The Paramount War, Part Twenty-Nine

In the distance.

Ryan stood on a patch of ice that had yet to melt, the battlefield reflected in his pupils.

As more and more high-ranking combatants joined both sides, the war grew increasingly brutal.

At the breach in the defensive wall, it would not have been an exaggeration to say that human brains had been beaten into dog brains.

For now, however, the pirates were suffering the greater number of casualties.

It was not because the pirates were weak. In fact, the opposite was true.

The pirates still alive now would not have been considered weak even in the waters of the New World. Compared with most Marines, they were far stronger overall.

However, the Marines were positioned atop the Iron Curtain.

Aside from a small number of powerful Marines stationed at the breach to hold the line, the rest operated massive cannons and launched attacks.

Those attacks naturally amounted to little against the dozen or so powerhouses who seemed capable of shattering space itself.

But for the majority of pirates, they remained an enormous threat.

Moreover, the rain of cannonballs was not the most dangerous thing.

The sword energy that erupted from time to time, along with the battle shockwaves that seemed capable of tearing people apart, were the main reasons the death rate had risen so sharply.

They might have been strong by ordinary standards, but on this battlefield, they were still fodder who could not even withstand some of the battle's aftershocks.

Only those at the level of Marine Headquarters rear admirals and Whitebeard's division commanders possessed even a measure of self-preservation here.

Even then, it was only a measure. No one on either side dared claim they would definitely survive.

Even those capable of carving out a small safe zone for the weaker fighters had