One piece: Establishing a Pirate Family

Chapter 508: Esdeath's Ruthlessness

When Sakazuki saw the remote control in Esdeath's hand, his heart leaped into his throat. He turned to look at the Marine soldiers who had already occupied the defensive positions.

"Run!"

Sakazuki's anxious roar brought the battlefield to a standstill for a moment.

But the next moment, a surging wave of energy rose from beneath the ground.

"Oh no!"

The Marine Fleet Admiral and the Admirals who had been observing the battlefield instantly realized what was happening.

BOOM!

A mushroom cloud rose from the defensive positions. The fiery light instantly enveloped all the Marine soldiers and officers on the island, including Sakazuki, Kuzan, and Borsalino.

"Damn it!"

Kong, Sengoku, Garp, and Zephyr watched this scene, their eyes filled with rage and despair.

Standing atop Caesar's head, Esdeath's lips curled upwards as she witnessed the scene.

"Let's go!" she then said softly to Caesar beneath her feet.

Caesar's dazed expression vanished at Esdeath's urging, and he immediately fled into the distance. His heart was filled with terror. He never imagined his older sister had planted bombs beneath the island. Judging by the scope of the explosion, the amount of explosives was by no means small.

An icy chill ran down Caesar's spine. His perception of his sister's ruthlessness rose to a new level.

Esdeath, however, paid no mind to the shock in Caesar's heart or the surprise in Tesla's. With a smirk, she looked back at the island, which had already become a black dot in the distance.

"Sis, there were still a lot of our own people on that island!" Caesar couldn't help but say after they had traveled a long way and reached a safe area.

Esdeath did not get angry, nor did her expression change.

"Our people? They were just trash I picked up from the sea. You can find as much of that kind of trash as you want. They were nothing but cannon fodder. To trade the lives of that cannon fodder for over three thousand elite Marines, tell me, was it worth it?" Esdeath said with a blank face.

Hearing this, Caesar's heart turned cold once again. That was several thousand lives, gone in an instant. However, Caesar didn't say anything more. Aside from a sigh, he could only silently apologize in his heart.

His sister was right. Trading the lives of some cannon fodder for over three thousand elite Marines was indeed a gain. Anyone would agree. It was better for that cannon fodder to die than for their own people to die. These "people" were just pirates Esdeath had captured on the seas over the past few days, not their true elites.

The true elites were the more than three thousand swordsmen under Charlotte's command, and the more than ten thousand well-trained elite crew members.

After Esdeath and the others had left, the flames on the island gradually died down. A chill instantly spread across the entire port.

Kuzan stood before the port, his face covered in dust and a trickle of blood at the corner of his lips. His clothes were tattered from the fiery blast. Taking the explosion head-on had not been easy for Kuzan. At the last moment, he had turned his body into his element, avoiding most of the impact and not receiving much damage. The moment the explosion occurred, Kuzan had immediately released the power of his Ice-Ice Fruit, but the result was not good.

Gradually, people began to stand up one after another on the island. But those who stood up were only the more powerful officers. Not a single Marine on the higher slopes survived; all of them died in the explosion, not even bones were left behind.

"Cough, cough!"

Borsalino descended from the sky. He had jumped into the air at the speed of light the moment the explosion happened. He wasn't injured at all; even his clothes were undamaged.

Sakazuki had been the farthest from the explosion. His clothes were merely torn, and he looked a bit disheveled.

"Rockefeller Pirates!" Sakazuki clenched his fists as he took in the scene, the fury in his eyes looking as if it could devour someone.

The Marine warships slowly approached the island.

"Quick, search for survivors!" Zephyr immediately organized a rescue effort.

Kong stepped off the warship, his feet landing on the scorched earth.

"Fleet Admiral, I'm sorry. I was careless!" Kuzan lowered his head as soon as he saw Kong disembark.

Kong didn't speak, but his hands were clenched tightly together. For this operation, he had bet all the Marines' assets—a total of fifty thousand elite Marines. And yet, before even encountering the pirates' main force, they had lost three to four thousand elites on a single small island. This loss of nearly a tenth of his forces felt like a knife twisting in Kong's heart.

Kong raised his hand, placed it slowly on Kuzan's shoulder, and patted it heavily.

"This isn't your fault. It's the pirates' cunning!"

After saying this, Kong went to check on the casualties. Although these were words of comfort, Kuzan and Sakazuki still felt terrible.

"Fleet Admiral, we must be careful. If the pirates on the upcoming islands all do this, I'm afraid our Marines will be wiped out before we even reach the final battle," Sengoku said, walking to Kong's side.

"Mm. Next time, you will lead the assault on the island directly," Kong said, glancing at Sengoku.

"Sir!" Sengoku immediately stood up straight and tall.

The first clash ended in a failure for the Marines. And this was just a loss after clashing only with the children of the Rockefeller Pirates. This left a very bitter taste in Kong's mouth. He had never expected the Rockefeller Pirates to be so ruthless as to disregard even their own comrades. But he was also a fool for thinking that pirates would care about their comrades. As expected, pirates were pirates.

The news from here was instantly spread. After all, ever since the Marines entered the New World, almost every faction had been watching their every move.

No one had expected that the Marines, who had been advancing like an unstoppable force, would lose their very first battle against the Rockefeller Pirates. And they had lost thoroughly.

One Fleet Admiral, two Admirals, one Marine Hero, and over a dozen Vice Admirals, including the three "Monster" Vice Admirals, had suffered a major loss at the hands of just three of the Rockefeller family's children.

It was very ironic.

After seeing this report, everyone laughed at the Marines' incompetence, while also secretly growing more vigilant of the Rockefeller Pirates' strength.

Esdeath, Caesar, and Tesla were once again plastered across the major newspapers, becoming the hottest topic of the period. For a time, their fame even overshadowed the news that the Marines were still continuously attacking islands in the New World.

Although this brought great fame to the Rockefeller Pirates, the continuous loss of territory still made the entire crew extremely tense. News from the front lines came in every day. One island after another was taken by the Marines.

This was especially true for the captured crew members on those islands. It seemed that in retaliation for the previous explosion, the Marines were mercilessly slaughtering any Rockefeller Pirate crew members they captured. Currently, not a single Rockefeller Pirate crew member had survived capture by the Marines.

This also led all the members of the Rockefeller Pirates to engage in a desperate, last-ditch resistance. The Marines' pace towards a decisive battle with the Rockefeller Pirates was slowed once again.

---

Read up to 35 Chapters ahead on patreon.com/Fanglin

[Please leave a 5 Star review and power stone for this novel]

*Thank you*