A full half month had passed since the war broke out.
The war continued, as fierce as ever, with no sign of easing.
The war was like a meat grinder. Blood had stained the vast expanse of ice red, and countless corpses lay piled within the fractured ice.
Marines, Army soldiers, and pirates were all mixed together.
The brutal war dragged on. They rested, then returned to battle, fighting until they died.
There was no time to clear the battlefield. All they could do was dump the bodies into the Ice River.
Both sides kept pouring vast amounts of manpower, supplies, and money into the war.
Everyone seemed to have fallen under the influence of Cyrik's ability.
Both sides cast aside cowardice and fear, charging relentlessly at one another, as though only one conviction remained in their hearts: kill.
People died every moment.
In just half a month, the death toll on both sides had reached five hundred thousand, averaging more than thirty thousand a day.
It was a terrifying number.
As Cyrik grew stronger and his Fruit Ability evolved, things changed.
His ability naturally became even more terrifying.
Its effects seemed mild, but as they steadily accumulated, virtually none of the low- and mid-tier fighters could escape them.
These people, the cannon fodder, were also the group with the highest death toll.
They had already become consumed by bloodlust. The wounded Marines could barely wait to charge back onto the battlefield as soon as their injuries improved even slightly, as though they grew restless whenever they were not fighting.
Throughout this time, the balance of the war remained unbroken.
In the battles between top combatants, whenever one side fell into a disadvantage, someone could always spare a moment to lend a hand.
That was precisely why the stalemate persisted.