Coating! Instinct

"Notify the captain and the officers quickly."

"Take them down! There aren't many of them!"

Compared to the pirates, Garp's force numbered only around a hundred.

Yet in the short span of a dozen breaths, more than two hundred pirates had already leaped down from the pirate ships along the shore. Every one of them wore a fierce, savage expression.

For some reason, Xia Le felt a heavy pressure bearing down on him.

The difference in numbers between the two sides was enormous.

This wasn't some passionate anime he had watched in his previous life. This was cruel reality, laid bare.

"Bang!"

A gunshot rang out. A muffled groan immediately came from in front of Xia Le, and the tall marine who had been blocking his figure collapsed without a sound.

He leaped over the man and saw the ground quickly stained red with blood.

This was war—a war where blood would be spilled and people would die.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang!"

The gunshots soon merged into one continuous roar. The two sides weren't far apart, firing at each other from roughly a hundred meters away.

Every second, marines fell. Some had been shot in the head, while others had their abdomens or chests pierced. The stench of blood rapidly spread through the air.

The pirates were also falling one after another.

The force Garp had brought was clearly the elite of the elite. They had experienced countless battles. Perhaps they weren't particularly powerful in Hand-to-Hand Combat or strength, but their courage and their willingness to fight to the death were beyond question.

"Charge!!!"

The marines at the front raised their rifles, firing continuously as they roared with madness on their faces.

The force continued advancing rapidly. In the blink of an eye, only forty or fifty meters separated them from the pirates. At such a close distance, some pirates lowered their pistols and drew the long sabers from their waists instead.

A close-quarters battle was about to begin!

Xia Le took a deep breath and tightened his grip on the Chair in his hand.

This was his only weapon.

"Bang!"

Thirty-six seconds into the charge, just as the two sides were about to clash, Xia Le's body suddenly jerked. He grunted and looked down to see a patch of crimson appear over his left chest.

His heart had been struck by an enemy bullet.

But immediately afterward, he seemed to awaken from suffocation and darkness, recovering once more.

The bullet fell from his body with a clink.

He had revived again.

Xia Le shifted his gaze and quickly locked onto the pirate who had shot him.

The rough-looking man, wearing a pirate bandanna and holding a Rifle, was staring at him in shock and disbelief. His entire face was filled with astonishment.

"Jerry, what are you spacing out for?"

His companion shouted beside him.

"Hey, hey, hey! Did you see that? I clearly hit that kid in the heart, but he isn't hurt at all."

Jerry spoke incredulously.

"How is that possible? Hurry up and finish him off!"

"During a battle with our Harricks, someone is actually using a Chair as a weapon? That's an utter disrespect to us!"

His companion roared angrily.

Jerry sucked in a breath and once again aimed his Rifle forward at the black-haired youth who stood out among the marines, holding a Chair.

"Bang!"

The gunshot rang out, and the bullet screamed toward its target.

The shot struck the black-haired youth directly between the brows, but Jerry froze again.

Because he clearly saw the black-haired youth merely tilt his head back before accurately locking onto his position and glaring at him.

"That guy... he's a Monster, isn't he!?"

Jerry said with a tremble.

He had clearly hit him!

By now, Xia Le had also fully experienced the cruelty of war. The death rate was simply too high.

In a short span of time, he had already been hit by bullets twice.

At that moment, the vanguard ahead had also made contact with the enemy.

An even more brutal close-quarters battle began, with curses and screams ringing out once again.

He saw Kuzan move nimbly through the enemy ranks, Military Saber in hand, swiftly and sharply taking down one pirate after another.

He also saw an unfamiliar comrade beside him pierced through the body by a pirate's long saber. Blood sprayed from the man's mouth as he roared and dragged the enemy with him into the next world.

They truly feared no death!

Whether marines or pirates, everyone made Xia Le feel as though they had gone mad. Both sides seemed completely indifferent to their own lives, able to march fearlessly toward death.

"Kill!"

With a low growl, Xia Le sprinted forward and suddenly leaped into the air.

That leap carried him ten meters.

His strength and explosive power were undoubtedly far beyond what they had been when he had first arrived in this world.

He swung the Chair in his hand in a wide arc before violently hurling it at the head of the pirate ahead.

"Bang!"

The Chair struck the pirate squarely in the forehead. Xia Le clearly saw blood blossom from the man's head as his originally hard skull split open. The Chair in Xia Le's hands also shattered into splinters under the tremendous force.

Red and white sprayed all over him, but he had no time to care.

He bent down sharply and picked up the Rifle on the ground, only to throw it aside moments later and replace it with another long saber.

Whether in his previous life or this world, he had never learned to shoot.

A long saber, on the other hand, was something he could master more quickly.

"Bang!"

A bullet from somewhere struck Xia Le in the abdomen, making his body sway. But soon, he charged ferociously at the pirate before him once more.

The brutality of close-quarters combat was unimaginable to anyone who had never experienced it.

Within an extremely short time, blood and severed limbs covered the ground.

Xia Le swung the long saber in his hand and struck the neck of a pirate with his back turned to him. The resistance of flesh and bone forced him to exert even more strength.

The next second, the pirate's head separated from his body. Xia Le had beheaded him.

Taking a deep breath, he continued forward and once again faced a pirate in battle.

After exchanging a glance, the two viciously swung their sabers at each other.

"Slash!"

The sharp saber sliced down directly from his cheek, cutting through his neck and chest before reaching his abdomen. Blood burst from the major artery like a fountain.

But in an instant, his body recovered once more, becoming completely unharmed. At the same time, an even more savage and powerful force surged through him.

Xia Le stabbed without hesitation, piercing the pirate's kidney.

Then he withdrew the saber and charged toward the next opponent amid the pirate's shocked, incomprehending gaze.

For a fresh Recruit like him, who had just entered the battlefield, death was practically the most ordinary thing in the world. In a short time, his system points had risen to seventy-five.

At the same time, Xia Le could clearly feel himself transforming, growing stronger and stronger.

By the end, he was already able to weave through the pirates with ease.

However, just as the battle reached its fiercest point, Kuzan suddenly shouted from nearby.

"Xia Le!"

"Look ahead!"

The gravity and seriousness in his voice made Xia Le raise his head toward the Town.

In the alleys of the European-style Town ahead, deafening battle cries suddenly erupted. Dense figures surged toward them like ants.

In an instant, a heavy, suffocating feeling swept over Xia Le's entire body.

There were too many people!

Dodge! Instinct

"Harricks is a large pirate crew with more than a thousand pirates in total!"

An old marine said solemnly.

"Now, it all depends on Vice Admiral Garp!"

Another marine spoke as he pulled the long saber thrust into the enemy from their body.

Xia Le froze, then turned to look toward the bow of the Warship behind him, where the man stood with his arms folded.

The next second, he saw the Warship move.

No—to be precise, it was Garp moving.

His knees bent slightly as he sank down, yet the entire bow of the Warship tilted downward with him, while the stern rose high into the air, almost forming a ninety-degree angle with the ground.

The bow scraped against the sand along the shore, producing a harsh, heavy sound.

When the force accumulated to its limit, Garp leaped into the sky like a cannonball, soaring hundreds of meters high before following a parabola and arriving above everyone, looking down.

His right hand clenched into a fist. The sky above his head buzzed and creaked, as if it were about to shatter. Countless dazzling rays of light spread out behind him.

Then, amid the marines' excited gazes, that figure came to a stop in midair.

"Vmmm!"

A ripple radiated at astonishing speed across the entirety of Jerseylo Island, making everyone's heart jolt.

"Fist Bone Clash!!"

Garp suddenly threw his punch.

"Boom!"

An unimaginable impact of force erupted in an instant before crashing down violently, charging straight into the mass of pirates surging from the Town.

It was as if a nuclear bomb had fallen. The crowd exploded apart, while the ground shattered and the cracks spread rapidly in every direction, all the way to the Town on the island.

"Crack-crack-crack!"

The Town collapsed. A great earthquake swept outward, and Xia Le and the marines all struggled to remain standing.

His pupils trembled violently as he stared at the scene ahead in shock.

It was as if the world had shattered at that moment. Under that single punch, nothing remained. Like a nuclear bomb exploding, it erased everything.

Nearly a thousand pirates were buried beneath the shattered, upheaved earth before they could even scream, crushed by the terrifying impact of that punch.

"Vice Admiral Garp!!"

Kuzan shouted excitedly, his eyes shining as he stared at the imposing figure in the air.

The marines behind him were all brimming with morale, roaring one after another.

This was the Hero of the Navy, Vice Admiral Garp!

Xia Le stood rooted to the spot. In that instant just now, he seemed to have sensed Conqueror's Haki, but he couldn't be certain.

"Conqueror's Haki Infusion?"