Staring at the Den Den Mushi that had just been cut off, Ortoren smacked his lips.
"At that age, and he still doesn't have a shred of manners."
With that, he casually handed the Den Den Mushi to Hina at his side and said, "Fine. If that's what they want, we'll give it to them. Two days from now, we settle it at Mary Geoise."
In truth, whether the Five Elders called today or not, Ortoren's side had already planned to force a landing and begin the assault on Mary Geoise in two days.
All across the port, the Marines immediately moved to prepare for battle.
Blades were sharpened, guns were cleaned, and commanders from every unit exchanged rapid, detailed briefings, confirming things again and again to make sure nothing was missed.
Two days passed in the blink of an eye.
Before the sky had fully brightened, inside the God's Knights' camp on Mary Geoise, Garling had already put on his close-fitting noble coat. His crescent-shaped hairstyle made him stand out, lending him an odd sort of imposing authority.
Unlike the usual routine, once he was dressed, attendants quickly brought over pieces of knightly armor that had been separated out and, with practiced hands, fastened them onto key parts of Garling's body.
Wrist guards. Knee plates. Elbow protectors.
He ran his fingers along the slender longsword hanging at his waist and murmured, almost to himself, "Will the Blade of Judgment drink deep of blood today?"
The attendants respectfully lifted the tent's heavy curtain, and Garling strode out.
On both sides of the entrance stood nine knights each, eighteen in total. Their builds and armor varied from one to another, but together they formed the full roster of the God's Knights under Figarland Garling's command.
Garling hadn't even opened his mouth when a thunderous explosion erupted far ahead. In the same instant, flames burst across the sky, as if trying to burn away the last trace of darkness before dawn.
"So it's begun," Garling said, one brow lifting.
Boom after boom rolled in from the distance. Soon, the roar of battle followed, spreading closer with every passing moment.
Less than half an hour later, a member of the CP Agency rushed up, dropped to one knee before Garling, and reported in a hard voice, "Garling, the rebels have broken through the first line of the formation."
"Is that so?" Garling wasn't surprised. He simply raised his gaze toward a platform to the left of the command tent.
From the moment the first blast echoed, a knight with a massive, heavyset frame—armored like a brown bear—had already climbed up there. He held binoculars to his eyes, watching the front in silence.
Mary Geoise's defenders had assigned the entire first line to enslaved slaves. From the start, Garling never believed they could withstand the Marines' удар. That was fantasy. Ortoren was bringing the Navy's battle-hardened elite to Mary Geoise. And Mary Geoise thought it could stop them with a wave of slaves?
Of course the line collapsed quickly. Garling had expected no other outcome.
He waited, letting the knight on the platform read the battlefield.
"Lord Garling!" the bear-like knight called down after a moment. "The Marines' vanguard has completely pushed into the outer defensive line!"
A cold light flickered in Garling's eyes.
"Then detonate every slave collar," he said flatly. "Let those lowly things make their final contribution to our victory."
The instant the order was given, a slender female knight stepped out from Garling's left and strode to a control device beside the tent. She raised her hand over the red button and slammed it down.
At the same time, along Mary Geoise's first defensive line, Marine soldiers poured in without end, landing from beneath the Red Line.
The slave troops had already been crushed. Aside from a handful who managed to flee, nearly all of them had died here.
They hadn't fought with fearless resolve. The Marines who had spent years spilling blood in the New World knew exactly what true fearlessness looked like.
These slaves fought as if they were throwing their lives away on purpose, pouring their rage at the World Government onto the Marines, the "lackeys" they'd once been forced to serve.
"No pursuit! No pursuit!" Vice Admiral Strelart barked, gripping a laser hand cannon and wearing the Marines' justice coat like a banner. "Clear the battlefield, now! I want this area cleared into open ground so we can build our own defensive line. Make sure the reinforcements behind us can reach Mary Geoise safely!"
Strelart's legs were mechanical prosthetics. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built, and with that nearly two-meter-long hand cannon in his arms, he looked every bit the brutal veteran of countless battlefields.
And he was.
Last year, during the war with the Whitebeard Pirates on Aquino Island, he'd still been a Rear Admiral when both of his legs were cut off. It left him crippled, but he refused to retire. His life's ambition was to die with honor on the battlefield.
That was why Ortoren had made a sweeping decision. He pulled in huge quantities of mechanical prosthetics, bio-augmentation gear, and technical personnel from Borsalino, then carried out intensive modifications on Marines who were badly injured or disabled, but refused to step down and still wanted to fight until they died.
Following Tesoro's suggestion, Ortoren gathered them into a single unit, forming the Vanguard Suicide Squadron. He also promoted the then–Rear Admiral Strelart on the spot, making him the Vice Admiral commander of this force.
The vanguard Marines moved quickly to clean up the battlefield, and in doing so, they pushed deeper into the so-called "outer defensive line."
Strelart held his hand cannon at the ready as he paced the field, keeping his eyes on the even more distant line ahead. That was the Holy Land Guard's position. Unlike the "defensive line" of slave troops, that one would be packed with real elites, a much harder bite.
Watching the Holy Land Guard swarm the line like ants in the distance, Strelart's mouth twisted into a feral grin.
"Doesn't matter. Our vanguard was made to chew through elites."
He'd barely finished muttering when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye.
The collar around the neck of a slave corpse on the ground flickered with a red light.
Strelart froze for a split second. Then his face changed completely, and he shouted in shock and fury, "It's a trap! Everyone, watch the slave collars! They're going to—prepare for explosions!"
He didn't even get the sentence out.
Bang.
The corpse at his feet detonated. A towering burst of black smoke and fire swallowed his huge silhouette whole.
And it wasn't just him.
Across the entire "outer defensive line," explosions erupted almost at the same time. Smoke, flame, and the shockwaves rolled through the area, engulfing the Marines' vanguard force.
Back in the God's Knights' camp, the bear-like knight saw it and practically bounced with excitement.
"Lord Garling! It worked! The blasts covered the entire Marine vanguard! Hahahahaha! They must've taken massive losses!"
Hearing that, a cold, satisfied smile spread across Garling's face.
The other knights immediately piled on with praise.
"Lord Garling truly commands troops like a god. Using nothing but lowly slaves to wipe out the Marines' elite vanguard!"
"Exactly! With Lord Garling here, how could we not win?"
"Those filthy Marine watchdogs dared betray us. Now they'll learn how strong their masters really are!"
They were giddy, exhilarated.
But inside the smoke, Strelart dragged himself up from a cratered patch of ground, scowling as he spat out a curse.
"Damn Mary Geoise…"
After the initial outburst, he grimaced. This one was on him. He'd been careless and overlooked the collars.
His upper body was mangled in several places, torn open by the blast. Yet beneath the ruined flesh, metal gleamed.
It was obvious his modifications weren't limited to his legs. Even taking the explosion at point-blank range hadn't finished him.
And he wasn't the only one.
In the smoke, more and more Marines who'd been blown away and tossed aside began to climb back to their feet.
A few had been truly unlucky, caught in the head, the heart, or other vital spots, dying on the spot. But most were only wounded, not killed.
That was the strength of a vanguard force that had undergone technological enhancement.