"…Forget it, it's fine that he left. Gather all the marines and prepare to board the ships immediately!"
Sakazuki frowned. He couldn't really blame Onigumo for tricking Lacroix into leaving.
If Lacroix had stayed in G-1, the two of them might've ended up fighting before he even departed.
"Yes, Admiral Akainu!"
Doberman and Onigumo snapped to attention. As orders began to cascade down, the entire G-1 Marine Branch moved like a colony of ants, each soldier swiftly taking action.
Since the resupply had already been completed in advance, only two hours after Sakazuki's arrival, dozens of warships slowly departed from the harbor.
Although many marines were unhappy about abandoning G-1, once they learned the order came directly from Admiral Akainu, they ultimately chose to obey.
That was the very reason Sakazuki had the confidence to use the G-1 forces as the foundation for rebuilding the Navy—because he knew they would follow him without question.
Meanwhile, as the G-1 fleet set sail, the first wave of armies from the World Government's allied nations had already reached Mary Geoise—or, more precisely, the Red Port, which served as the "entry and exit" to the Holy Land.
The two Red Ports were located on opposite sides of the Red Line. To reach Mary Geoise, perched ten thousand meters above sea level, one could only travel via the bubble gondolas connecting the ports to the top.
That was the main reason the Five Elders had confidence in the Holy Land's defense. In the worst-case scenario, Mary Geoise could simply sever its connection to the Red Ports.
Even if the Dark Matter Pirates had an army of two hundred thousand, they could do nothing to the World Government from ten thousand meters below. After all, not everyone was like Fisher Tiger—capable of scaling the Red Line with his bare hands.
As for any "stragglers" that might make it through, the powerful forces stationed in Mary Geoise would be more than enough to handle them.
Of course, the Five Elders wouldn't resort to such an extreme measure unless absolutely necessary.
Destroying the bubble gondolas was easy—but rebuilding them was not something that could be done quickly.
And beyond the logistical issues of cutting off the link between the first and second halves of the Grand Line, there was the matter of image: if the World Government was forced to seal itself off just to survive, it would destroy much of the prestige it had built over eight hundred years of rule.
"Hahahaha! That's Mary Geoise up ahead! Wonderful—ah, as expected of the Holy Land! Even the air smells fresher here~"
On a lavishly decorated sailing warship—its cannons and hull adorned with intricate carvings—a fat man wearing a crown leaned over the bow with a blissful look on his face.
The captain of his royal guard instinctively rubbed his nose. He couldn't understand what was so "fresh" about the faintly fishy sea breeze that barely smelled better than the sailors' quarters.
Still, as the vice commander of this operation and a man whose family had served the royal house for generations, the guard captain couldn't help but speak up.
"Your Highness, shouldn't we request additional supplies from the World Government before we arrive?"
The loyal but straightforward guard voiced his concern. To become the first army to reach Mary Geoise, the prince had ordered the supply ships to turn back halfway—and had even refused the guard's suggestion to transfer provisions onto their warships so they wouldn't slow down.
Now, the remaining food stores would barely last three days. If the battle went poorly, the consequences could be disastrous!
"Hah? Supplies?"
The prince—Adley—turned back with visible irritation, his mood ruined by the interruption. He could have basked alone in the glory of defending the Holy Land, but his father hadn't trusted him and had sent this meddlesome guard as his vice commander.
If he earned great merit in the coming defense of Mary Geoise, wouldn't he have to share that glory with this useless man?
"Food, medicine, and weapons all need to be replenished. If possible, please request that the World Government provide us with some gunpowder as well. The ones on the ship have gotten damp, and the weather lately hasn't been suitable for drying them out..."
The captain of the guard knew full well that the prince despised him, but remembering the king's personal orders before departure, he had no choice but to brace himself and speak to Prince Edley.
If he could, the captain would have avoided this mission entirely. In fact, ever since hearing that their target was the Cosmic Dark Matter Pirates, he had felt an unprecedented sense of dread.
For the World Government to mobilize its allied nations so openly—and even demand troops from a small kingdom like theirs, with fewer than two thousand soldiers in total—
...no matter how he looked at it, it all seemed like a desperate, reckless move.
"Enough already! What do the affairs of those lowborn soldiers have to do with me? Isn't dealing with such filth your job as my subordinate?!"
Edley impatiently cut him off before he could finish, yelling as he jabbed a stubby finger hard into the captain's chest.
Despite being far larger and sturdier than Edley, the captain still stumbled backward from the fat prince's prodding.
As one of the World Government's closest allied nations to the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, the Kingdom of Dalvisk was a tiny state. However, since its royal family had always been obsessed with hoarding wealth and had never once defaulted on their Heavenly Tribute payments, their position was as unshakable as bedrock—they couldn't care less about the lives of a few common soldiers.
Down below, the soldiers who had been resting in the ship's dark, damp lower deck heard the shouting from above. One by one, they climbed up, nervous and curious, trying to see what was happening.
When Edley caught sight of these filthy, foul-smelling men, his already foul mood turned even worse.
This was the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, the most sacred place in the world. Just having to bring along these disgusting lowborns to defend it was bad enough—but if one of the Celestial Dragons happened to see them wandering about, it would disgrace the name of Dalvisk!
"Get them back below deck this instant! Or do you want to shame the Kingdom of Dalvisk?!"
Edley shouted furiously, pointing at the ragged soldiers as if they were refuse. To him, they practically were.
The soldiers—humiliated and angry—could only swallow their resentment and obey, retreating silently below deck once more.
Unfortunately for the self-important Prince Edley, though his troops were among the first reinforcements to reach Mary Geoise, the grand reception he had imagined never came.
He didn't even get to see a Celestial Dragon—World Government officials brushed him off without ceremony.
Instead, the captain of the guard, who was the real commander of their forces, was personally received by Steel Bone Kong, the Commander-in-Chief of the Holy Land's Defense Corps. Not only that—he was directly assigned to serve as an officer in the frontline battle units.
"Supreme Commander, isn't this... a bit inappropriate? Prince Edley won't take this quietly..."
The one assigned as Steelbone Kong's deputy was the commander of the Holy Land's guards — who also served as the vice-commander of the Holy Land Defense Corps.
It wasn't that the Five Elders had started doubting Steelbone Kong and deliberately assigned him a deputy to split his authority.
Rather, the Holy Land Defense Corps was still little more than an empty shell. Not only were the reinforcements from the World Government's allied nations yet to arrive, even the temporarily drafted Government staff and CP agents hadn't fully assembled.
At the moment, aside from the partially reorganized slave soldiers, the only real fighting force left to the Corps were the guards of Mary Geoise and the bodyguards loaned from the Celestial Dragons by the Five Elders.
Though the Mary Geoise guards and the Celestial Dragon bodyguards numbered only twenty thousand, compared to over a hundred thousand slave soldiers, they were the true core of the Defense Corps.
However, despite his position as vice-commander, the guard commander didn't grow arrogant. He knew full well the gap between himself and Steelbone Kong wasn't merely in authority — it was a gap in strength and presence.
Because of that, even though he felt that Steelbone Kong's recent arrangements seemed questionable, he didn't dare voice his doubts directly. Only after everyone else had left did he cautiously approach and ask.
"Humph! The kind I hate most are those useless leeches who do nothing but drag everyone down," Steelbone Kong grumbled, wearing the face of an old hardliner disgusted with nepotism. "Leaving him in the Corps is nothing but a burden!"
Of course, he knew perfectly well that such obvious favoritism would only fuel tension between Prince Edley and the guard captain.
Knowing the nobility as he did, Steelbone Kong could already predict that this so-called Prince Edley would do everything in his power to sabotage the captain — even if it meant sacrificing the Darvisk Kingdom's reinforcements in the process.
In the past, to maintain combat readiness, Steelbone Kong might have chosen to compromise.
But now, his goal was to weaken the Holy Land Defense Corps as much as possible without arousing the Five Elders' suspicion. Planting such "landmines" wherever he could was ideal — after all, no one could openly accuse him of wrongdoing.
In times like these, when combat strength was at a premium, choosing a seasoned military commander over an untrained royal prince was perfectly reasonable on paper.
"Let's just hope nothing happens…"
The vice-commander sighed, his expression showing hesitation. Though he was nominally Steelbone Kong's deputy, as the commander of the Mary Geoise guard, his rank and authority still placed him well below the supreme commander of all forces. He had neither the power nor the courage to challenge Steelbone Kong's decisions.
Fortunately, the Dalvisk Kingdom wasn't all that strong — they'd only sent about a thousand soldiers. Even if something went wrong, it wouldn't drastically affect the overall strength of the Holy Land Defense Corps.
After watching the uneasy vice-commander leave, Steelbone Kong's previously tense expression sagged in exhaustion.
For a man who had upheld his principles his entire life, deliberately sabotaging his own army was no small humiliation. But now that he had boarded Kizaru's "pirate ship", even for the sake of his family, Steelbone Kong could only keep walking this dark road.
"…I've already done everything — even what I shouldn't have done. You'd better not let me down, Kizaru…"
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