This was a cruelly real world that revealed its brutality at every moment, not a two-dimensional picture showing only one corner of the truth.
Little Oars's massive body crashed heavily onto the plaza, easily claiming the lives of over a hundred Marines.
Compared to the cruel sight of the warship crushing a bloody road of flesh and bones through the ice earlier, the Marines crushed beneath Little Oars's corpse could at least die silently in the darkness.
Maud quickly looked back at the situation on the plaza.
Whitebeard's devastating attack had instead used Little Oars's corpse to open a gap at the edge of the plaza.
But in terms of troop numbers, the Marines still held the advantage.
Only...
The Marines' advantage in terrain had completely vanished.
The real hard battle was only just beginning.
"There's a chance!"
The captain of one of Whitebeard's ships, Delacroix, was also the pirate whose ship Maud had blasted apart with a single shot as soon as the battle began.
The instant Maud turned his head, Delacroix closed in rapidly and swung his Armament Haki-coated long blade at Maud's vital points.
Silent Step!
As the long blade came down, red light shimmered in Maud's eyes. He pivoted on his toes, and his figure vanished into thin air.
The next second, he appeared in midair more than ten meters away, his idle left hand already gripping the flintlock pistol that Beli had transformed into.
The several captains of the large fleets who had sealed off Maud's retreat were caught off guard when they saw him choose to retreat straight into the air.
This unexpected countermeasure caused them to miss an opportunity to launch a coordinated attack on Maud.
"Even if you know Geppo..."
Delacroix, who held a grudge against Maud, had no intention of ending