As it turned out, Ortoren's instincts were right.
Gan Fall watched as large numbers of elite Marine soldiers disembarked from the warship one after another. A rough estimate put their numbers at well over two thousand. He immediately abandoned any remaining thoughts of resistance.
No joke. Angel Island didn't have many people to begin with. The island's guard force numbered only a little over two hundred. How could they possibly stand against a force that was clearly the elite of the elite, the trump cards of the Marines?
So Gan Fall completely gave up struggling. In his view, Marines from the Blue Sea could never remain stationed on Skypiea for long. As long as he cooperated and helped them accomplish whatever they wanted to do, Angel Island would still remain Angel Island.
Ortoren didn't bother with pleasantries. He directly requested that Angel Island provide personnel to guide the Marines in their search for the Golden Land.
This so-called Golden Land was known on Angel Island as the "Land of the Gods."
More than four hundred years ago, the god of Angel Island discovered the Land of the Gods after it was blasted up into the sky. Soon after, a fierce war broke out with the native inhabitants there, the Shandia.
What followed was that the newly arrived Shandia were driven out of the Land of the Gods.
The people of Angel Island occupied that area, but the Shandia refused to give up. They fought Angel Island continuously for four hundred years… well, calling it a war was being generous.
To be honest, Angel Island wasn't a large Skypiea to begin with, and the Shandia weren't particularly numerous either.
In Ortoren's eyes, this so-called four-hundred-year war felt more like two villages locked in a prolonged armed brawl.
There were only a handful of major clashes, and at their peak, neither side fielded more than a thousand fighters.
And that qualified as a war?
Then again, considering this was Skypiea, it was understandable. Rural backwaters and all that.
After centuries of fighting, the so-called Land of the Gods had fallen into a strange stalemate. The people of Angel Island couldn't take it, and the Shandia couldn't occupy it either. Neither side could overpower the other, and neither allowed the other to set foot on the sacred land.
Both sides simply hovered around the Land of the Gods, endlessly harassing and obstructing one another.
Gan Fall had long since grown tired of this never-ending conflict with the Shandia. Unfortunately, tradition bound them to fight over the Land of the Gods, and the Shandia felt the same way. After centuries of bloodshed, old grudges and new hatred were hopelessly tangled together. Even if Gan Fall were to abandon the Land of the Gods, the war wouldn't end.
It would only allow the Shandia to flourish rapidly, eventually swallowing Angel Island whole.
Now, hearing that a powerful Marine figure who had suddenly arrived on Skypiea intended to take the Land of the Gods away entirely, Gan Fall's emotions were extremely complicated.
On one hand, he felt a sense of relief. Without the Land of the Gods, the fundamental conflict between Angel Island and the Shandia would disappear, leaving only lingering hatred. Hatred, at least, could fade with time. Perhaps after another hundred or two hundred years, this war that had lasted for centuries might finally come to an end.
On the other hand, he felt helpless. The land they had fought over for hundreds of years was ultimately going to fall into the hands of outsiders.
Worse still, these outsiders possessed overwhelming strength. If Angel Island refused, it was entirely possible that both Angel Island and the Shandia would be wiped out together.
Gan Fall didn't dare gamble on the restraint or mercy of the Marines. So he completely lay flat. Whatever Ortoren asked him to do, he did.
After making arrangements on Angel Island, Gan Fall personally took on the role of guide. He boarded the warship with Ortoren and the others and headed straight for the Land of the Gods.
Along the way, they encountered many frenzied Shandia. These people seemed incapable of retreat or restraint. Even though the warship carried overwhelming deterrence, they still charged forward like madmen, shrieking as they tried to block the way.
It was completely useless.
Ortoren didn't even need to lift a finger. The Marine soldiers and officer cadres under his command swept through the Shandia with thunderous force.
Every Shandia who attacked the warship was captured and imprisoned.
Just along the relatively short route from Angel Island to the Land of the Gods, they captured nearly seventy Shandia warriors.
Ortoren also promised that these people would later be handed over to Angel Island for Gan Fall to deal with himself.
This made Gan Fall extremely happy. He wasn't new to fighting the Shandia and knew very well that they only had around one hundred and fifty warriors in total. Losing nearly half of them in one sweep meant they would likely no longer have the strength to contend with Angel Island.
This might very well be a major turning point in resolving a conflict that had dragged on for four hundred years.
Under Gan Fall's guidance, the warship quickly arrived at the Land of the Gods. After leaving behind part of the Marine force to guard the ship, Ortoren and the others pushed through the dense forest. Before long, from the edge of a cliff, they finally laid eyes on the legendary Golden City.
Even though they had already prepared themselves mentally, seeing a city constructed entirely of gold spread out before them still sent a crushing wave of opulence straight at their senses.
It was almost suffocating.
"H-Hina…"
Isshō stared at the golden city in the valley below, swallowed hard, and asked in a daze,
"These days… how much Belly does one gram of gold exchange for?"
"Ten thousand eight hundred forty-two Belly…"
Hina's gaze was just as unfocused as she instinctively answered Isshō's question.
"One gram of gold… over ten thousand Belly. And here we have an entire city made of it. Just that towering pyramid alone must weigh… must weigh…"
Isshō trailed off, hesitating for a long time, ultimately unable to come up with even a rough estimate.
But he didn't need to.
He knew very well that the amount of gold here was already an astronomical figure.
If the World Government couldn't meet the Navy's expenses with cash alone, then standing before the Golden City now, Isshō felt that whoever truly controlled this reserve of gold could fund the Navy's operations in cash for several years at the very least.
Just seizing the Golden City would be enough to let the Navy stand on its own for years.
Ortoren had long since prepared himself, and he even had a rough idea of what this place would look like.
But even so, when the Golden City truly manifested before their eyes, that overwhelming sense of impact was still deeply shocking.
Ortoren took a deep breath and said,
"Don't get too excited yet. If this turns out to be gold-plated, that'd be a bad joke."
As his words fell, Ortoren raised a hand and released a chain of lightning. It struck the peak of the pyramid in the Golden City with perfect precision.
Immediately afterward, everyone watched as his lightning power seeped into the interior of the pyramid.
Soon, it spread outward from within, sweeping across the entire Golden City. And during this process, the group realized with fresh astonishment that what they had seen earlier wasn't even all of it.
Many buildings were buried beneath layers of dust, their surfaces no longer showing any trace of gold. As Ortoren's lightning washed over them, the dust gradually scattered, revealing dazzling golden light beneath. Even the foundations under those buildings were constructed from massive amounts of gold.
It took roughly ten minutes before Ortoren finally withdrew his lightning power.
He swallowed hard, a grave look flashing through his eyes, and said,
"It's all extremely high-purity gold… not a single structure here is gold-plated."
The moment those words left his mouth, the Marines who had followed them burst into cheers.
Off to the side, Gan Fall watched the jubilant Marines, but he couldn't really share their excitement. He had known about this place for a long time and had visited it more than once. To be honest, gold didn't carry much meaning for Angel Island at all.
Skypiea had no gold resources to begin with, and because of that, its people had never truly acknowledged gold as something especially valuable.
Even so, Ortoren was gradually swept up by the cheering around him. The seriousness in his eyes faded, replaced by an excited grin.
"Damn it," he said with a laugh. "Once we haul this Golden City back, who's going to dare raise their voice at us?"
As long as this gold was brought back, Ortoren's financial system would be completely stabilized, its foundation firmly set.
With this much gold in hand, even amassing an army of a million and pointing it straight at Holy Land would no longer be some distant fantasy.