The shadow of war was slowly closing over the heads of the surviving pirates.
At this moment, the pirates who had fled their positions in a panic arrived at the island in the heart of the Red Hair Pirates' territory.
But they had miscalculated.
The place was already empty. Only an undefended island remained.
"Damn it!"
"That bastard Red-Hair ran away!"
"Does anyone know where Red-Hair and his crew went?!"
The faster pirate captains had already reached the Red Hair Pirates' main base, but they found nothing.
Aside from the island's original residents, every core member of the Red Hair Pirates had disappeared.
Even the Red Hair Pirates' iconic Red Force had vanished without a trace.
"Hahahahaha!"
"We were all played. Red-Hair used us as scapegoats, and now we really can't escape the Marines' net."
Originally, they had hoped to use Red-Hair's sea charts and the strength of the Red Hair Pirates' core members to tear open a gap in the Marines' offensive.
Whether they would be caught and killed by the Marines later was a problem for later. But now, even that chance was gone.
The Marine ships were constantly advancing, and the number of islands still occupied by pirates would only shrink.
In the end, all of them would be forced into one final slaughter against the Marines on this island.
"We can't just wait here to die. Let's pick a direction and break through."
One pirate captain tried to stir up the others, hoping to find himself a few allies.
"Break through where? With just the few of us?"
"Stop dreaming. If breaking out was possible, why would the Red Hair Pirates sneak away before the Marines even finished forming the encirclement?"
Another older pirate captain sneered.
"If you want to die, don't drag us down with you."
He had already made up his mind.
He would hide on these islands, find some corner no one would notice, and stay there alone for three or five years before coming back out.
It was not as if he had never done something like that before.
During the old age of chaos, he had offended a great pirate and survived by hiding exactly like this.
He hid for a full five years.
Only after that great pirate died at someone else's hands did he go back out to sea and form his own pirate crew again.
More pirates had sharp looks flickering in their eyes.
There were only two paths before them.
One was like the first man had said: try to break out of the Marines' encirclement.
However, they had no intention of joining forces with other pirate crews.
The more people there were, the bigger the target.
Their plan was simple. When some pirate crews attracted the Marines' attention, they would use that chance to quietly slip away from the edge of the battlefield.
The rest planned to hide among the crowds on the islands that had not yet been captured.
It was not as if pirates had never pretended to be civilians before. Naturally, they had ways to hide.
However, most pirates felt that since the Marines had not attacked yet, they might as well find some fun for themselves in the little time they had left.
After all, they had always lived with their heads hanging from their belts.
It no longer mattered.
That night, the once-bustling towns and villages were swallowed by raging flames.
A brutal scene unfolded across the once-peaceful little island.
One vicious pirate after another enthusiastically lit bonfires and poured the wine they had looted from the village into their mouths.
One pirate lay on a small hill made from stacks of Belly, lifted a jar of alcohol, and poured it straight into his mouth.
"As expected, the civilians under the Red Hair Pirates are rich. We collected a hundred million Belly from just one tiny village."
He casually threw the Belly beside him into the air. Some of the paper bills were even tossed directly into the bonfire as fuel.
In the past, he would never have wasted a single Belly.
Even if it had been buried in sand, he would have dug through the grains one by one to find it and stuff it into his pocket.
But now, money no longer meant anything to him.
Wine and women were all he wanted in the last stretch of his life.
This village had been protected by the Red Hair Pirates for too long, so the people here had no vigilance against pirates at all.
And because most of the younger men in the village had chosen to join the Red Hair Pirates, they had no strength to resist this group of pirates.
Even when the village chief shouted that this was the Red Hair Pirates' territory, it did not stop a single pirate's brutality.
"Brothers, eat well and drink well! In the next life, we'll still be pirates!"
Under the influence of alcohol and women, these pirates temporarily forgot their fate and began enjoying what little time remained to them.
...
It was another deep night.
The wartime Marine Staff Office was brightly lit, and no one inside had gone to rest.
At this moment, every member of the Staff Office wore excitement on their face, their eyes filled with hunger for victory.
Sengoku stood beside a high window, looking down at the Marine soldiers constantly moving supplies toward the front line. His expression was very calm.
Garp, standing nearby, did not care at all and was stuffing senbei into his mouth in large bites.
Tsuru and the other members of the Staff Office were updating the Marines' latest movements on the sand table.
According to the current intelligence, everything was progressing smoothly for the Marines.
In fact, in only half a day, they had completed the plan the Staff Office had set for the front line.
The result was so smooth that Tsuru sharply sensed something was off.
"Sengoku, the offensive against the pirates is going too smoothly. Don't you think something is wrong?"
To be honest, up until now, the pirates still had the ability to fight the Marines.
After Charlotte Linlin was destroyed, many pirates had chosen to flee toward Red-Haired Shanks.
Pirates from other parts of the New World had also gathered in the Red Hair Pirates' territory as the Marines slowly devoured their lands and cut off their escape routes.
In theory, there should still be at least a hundred thousand pirates inside the Red Hair Pirates' territory.
But so far, the pirates had not suffered especially heavy losses.
More importantly, according to the reports sent back by the Marine officers on the front line, not a single core member of the Red Hair Pirates had appeared on the battlefield.
That made Tsuru wonder what Red-Hair was really planning.
"Tsuru, could Red-Hair have abandoned the other islands because he plans to fight us in one final decisive battle?"
Sengoku turned around, the first possibility surfacing in his mind.
Tsuru quickly shook her head and said, "We are not backward pirates with poor equipment. We are the Marines, equipped with the newest weapons. The firepower of our current warships is stronger than the previous Buster Call, and the number of Admirals and Vice Admirals far exceeds a Buster Call as well."
"Whether the Red Hair Pirates choose to fight us at sea or on an island, they will lose at least half their men to the Marines' firepower before the real battle even begins."
"If they defended every island tightly, they might lose a lot of pirates, but they could greatly consume our supplies. I don't believe Red-Hair would fail to think of that."
In truth, the pirates voluntarily abandoning these islands was very beneficial to the Marines.
It meant the Marines did not need to waste too many shells on those islands.
If the final battle took place at the Red Hair Pirates' main base, the shells saved along the way would be enough to blast the entire island into pieces.
"I can't figure it out either. Red-Hair seems to have made a very stupid decision."
Sengoku scratched his hair and reached that conclusion helplessly.
Another extremely absurd thought flashed through his mind, but he quickly denied it himself.
'No way. How could Red-Hair abandon his own base and go somewhere else?'
Because the idea was too ridiculous, Sengoku did not say it out loud.
He was afraid that the moment he opened his mouth, Garp and Tsuru would mock him at the same time.
...
New World, Marine combat fleet.
After the war in Totto Land ended, aside from the small number of Marines stationed around Totto Land, everyone else boarded warships and began surrounding the Red Hair Pirates' territory from the direction of Whole Cake Island.
This place could not be considered safe.
Although Charlotte Linlin and the Three Sweet Commanders of the Charlotte Family had died, many Totto Land ministers who had not been on Whole Cake Island at the time had survived.
While the Marines were occupying the islands, those people took supplies and personnel, boarded pirate ships, and fled deeper into the New World.
In other words, there was always a chance they could run into remnants of the Charlotte Family here.
But they were not afraid.
After defeating Charlotte Linlin, pride had been cultivated in their hearts.
They pushed forward at full speed, squeezing the pirates' living space as quickly as possible.
When they spotted a large cluster of black dots on the distant horizon, they immediately understood that it had to be a large group of gathered pirates.
Onigumo showed a face full of excitement.
"Oh? Look what we found."
"A big group of pirates fleeing in panic without even knowing where they're going."
Before he realized it, Onigumo had already drawn his swords.
The helmet carved with twin dragons on his head shook constantly, almost as if the pattern was about to come alive.
"Catch up to them, and then… kill them!"
Onigumo was a commander who was ruthless toward himself and ruthless toward his comrades.
When chasing pirates, he did not care about Marine casualties. Completing the objective came before everything.
Because of that, the fleet he commanded often had an extremely high death rate.
However, that did not affect the soldiers under Onigumo from obeying his orders.
Because Onigumo's requirement when recruiting reinforcements was simple: he only wanted Marines who did not care about their own lives and only wanted to fight pirates.
Many officers inside the Marines jokingly called his fleet the "Madman Fleet."
Now, the Madman Fleet had found its target.
It would reveal jaws capable of biting through steel and tear the pirates ahead into pieces.
As for whether they could complete this mission, Onigumo did not care.
The Marine soldiers under him did not care either.
If death was all that waited, then so be it.
"I won't waste words. Kill one and you break even. Kill two and you profit!"
"Don't make me come save you bastards!"
Onigumo stood on the deck and shouted.
Not a single person answered him.
The gunners silently aimed at the distance, then loaded the shells.
As for the Marine soldiers who were about to enter close combat, they used cloth strips to tie their sabers tightly to their hands, making sure they would not slip during battle.
On the warship, only the signalman's voice rang out, and even his voice was reporting the pirates' position to the other warships.
Onigumo pulled the communication device from his coat.
A faint electric current mixed with the sound of the wind rang through several warships as Onigumo roared loudly.
"Do you see the pirates ahead?"
"Our objective is to charge in, pin them down, and destroy them!"
"I don't care whether you use guns or blades. Even if you have to use your teeth, bite them apart and chew them up for me!"
"All warships, hear my order! Push your engines to full power and ram them!"
Soon, the officers who received the message began replying one after another.
"Understood!"
"Understood!"
"Understood!"
After Onigumo gave the order, every warship pushed its engines to full power and rushed into the distance.
During the charge, they seemed to be competing in some kind of race, constantly speeding up one after another.
It was as if they had already seen the pirates ahead as a grand feast, and whoever arrived first would get the best bite.
However, when Onigumo used his telescope to observe the pirates' leaders, his expression darkened.
"Charlotte Family remnants."
"Charlotte Oven and Charlotte Snack!"
To be honest, even against either one of them alone, Onigumo did not dare say he could guarantee victory.
Moreover, his ship had not been assigned a Pacifista.
Everything had to be solved with his own ability.
Then he seemed to remember something and turned back into his office, opening the coded safe.
Inside, a cylindrical object marked with a skull was revealed.
This was a brand-new bomb said to have been personally developed by Vegapunk.
Unlike ordinary bombs, this bomb was small in size, but its power far surpassed any bomb of the same volume.
If compared with the common explosives used on the sea, this bomb was equivalent to one hundred tons of TNT.
Originally, Onigumo had not been qualified to come into contact with something like this, but his suicidal fighting style had moved even Raleigh.
After Onigumo learned that such a bomb existed, he staked all his military merits on it and immediately applied to Raleigh for one.
At first, Onigumo had planned to take it out as his trump card against Charlotte Linlin. Unfortunately, he had never gotten the chance to use it.
Now was the time to activate it.
He entered every password in one go, picked up the bomb that weighed around fifty kilograms, then turned and walked outside.
Suddenly, his steps stopped, as if he had remembered something.
Turning around, he picked up the Den Den Mushi on the desk and dialed without even looking.
Two seconds later, the Den Den Mushi connected.
Doberman's voice came through.
"What is it, Onigumo? Miss me, or are you calling to show off?"
Onigumo's tightly furrowed brow relaxed. Hearing Doberman's voice made him very happy.
"Doberman."
"Hm?"
Through the Den Den Mushi, Onigumo could almost picture Doberman's puzzled expression.
Far away in the Red Hair Pirates' waters, Doberman suddenly had a bad feeling.
Because he knew his old friend would not waste time calling him at a moment like this, especially not without bragging first and only calling his name.
He could not help growing uneasy.
"Onigumo, what happened?"
Onigumo gripped the bomb tightly in his other hand and smiled.
"Doberman, I may be going on ahead."
"Also, I'm glad I got to know you and Sakazuki. If there's another life, I'll still be friends with you two."
"Farewell, my dearest friend."
After saying that, he cut off the Den Den Mushi without giving Doberman a chance to react, then walked out of his office with his head held high.