A Sudden Attack

Noah, Shiryu, and Rosinante.

Unlike their fellow recruits, who were fighting while retreating under the pressure of the siege, the three strode openly through the streets without the slightest intention of concealing their tracks.

Such brazen behavior was even more conspicuous than fireflies in the night.

Naturally, there was no shortage of people coming to catch them.

Sometimes there were three or five, sometimes seven or eight, and at most, nearly a hundred. Leading them were even officers with bounties worth several million Beli.

Unfortunately, the threat these pirates posed was truly limited before the three working together. Within a few exchanges, they were usually beaten into a rout and fled in all directions.

Noah's strikes emphasized speed, precision, and ruthlessness. With the Red and White Twin Blades drawn together, he charged into the crowd like he had activated a mowing frenzy, leaving behind only streaks of afterimages.

His methods of taking lives were also simple and decisive. Many pirates did not even realize what had happened before losing consciousness, painlessly erased from the world forever.

Thus, along the way, the pirates who died beneath Noah's blades accounted for the largest share, even exceeding the combined tally of his two friends.

"...I suddenly feel like I celebrated too early. It might have been better to leave you on Gulu Island so you could miss this assessment."

After watching an officer he had set his sights on get taken out by Noah first, Shiryu's tone turned heavy.

"Just thinking that the rankings of Little Rossi and me might be surpassed by someone who arrived thirty-six hours late fills me with profound shame. I can't even taste the flavor of tobacco anymore."

Whenever he darkened his face while speaking, his upturned triangular eyes sent chills down people's spines, making them instinctively worry that he might draw his sword and cut them down right there in the street.

From that perspective, perhaps becoming a warden at the sunless Impel Down suited him better than serving as a Marine on the front lines.

"That's why I told you to smoke less. See? You've smoked your tongue numb."

After skillfully finishing off another opponent, Noah turned to look at him and said with heartfelt indignation:

"And why are your thoughts so gloomy? We're brothers. Do we really have to decide who's better? When I learned I couldn't take part in the assessment, I stayed on Gulu Island silently wishing you all well, hoping you'd get good results!"

"If you really thought that, I'll start quitting smoking right now."

Shiryu remained expressionless. "But unfortunately, I'll never be able to quit in this lifetime. Therefore, by deduction, you're full of shit."

"Logical," Rosinante agreed.

These two were seriously no fun.

Did they have to spell it out? They had no sense of atmosphere at all. Didn't they know what the bonds of friendship were? What it meant to grow stronger with my share included, until our names resounded through heaven?

While lamenting the decay of human hearts, Noah opened the system's status panel with a thought and secretly checked the progress in the weapon slot.

[Wind Sword/Yone's Sword: Upgrade available. Current progress as follows]

[Points: 0/50000]

[Blood of the sinful: 273/1000]

...

Two hundred seventy-three.

That number was roughly the same as the number of pirates he had killed so far. In other words, unlike his previous guess, merely staining the blade with the blood of the sinful was not enough for the upgrade. He had to end their lives.

Noah felt that "souls" might have been a more fitting term than "blood."

It was originally a rather harsh condition, but his progress had grown rapidly along the way. At this rate, even if he could not fill the upgrade bar during this combat assessment, gaining more than half of it would not be a problem.

All he could say was that there were indeed decent people among pirates whose consciences had not yet died, but villains who had committed unforgivable crimes would forever make up the vast majority.

If one randomly picked a thousand pirates at sea and killed them, how many could truly be called innocent?

Perhaps not even ten.

After dealing with another batch of unlucky fools who had delivered themselves to their doorstep, the three rested briefly before continuing down the avenue.

Along the way, they encountered other recruits from their class. Most were in rather miserable situations, though every now and then, there would be one or two who could handle the pursuit and siege with ease, even counterattacking from time to time to hunt down isolated pirates who exposed openings.

The recruits capable of that were basically all formidable figures who had consistently ranked near the top in the previous daily assessments.

In Noah's view, their rankings in this combat assessment would likewise not be low.

"Come to think of it, why haven't those captains come looking for us yet?"

After walking for quite some time and dealing with several batches of laughably weak pirates, Noah began to wonder. If I don't take them out, it'll still be difficult to catch up and secure one of the top spots...

That should not have been the case.

They had caused such a huge commotion. At least one decent officer should have come to take a look by now. He had even deliberately let several small fry go to spread the news...

Whoosh!

At that instant, an extremely faint, nearly imperceptible sound of something cutting through the air suddenly came from the night.

Noah vaguely caught the sound. His thoughts cut off, and as he instinctively turned his head, he happened to see a golden-orange bullet piercing through the air and rapidly enlarging in his vision—

His pupils instantly contracted into dangerous pinpoints. With no time to think, his accumulated combat experience made him react in an instant.

The ability of Intermediate Kami-e was pushed to its limit, and his head tilted slightly backward in response to the subtle shifts in the airflow.

Whoosh!

Noah watched as the bullet grazed past his scalp and slammed into the wall behind him.

Boom!

With a deafening explosion, the wall behind him suddenly burst apart, sending countless chunks of stone and brick flying.

The power was truly astonishing. Noah turned his head for another look, still shaken. If he had failed to react and been hit by that shot, it might not have blown his head apart, but he would at least have been seriously injured.

"There's a sniper!"

The other two were also startled. Shiryu immediately drew his sword, his gaze sharp as he looked toward where the bullet had come from and roared, "Who's there? What kind of skill is ambushing people from behind? Get the hell out here!"

On the other side, Rosinante also drew his weapon and stood in front of Noah with a wary expression.

"Noah, are you all right?" he did not forget to ask, turning his head.

"I'm fine."

Noah had already swiftly regained his composure. Gripping the Red and White Twin Blades, he narrowed his eyes slightly and searched the broken walls and ruins for traces of the enemy, just like Shiryu.

At his current level of strength, ordinary flintlock rifles could hardly threaten him. But that shot just now had clearly been anything but ordinary.

Both the gun and the bullet had evidently been specially modified. Not only was the shot nearly silenced, but the bullet was incredibly fast, and its explosive power was almost comparable to an artillery shell.

If he let his guard down, he really might fall for it.