The three surviving Pilurka Generals, Galvan, Lyselin, and Dr. Alpha, had all withdrawn behind the towering metallic walls of the royal capital.
From atop the fortress, they looked down coldly at the Alliance forces, who were still bewildered by their sudden retreat, as though observing insects waiting to be crushed.
Hovering in the air, Ritter watched the three generals, a thoughtful look crossing his face.
How are they still this confident?
I already eliminated one of their generals. Logically, they should be at a disadvantage now.
If I could kill Barrett... I can kill any one of the three standing up there.
His gaze swept across the Alliance army, and one eyebrow rose.
"Well now..."
"The Twenty Kings Alliance."
"Twenty kings really do have some backbone after all."
Through his keen senses, he noticed that the countless banners and powerful auras from the smaller allied kingdoms that had once surrounded the twenty ruling monarchs had thinned dramatically.
Many of those kingdoms had been completely wiped out.
Their armies had been annihilated.
Their kings and representatives had long since become lifeless corpses scattered across the battlefield, reduced to nutrients for someone else's ambitions.
Despite its name, the Twenty Kings Alliance consisted of far more than just twenty rulers.
It resembled the United Nations.
There might be five permanent members...
But there were many more nations beneath them.
And now...
Those member nations had nearly been wiped out.
Not all of them.
But enough.
Then again...
The Pilurka side had only sent two generals to suppress all of them.
Someone might ask...
Were those generals really that powerful?
The answer was yes.
Relatively speaking.
If all twenty kings possessed strength equal to Ritter or Imu...
Then there wouldn't be any point resisting.
Joy Boy might as well wash up and wait for death.
"My goodness..."
"It's only been this long, and so many have already died?"
Even though Ritter had expected heavy casualties, seeing the devastation with his own eyes was still shocking.
"As expected."
"In One Piece..."
"No, in any world..."
"When monsters fight, the weak don't even earn the right to watch."
"They only need to get brushed by the aftermath once..."
"And they're gone."
He clicked his tongue.
Just then...
A violent change erupted inside the royal capital.
Bzzzzzz!
A deep mechanical hum echoed from somewhere beneath the city's center.
The entire capital began shaking violently.
Even the supposedly indestructible metal walls groaned under the strain.
Ritter immediately sensed something familiar.
Without hesitation, he flashed back to his ship.
His vice-captain was still there.
He had left the young girl aboard while fighting Barrett.
Whenever something abnormal happened...
Protecting her came first.
He gently lifted her into his arms.
Better safe than sorry.
At the largest plaza in the center of the capital...
The ground split apart like blooming flower petals.
Massive sections of earth folded outward, revealing an enormous bottomless shaft.
Accompanied by grinding metal and overwhelming waves of energy...
A colossal machine slowly rose from the depths.
Its design was bizarre.
Its main body resembled an inverted cone forged from dark steel.
Its surface was covered with intricate pipelines, glowing energy circuits, and countless mysterious crystals.
At its summit rested an enormous crimson core.
It pulsed slowly...
Like a living heart.
The vast quantities of Life Force stolen from the battlefield surged endlessly into that crimson core.
With every influx...
Its heartbeat accelerated.
Its aura became increasingly terrifying.
Even the surrounding space began to distort.
The instant the machine emerged...
"Hmm..."
The girl in Ritter's arms suddenly trembled.
She stopped quietly eating her snacks.
Confusion appeared in her ice-blue eyes.
She felt...
Something.
Almost simultaneously...
Ritter's crimson pupils contracted sharply.
That pressure...
He recognized it.
That suffocating energy...
The same sensation that seemed capable of pulling souls from their bodies...
"So it was you!"
"You damned pile of scrap metal!"
His face instantly darkened.
He remembered.
Back when he had rampaged through Pilurka's royal city, slaughtering everything in his path...
He had sensed an incredibly powerful presence hidden somewhere beneath the city.
Although weaker than himself...
It had been enough to make him cautious.
Then he had heard voices.
He had assumed a true powerhouse was waiting below.
Because of that, he had deliberately conserved his stamina.
If someone stronger than him appeared...
He intended to run immediately.
Now...
The machine had finally revealed its aura.
It was exactly the same presence he had sensed back then.
"Oh."
"So it was just a machine."
"That's much less troublesome."
The source...
Had been this gigantic device all along.
As Ritter wondered about its true purpose...
Dr. Alpha stepped forward.
"You have never witnessed the pinnacle of our technology."
"This..."
"...is our greatest masterpiece."
"The core of Pilurka's Divine Maiden Project."
"The ultimate device designed to study and transform the Maiden into a Pseudo-Deity powered by limitless energy."
Ritter blinked.
"...Hmm."
"Logically speaking..."
"My vice-captain was turned into your power source."
"I should probably be furious."
"But I was wondering what that thing actually did..."
"And then you just walked out and explained everything."
"I have to admit..."
"That's surprisingly considerate of you."
In a strange way...
The One Piece world could be amazingly straightforward.
Now everything made sense.
No wonder Pilurka had willingly sacrificed countless soldiers and even abandoned vast territories just to lure the Alliance's main army beneath the capital.
The entire war...
Had been fuel gathering.
Every life lost...
Every soldier killed...
Had been converted into the final energy needed to activate this machine.
"Haa..."
"Haa..."
The young girl let out quiet, painful breaths in Ritter's arms.
Her body had formed some kind of resonance with the machine.
Or perhaps...
It was rejection.
Or attraction.
Maybe both.
While the machine devoured the Life Force of the battlefield...
It also tugged at the very source of her existence.
Ritter immediately wrapped her in a denser layer of blood mist, isolating that disturbing connection.
He gently patted her back.
"Don't be afraid, little one."
"Last time..."
"I didn't know what this thing was."
"This time..."
"I'll smash it into scrap metal for you."
He slowly raised his head.
His gaze locked onto the massive machine...
Then shifted toward the three generals standing atop the walls.
Killing intent nearly materialized around him.
"So..."
"You steal my food."
"And now..."
"You dare lay your hands on my people."
"Pilurka..."
"You deserve far worse than death."
Black Tide let out an eager hum in his hand.
Ritter thickened the protective blood mist surrounding the girl.
The barrier was powerful enough to withstand a simultaneous assault from all three generals.
It wouldn't stop them forever...
But it would buy more than enough time for him to return.
Originally...
Ritter intended to place her inside the storage space within his Illusion Realm.
But the girl gently shook her head.
She could feel it.
The giant machine wasn't merely trying to absorb her.
It was also slowly feeding energy back into her body.
She instinctively knew...
If she entered the machine...
Her strength would increase at an astonishing rate.
But she also knew something else.
If she stepped inside...
She might never come back out.
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