By late that night, the island's surface had been completely devastated by artillery fire.
Vast stretches of land had been scorched black and brown.
Under cover of darkness, Marine soldiers calmly began landing on the island.
Under the direction of the Vice Admirals, they quickly constructed temporary fortifications.
Raleigh called a meeting of the commanding officers inside a hastily built command room.
Many people attended, but every one of them remained silent as they waited for Raleigh to speak.
Raleigh swept his gaze around the room before looking toward Cleveland, who sat on his right.
"Tell us what the reconnaissance teams found."
Cleveland nodded, opened the report in his hands, and began reading.
"According to the soldiers' investigation of the island's surface, the number of dead pirates is less than one-tenth of our estimate."
"We also discovered numerous tunnel entrances. During the landing, our forces encountered pirate counterattacks."
"They used concealed fortifications to severely delay our advance. If the officers here hadn't personally led from the front, we might have suffered enormous casualties."
Anger appeared on the faces of the gathered officers.
None of them had expected these cornered pirates to still possess the nerve to fight back, much less succeed.
Had the Marines not bombarded the island so heavily, and had the officers not placed themselves at the front of the landing forces, the result could have been very different.
Raleigh had already anticipated something like this.
Pirates were desperate criminals who refused to accept defeat until death stood directly before them.
The harder the Marines pressed, the more violently they would fight under the threat of extermination.
That was why Raleigh had placed the safety of his soldiers above everything else when issuing the attack orders.
It seemed his concern had been justified.
"Fleet Admiral Raleigh, they're hiding underground like rats," Doberman said angrily. "I suggest allowing my unit to serve as the spearhead. We'll enter the tunnels and wipe them out completely."
Others might have hesitated in a situation like this, but Doberman was different.
He had always been a hardline soldier who faced difficulty head-on.
Whenever the situation became dangerous or complicated, he was the first to step forward and shoulder the burden.
Raleigh looked around at the others.
Many clearly agreed with Doberman.
Several officers were already struggling to hold themselves back from volunteering to enter the tunnels alongside him.
Raleigh shook his head.
"No. I won't allow it."
Doberman froze and stared at him in disbelief.
"Why, Fleet Admiral?"
"The chance to eliminate the enemy is right in front of us. What are you hesitating for?"
Raleigh was not hesitating.
He had simply remembered the famous Battle of Iwo Jima from his previous world.
Even a nation with an overwhelmingly powerful navy had suffered terrible casualties around Mount Suribachi.
The reason was the same as their present situation.
The enemy was hidden, while the attacking force remained exposed.
The Marines knew nothing about the underground terrain.
They had no idea what traps the pirates had prepared inside.
Even if large numbers of Marine soldiers poured into the tunnels, the battle would most likely become a grinding series of piecemeal attacks.
It would achieve little beyond increasing Marine casualties.
Raleigh pointed toward the ground beneath them.
"The pirates are hiding in tunnels under our feet. They have experience fighting there, and they know the terrain."
"The Marines possess neither advantage."
"Besides, these aren't the weak pirates from the Four Blues. Every pirate who survived long enough to reach those tunnels can be considered an elite."
"So forget about entering underground."
Raleigh certainly wanted to eliminate them.
The problem was that the pirates might be hiding ten meters below the surface, or perhaps dozens.
Marine shells could not penetrate that deeply.
If the tunnel system twisted and turned through the island, forcing an advance would become even more difficult.
Fortunately, Raleigh had already thought of another approach.
He rose from his seat and walked over to the map.
"Our advantages over the pirates are firepower, manpower, and supplies."
"We can continuously bring provisions from the other islands under Marine control. The pirates only have whatever they carried underground."
Raleigh did not know exactly how long their supplies would last, but he could make a reasonable estimate.
Six months at most.
The more important the strategic moment, the more carefully a commander needed to act.
The pirates had already turned themselves into underground rats.
There was even less reason to gamble Marine lives on storming their tunnels.
Raleigh himself had once used favorable terrain to defeat pirate forces several times larger than his own.
He understood exactly how important terrain could be in war.
"If they want to live like rats, then they can remain rats forever."
"Momonga, arrange it."
"Order every Marine soldier to cooperate with Cleveland's intelligence teams. Every time they discover a tunnel entrance, destroy it."
"I want every entrance on this island found and sealed."
"As for other methods, everyone can continue discussing them."
Once Raleigh finished speaking, the officers began talking among themselves.
However, with Raleigh's restrictions in place, there were not many practical options.
They proposed flooding the tunnels, filling them with fire or poison gas, and dropping explosives inside.
Most suggestions were immediately rejected by someone else.
The Admirals and Raleigh listened quietly.
With enough people contributing ideas, perhaps someone would eventually find a useful solution.
But after a long discussion, they still had nothing particularly good.
One officer even suggested having Sakazuki use his Devil Fruit ability to pour magma into the tunnels until the entire system was filled.
Sakazuki's eyebrow began twitching.
Fortunately, the officer noticed his expression and stopped talking.
Otherwise, Sakazuki would undoubtedly have torn the proposal apart himself.
Devil Fruit abilities could be absurdly powerful, but that did not mean they were limitless.
Even with his awakened ability to alter the environment, Sakazuki could not produce enough magma to fill an entire island's underground tunnels.
Raleigh once again felt the Marines' education system was severely lacking.
Momonga, however, offered a useful suggestion.
They could use specialized Devil Fruit abilities to identify weak points in the underground tunnels, then dig down from the surface, plant explosives, and collapse the passages.
One of the most dangerous aspects of tunnel warfare was the vast network beneath the ground.
Anyone unfamiliar with it could be attacked from countless directions.
But if the Marines could determine the tunnels' routes and collapse them from above, they could sever the connections between different sections.
That would greatly reduce the pirates' available space underground.
Even if the pirates dug the passages open again, the time and effort required would be far greater than what the Marines spent collapsing them.
The pirates would also lose the ability to use hidden exits scattered around the island to launch surprise attacks.
Everyone present approved of Momonga's idea.
When no one offered a better plan, Raleigh made the final decision.
Less than half an hour after the meeting ended, repeated explosions began shaking the island.
The Marines were systematically destroying the pirates' exits.
Rumble!
Rumble!
The soil muffled the noise. Aside from the pirates stationed near the entrances, most of those underground still had no idea what the Marines were doing.
Inside a dark tunnel, a pirate coughed hard, trying to clear the dust from his lungs.
"Boss, aren't they coming inside?"
He turned toward the captain beside him.
The pirate captain shook the dirt from his head.
"Looks like they aren't planning to attack through this entrance for now. Tell the others they can get some proper sleep."
They had anticipated that the Marines might destroy some entrances.
They did not particularly care about losing one.
There were countless exits scattered across the island.
Some were even hidden beneath the shallow waters near the coast and could only be discovered by diving into the sea.
As far as they were concerned, the Marines destroying one or two passages meant nothing.
The pirates stationed there did not even bother reporting it to the main leaders.
Deeper underground lay a natural cavern.
After discovering it, the pirates had established their headquarters inside.
Because it was so far beneath the surface, the cavern was not cold. In fact, it was uncomfortably hot.
The ventilation was poor, leaving the air filled with foul and filthy smells.
The pirates had already grown accustomed to the environment.
Under the dim yellow light of candles, they felt safer than they had in days.
A fat pirate captain was the first to speak.
"The Marines have landed by now, haven't they?"
Another captain immediately answered.
"According to the latest report, they landed this evening. They even tried to attack one of our tunnels, but our men drove them back easily."
The other captains burst into laughter.
"If the Marines want to take this place, they'll have to bury us beneath mountains of their own soldiers."
"With the supplies we brought, we can hold out for at least a year."
Raleigh's estimate had been wrong.
He believed the pirates would run out of supplies long before the Marines, but he had overlooked one important fact.
This island had been the Red Hair Pirates' headquarters.
The pirates had already moved enormous stores of provisions underground.
When retreating from the surrounding islands, they had also brought large amounts of food and fresh water with them.
Used carefully, those supplies could sustain them underground for an entire year.
However, that calculation assumed the Marines would attempt a direct assault.
If the Marines followed the strategy decided at the meeting, the pirates would not be able to last nearly that long.
While the captains were still congratulating themselves on their cleverness, a pirate guarding one of the entrances sent a subordinate to report.
"What did you say? The Marines deliberately destroyed the entrance?"
After hearing the report, the captains looked at one another.
They had considered the possibility, but seeing the Marines actually do it still felt strange.
The Marines were supposed to be the attackers.
Everyone knew how determined they were to capture the pirates.
That was why, when someone had first suggested the Marines might seal the entrances, the captains had laughed it off.
"Who cares? We can always dig it open again."
"By destroying the entrance themselves, they're only giving us more time to rest."
The captains remained unconcerned.
They were confident that the Marines could never locate every entrance they had dug across the island.
At most, they would find a small portion.
The pirates could crawl out through the others at any hour of the day or night and attack the Marine soldiers.
No matter how they looked at it, victory seemed certain.
"Looks like our methods frightened the Marines so badly that they no longer dare come underground."
"That's good news. We should drink to it."
Cups clinked together, and the cavern soon filled with noisy celebration.
...
Out at sea, a ship without a pirate flag sped toward the island.
"Luffy, are you really going there? I heard the Marines are currently wiping out every pirate on that island."
"If we rush in without thinking, won't we be in serious trouble?"
Nami looked worriedly at her captain.
Usopp was already trembling with tears streaming down his face.
Since the pirates throughout the Grand Line had been cleared out, the Marines had lifted many of their navigation restrictions.
That allowed Luffy and his crew to travel much faster.
However, after witnessing the Marines' strength, they had obediently lowered their pirate flag and disguised themselves as ordinary travelers.
"Nami, I don't know what's going to happen," Luffy said, "but Shanks is important to me."
At this point, Luffy had not experienced everything that would have helped him mature.
In his world, Shanks mattered to him.
That meant he would go looking for Shanks, no matter how dangerous the situation became.
"Then do what you want, Luffy. We'll always have your back."
Zoro had just finished training and stepped out of the exercise room.
"Besides, I want to fight the world's greatest swordsman and see how much farther I still have to go."
He looked at Luffy with his usual pride.
Mihawk had died at the hands of the Marines before Zoro ever had the chance to challenge him.
As a result, his confidence remained as strong as ever.
"You moss-head! How dare you ignore Nami-san? Do you want me to kick you into the sea?"
The kitchen door opened, and Sanji walked out while wiping his hands.
"Shut up, pervert cook. Why do you always have to stick your nose into everything?"
The moment Zoro saw Sanji, irritation flared across his face.
When Nami saw that they were about to start arguing again, she shouted angrily.
"Both of you, shut up!"
Her expression then returned to normal as she turned back toward Luffy.
"Luffy, since you've already made your decision, we'll go with you to Red-Hair's territory."
"But let's make one thing clear. Until we find Shanks, you cannot reveal that we're pirates."
"With our current strength, we have no chance of escaping if the Marines attack us."
Hearing that Nami had agreed, Luffy broke into a brilliant smile.
"Okay!"
...
Mary Geoise.
The unexpected events during the day had led both sides into a strange temporary ceasefire.
For the moment, each faction allowed its soldiers to rest and recover.
The World Government needed time to mobilize forces from other locations.
The Revolutionary Army also needed to reassess the situation and prepare a new plan.
But both sides understood the truth.
This was only a brief pause in the fighting, not the beginning of peace.
Everyone knew that when the next battle began, everything would finally come to an end.