their teeth and attempt to halt the ice knights' advance.
"Die, monster!"
A soldier from an allied nation roared and swung his sword at an ice knight, only to be instantly sent flying dozens of meters by its high-speed charge.
The ice knights that pushed into the crowd fought like seasoned veterans, wielding long spears forged entirely from ice, slaughtering the surrounding soldiers without mercy.
Even the elite troops selected from the allied nations stood almost no chance. The ice knights' speed and power surpassed even the elite marines of Marine Headquarters.
The soldiers of the Holy Land Defense Corps often had to sacrifice several—sometimes more than a dozen—men just to bring down a single ice knight that had broken through the defensive line.
The tens of thousands of ice knights didn't just break the coastal defense line—they completely threw the Holy Land Defense Corps stationed behind it into chaos.
"Charge! Kill them all!"
"Let the World Government's dogs see the might of New World pirates!"
"Storm Mariejois!"
…
Wave after wave of pirates flooded into Red Port along the frozen sea Esdeath had created.
The coastal defense line that Kong had painstakingly built—walls of steel and stone—did not even last a single day before being breached by the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates.
"Meteor Volcano!"
Just as countless pirates reveled in bloodlust, torrents of blazing magma rained down like falling stars, reducing both ice knights and pirates to ash.
"W-waaaaah!! It's Admiral Akainu!"
Panic spread among the pirates as they fled from the descending magma. Even in the New World—where villains ran rampant—the infamous Admiral Akainu was enough to terrify the vast majority of pirates.
Boom!
Another massive cluster of molten rock crashed down, turning the ground into seething magma.
Hundreds, even thousands, of ice knights and pirates were annihilated instantly. Sakazuki stood up from the molten river, magma dripping from his body, glaring fiercely at the pirates before him.
Originally, Sakazuki had no intention of joining the battle so early. But Esdeath's attack had shattered the Holy Land Defense Corps' lines in an instant.
If someone strong enough didn't intervene to stop this terrifying woman, the defenders of Red Port wouldn't last even a single day.
"You filthy, low-life scum… all of you—DIE!"
With a furious roar, Sakazuki unleashed erupting pillars of magma from beneath the ground, burning every ice knight and pirate within his sight to nothing.
With his strength alone, Sakazuki forcibly halted the advance of the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates.
"Freeze!"
But just then, Esdeath leapt from the ice sheet, stepping on rapidly forming platforms of ice in midair, hurling herself into the battlefield at astonishing speed.
°°°
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