"A Marine? Why are Marines here? Did King Chap order you to watch over these slaves?"
Marine attire also follows systematic regulations. At Zephyr's rank, aside from the Justice coat on his back, there are no strict requirements for the rest.
And yet, that single coat was enough to clearly indicate his identity.
However, this guard didn't know much about the outside world and failed to realize that the man before him was already one of the Marines' highest combat forces.
"No."
Zephyr responded with just one word, then suddenly swung his arm.
Before the guard could react at all, Zephyr's arm had already struck his face.
Though it was just a simple swing, it contained power far beyond what the guard could withstand, sending him flying.
But due to Zephyr's principle of not killing, his control over his strength was excellent. The guard was merely knocked unconscious, with no danger to his life.
"Hey, hey, a Marine Admiral attacking a member of an affiliated nation. I saw all of that."
"How would I know? Weren't you the one who did all that?"
It's hard to learn good habits, but easy to pick up bad ones. At this moment, perhaps due to some stimulation, Zephyr seemed to be showing a slightly more unserious, Garp-like side.
Right in front of Nereus, Zephyr shifted the blame onto him, having already figured things out.
Forget beating up one or two people, even if he turned the entire Deul Kingdom upside down, the outside world would still think it was Nereus who did it.
However, the stimulation Zephyr had received had not yet reached that level. After knocking the guard away, he casually threw another punch, blasting a large hole in the wall of the slave colosseum.
He then took the keys hanging on the nearby wall and handed them to the people in the cages.
"You're free now. Stay away from the city center and go wait… for this kingdom's rebirth."
If at first Zephyr had scoffed at Kong's idea of "mediation," now he didn't even have the slightest intention of "mediating" anymore.
Woo! Woo!
At that moment, a melodious conch horn sounded from the coastline.
As the sound echoed, Nereus beside Zephyr suddenly transformed into countless bats, dispersing and flying out through the gaps in the surrounding windows.
"That guy… really is a b*stard…"
Watching Nereus leave him behind, Zephyr didn't choose to follow. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the guards who were closing in, drawn by the breach in the wall.
Whoosh…
Zephyr threw off his Justice coat and turned to face them. No matter how one looked at it, he had no intention of wearing that coat anymore.
Meanwhile, Nereus returned to where the fleet of warships had been anchored. Now standing in midair, his pupils reflected the masts of the ships below.
There were no grand gestures. He simply slowly raised his right arm and swung it down toward the sea in front of the warships.
Though it appeared ordinary, the power contained within was enough to suffocate the sea below.
Under Nereus's influence, the ocean itself seemed to be wailing.
With the control over water granted by Fish-Man Jujutsu combined with Nereus's own strength, he directly severed the sea currents below.
Boom!
The surface of the sea split apart.
A canyon suddenly appeared on the sea's surface, and the surging waves pushed the warships backward.
"No passage ahead. Cross the line at your own risk."
He had an agreement with the World Government and had also discussed things with Zephyr. As long as these Marines followed the rules today, Nereus had no intention of adding more souls to his River of Death.
But if they truly wanted to mediate, they would have to see whether their fists were strong enough. If not, they could only become Resurrection Coins. [TN: Resurrection Coins (officially known as Life Tokens in Dungeon Fighter Online) are items used to resurrect a player's character during a dungeon run after they have died. ]
However, before leaving, Zephyr had given them strict orders not to act without authorization, so no Marines attempted anything.
Meanwhile, in the Royal Palace of Deul Kingdom, Chap stood at a high point, observing everything in the distance through a telescope.
"Your Majesty! The people of Ryugu Kingdom are attacking!"
"Don't panic. Aren't the Marines here? With so many warships, they won't get through. And it's just one ship, what could they possibly do…"
"Your Majesty! This is bad! The port has fallen!"
Originally, seeing the warships confronting Nereus's ship, Chap felt at ease. But in the blink of an eye, bad news arrived.
"How is that possible?! Didn't I order you to deploy sea mines in the surrounding waters?! Even if those Fish-Men can swim, how did they break through the defence line so quickly?!"
"Your Majesty, they… didn't come from underwater. They came from… the sky!"
Air defense.
On this sea, it was a topic that hardly anyone paid attention to. Although there were various powerful ancient technologies, most of them were fundamentally lost to time.
Even the technologically advanced "future countries" did not focus on flying items due to the chaotic magnetic fields of the Grand Line.
A structured air force simply did not exist on this sea, not even within the World Government.
The World Government did not have three branches of the military, nor a commander of such branches. What it had was only a Commander-in-Chief of the entire military.
This "entire military" referred to the Marines, the government forces represented by World Government's Cipher Pol, and the armies of affiliated nations.
According to World Government laws, when necessary, it had the authority to command the armies of affiliated nations.
Even though Chap had taken measures against Ryugu Kingdom, he had no idea that Nereus had long prepared an air force.
Not long ago, aboard Nereus's ship, his royal guards stood before a strange device resembling a catapult. [TN: I used ro]
Although these Flying Fish Fish-Men, due to their species, possessed the ability to fight in the air, their flight was essentially gliding.
Unlike birds, they couldn't simply flap their wings to take off. They needed wind and proper acceleration to launch successfully.
And this device was a "catapult launcher" specifically designed for them.
Under the sudden assault of this air force, the coastal defenses were instantly torn apart, and the sea mines Chap had deployed were completely useless.
Unless detonated manually, the Fish-Men would never collide with them, and the defenders capable of detonating them had already been eliminated in advance by the air force.
In a sense, this was a coordinated operation between a Marine ground force and an aerial unit.
However, before Chap could fully process this information, he received another piece of devastating news.
"This is bad! Your Majesty! Someone has broken into the Royal Palace!!"
"What?! Nereus is still out on the sea! Who broke in?!"
"It's… it's Zephyr! That Marine Zephyr! Without saying a word, he just blasted the Royal Palace's gates to pieces!!"
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