Canaan Kingdom and Roger (Please Keep Reading!)

After a long while, the battle gradually subsided.

The fight between the King of the Kingdom of Jacob and the Armored Figure had reached its conclusion.

Natan's magnificent armor had shattered during the fierce battle, and even his underclothes had been stained red with his own blood and that of his enemy.

After mustering all his strength to drive his rapier through his enemy's body, his Haki and stamina had been utterly exhausted.

He leaned weakly against half a collapsed city wall, gasping violently.

Clutching the wound on his shoulder, where the bone had been shattered, he glared furiously through blood-soaked eyes at the figure dragging a war hammer as she approached him step by step.

Her body was likewise drenched in blood. A rapier was lodged in her chest, her throat had been slit, and half her gas mask had been cut away, revealing part of her face.

Natan stared at her exposed White Long Hair, crimson eyes, indistinctly gentle facial contours, and rough, cracked skin.

The corners of his bloodied mouth curled into a mocking smile. "I wasn't defeated by you. I was only defeated by time. If this had been twenty years earlier, I alone could have killed every last one of you—"

"Pfft..." The Octagonal War Hammer, stained with blood and dust, came crashing down. Steel struck flesh, sending scarlet fluid splashing across the city wall before it slowly slid down.

The Armored Figure gave her enemy no chance to spout any more nonsense. Ignoring the agony wracking her body, she brought the hammer down again and again.

Her cracked lips tightened beneath her mask, endless hatred flashing through her eyes as she mechanically raised the heavy war hammer and smashed it down time after time.

Venting the hatred accumulated over generations.

Only when the spurting blood had dyed half the city wall red, and the king had become nothing more than king paste, did she finally stop. Her body tilted backward weakly, and she stumbled into the grass.

Just as Natan had said, he had only lost to time—to old age.

The Armored Figure had not defeated Natan. She had not even managed to leave a truly fatal wound on him. She had merely relied on her youthful body and powerful endurance to wear him down until he died.

After doing all this, her vision blurred. She stared blankly up at the sky as everything from her past flashed through her mind.

She knew this was the life-flashing-before-her-eyes that her grandfather had often spoken of before his death.

Her condition was terrible. It was not only the wounds covering her body; the disease in her lungs was also constantly draining her vitality like a life-claiming fierce ghost.

Her worsening body told her that she did not have long to live. That was precisely why, after learning that several children fetching water had been killed, she had launched this attack without hesitation.

After a long while, she heard panicked cries coming from all around. Some belonged to soldiers fleeing in terror after the king's death. Others belonged to the few citizens who had watched her grow up.

She pursed her lips, cracked from severe dehydration, and silently murmured, Mother, Grandfather, I failed to become the excellent ruler you wanted me to be...

In the dim world, she saw her mother, who had left when she was young, and her grandfather, who had departed in resentment, believing he had failed his subjects and friends.

Anxious shouts rang out one after another. She sensed that her people were gathering toward her.

But she no longer had the strength to respond to them. Weakly, she closed her eyes.

"The strongest enemy is... already dead. What comes next will depend on you..."

Before her eyes closed completely, she vaguely saw a figure with Light golden short hair and Snow-white wings upon his back.

Bathed in warm Golden dawn light, he was as sacred and inviolable as an angel.

Golden particles of light slowly revolved around him before drifting down like fallen leaves and merging into her bloodstained heavy armor.

Meanwhile, on the sea dozens of nautical miles from the Kingdom of Jacob, an obscure standoff was underway.

The sea breeze blew, making the Skull flag emblazoned with crossed swords flap loudly.

Figures radiating formidable auras stood scattered across the deck in relaxed postures, facing two warships in the distance.

On the warships, Marine soldiers gripped swords and firearms nervously as the cannons slowly turned, aiming directly at the Three-masted sailing ship floating on the sea nearby.

Vice Admiral Gumir of Marine Headquarters no longer wore his usual calm expression. His face was solemn, his eyes filled with wariness.

"So the rumors were true. That apprentice from Roger's ship has grown to this extent—and somehow made it to the East Sea."

Suddenly, the pirate ship's cabin door slowly opened, and a red-haired figure wearing a Straw hat emerged into the sunlight.

"What happened on that island for even a vice admiral to come here?" Red-Haired Shanks pressed down on the Straw hat atop his head, walked through his companions, and headed straight to the bow of the sailing ship.

Looking at the two massive warships before him, a shadow passed through Shanks's eyes. "Back then, Captain Roger destroyed the Kingdom of Jacob's army. With Canaan the Third's strength at the time, he should have been able to reclaim part of the plains and allow his people to thrive again."

"But what is this situation?"

"Did the Kingdom of Jacob produce some exceptionally powerful force after we left?"

At that moment, Vice Admiral Gumir's voice rang out through the warship's loudspeaker.

"Red-Haired Shanks, why is a man like you here?"

Shanks slowly raised his head. His gaze crossed the sea and settled directly on Vice Admiral Gumir. One hand rested lightly on the hilt of Famous Sword Griffin, his expression incomparably cold.

"Don't stand in my way, Marines."

As his words fell, an invisible wave swept across the sea, instantly whipping up a hurricane and stirring waves several meters high.

Wave after wave crashed against the distant warships, making them rock violently. Marine soldiers collapsed at once, falling unconscious.

For a moment, there were barely any people left standing on the decks of the two warships.

Gumir's eyes widened at the sight. He instinctively gripped the Katana in his hand and muttered, "This is... Conqueror's Haki."

He had not expected that even an apprentice on Roger's ship possessed such innate presence.

Gumir's scalp tingled. Red-Haired Shanks had such talent—did that mean the Blue-haired brat, who hid himself even deeper, had it too?

"Familiar ceiling..." In the Stone House atop the Highland, a young girl with White Long Hair and sharp, black Demon horns slowly opened her eyes.

"Am I... still alive?"

She instinctively pushed herself up from her bed and looked around, only to find the armor she had inherited from her grandfather propped up nearby.

The blood staining its surface had long since been wiped clean, but the hideous cracks across it remained.

A shadow passed through the girl's eyes at the sight.

She knew that with the Highland's current capabilities, it was utterly impossible to repair this armor.

She threw back the heavily patched, yellowed blanket that carried a strong briny smell and slowly rose to her feet. Walking over to the broken mirror on the wooden table, she examined her current appearance.

Looking at her own rough, cracked skin, the girl finally confirmed that she had survived for some reason.

"Clang..." The sound of something heavy hitting the floor made the girl instinctively turn her head.

"Your Majesty?!" Several gaunt women with dry, rough, cracked skin stood staring blankly at her, their eyes filled with joy.

Looking at the women, each more than a head shorter than herself, the girl instinctively smiled gently.

"It's me. I'm still alive..."