The Navy's Overall Structure

The Navy's efficiency was undeniable. Once it had decided to act, it had the World Government's full support.

During the two years Hades spent immersed in life on Rusukaina Island, the Navy expanded its territory in the New World and became active there once more.

The Navy's organization had grown vast. Beyond Marine Headquarters, there were forty-six Marine Fortresses across the world.

The New World already had the G-1 through G-5 Branches. Thirteen more Marine Fortresses had since been rebuilt or constructed, numbered G-34 through G-46.

G-1 and G-5, each guarded by an admiral, had ten thousand Marines apiece. Each of the other sixteen fortresses had five thousand.

Each Marine Fortress also had four Marine Branches positioned around it. They strengthened the Navy's hold over the surrounding waters and could provide support at any time.

Every Marine Fortress had a Marine Vice Admiral, while each branch was commanded by an officer with the rank of commodore or rear admiral.

The fortresses alone held a hundred thousand Marines. Counting the New World branches surrounding them, which numbered roughly four times as many and each held a thousand Marines, the figure climbed much higher.

Then there were all the other personnel.

All told, the Navy had deployed nearly two hundred thousand personnel in the New World.

In recent years, besides recruiting, Fleet Admiral Black had used the World Government's backing to transfer large numbers of elite troops from the relatively peaceful Four Seas.

That included twenty officers with the rank of Marine Vice Admiral, among them the Four Seas Governors.

Large numbers of commodores and rear admirals had also been sent to Marine Headquarters and the New World. Nearly every Four Seas Faction commander in the Four Seas had been swept up.

They had no room to refuse. Within the Navy, they belonged to different factions with their own interests. To outsiders, though, they shared one identity: Marines!

Many of them had joined the Navy for the sake of justice.

The Navy had committed most of its strength to the New World. It seemed ready to face the Rocks Pirates.

Not all of those forces were elite, however. Only about a quarter could truly be called Marine Elites.

Many of the rest were there to fill the ranks. More precisely, they were cannon fodder: raw recruits trained alongside veterans in hopes of turning them into fighting troops as quickly as possible.

A large portion had been newly recruited during the expansion or transferred directly from the Four Seas.

The vast Four Seas had no shortage of Marines.

Those who survived the coming war would undoubtedly become elites.

It was a desperate measure forced upon the Navy by the threat of the Rocks Pirates.

In manpower alone, the Navy's forces in the New World now amounted to nearly a third of its total strength.

The Navy had not yet swelled to a million personnel to cope with the Great Pirate Era.

It could not even match the Army in numbers.

The Army guarding the first half of the Grand Line had a massive force of three million, stationed at the various passes connecting the Red Line to the Four Seas.

Yet even that number seemed insignificant against the sheer size of the Red Line.

The Army had more personnel than the Navy, but it could not compare in overall strength, whether in the average soldier's ability or in High-End Combatants.

In the first half of the Grand Line, the Navy operated across a much wider area than it did in the New World. It had established only eight fortress-style Marine Bases there.

They were the G-6 through G-9 Branches and the G-14 through G-17 Branches.

A Marine Fortress was practically standard command for a Marine Vice Admiral.

Each fortress held five thousand personnel and had Marine Branches on all four sides that could provide support from a distance.

Those branches were slightly smaller than their counterparts in the New World, with eight hundred personnel each.

Including the hundred thousand personnel still at Marine Headquarters, the Navy had more than a hundred and sixty thousand personnel in the first half of the Grand Line.

The Navy's greatest concentration of personnel was in the Four Seas, and its largest internal faction was the Four Seas Faction.

Compared with the future, the Four Seas Navy of this era was many times stronger.

Each of the four seas had a Marine Governor with the rank of vice admiral, the undisputed commander of that sea's naval forces.

A Marine Governor might not match a Marine Admiral in strength, but the two stood on equal footing in status.

Each sea had five Marine Fortresses: one Governor's Headquarters and four others positioned in different directions across its waters.

The Four Seas Navy was a powerful force. Besides the Marine Governors, it had more than one Marine Vice Admiral.

It was true that the Four Seas Navy was weaker than Marine Headquarters, as it would remain in the future. But the gap was nowhere near as wide now.

Because the Four Seas Faction was so strong, ranks in the Four Seas Navy differed from those at Marine Headquarters by only one grade, rather than the three-grade gap that would emerge later.

A Governor's Headquarters had ten thousand Marines, while each of the other fortresses in the Four Seas had five thousand.

Each sea had roughly a hundred and fifty Marine Branches, each with an authorized strength of about five hundred personnel.

But Marine Headquarters had transferred at least two hundred Marines out of every branch in the Four Seas, leaving each with only around three hundred.

At least half the personnel at the Marine Fortresses had been transferred as well.

Across the Four Seas, only two hundred thousand Marines remained, and many of their best had been taken away.

Fleet Admiral Black was clearly determined to weaken the Four Seas Faction. Worse, he had given them a reason they could not reject.

The Rocks Pirates were growing ever more formidable. Only by pooling the Navy's strength could they be opposed.

It was a move made openly, one the Four Seas Faction could see coming but could not stop.

Those numbers showed just how powerful the Four Seas Faction was in this era. It had at least twenty Marine Vice Admirals, accounting for half the Navy's High-End Combatants.

There were plenty of Pirates and criminals in the Four Seas, but the Navy kept them in check. Those who survived under such a powerful Navy were no weaklings.

With the Four Seas Navy so badly weakened, Pirates and criminals were bound to grow more active.

The Four Seas would become more chaotic as well.

The trend had already begun. Marine Headquarters was steadily drawing elite troops out of the Four Seas and sending them to the New World.

The Navy now had a vast force of nearly six hundred thousand personnel.

Even excluding the vice admirals at Marine Headquarters, twenty-six vice admirals commanded fortresses.

Their strength varied, but the number alone was formidable.

The vacancies among the vice admirals in previous years had also given many within the Navy a chance to rise. Not all of them belonged to the Four Seas Faction.

Some had earned their positions through battle.

That was especially true with Fleet Admiral Black and Admiral Kong deliberately supporting the Navy's younger officers.

As old regional divisions faded, the many branches of the Navy gradually came together. Faced with a powerful enemy, the people beside them were comrades.

They could already feel new life stirring. The Navy was no longer as stagnant as it had been, and its unity gave it greater strength.

Bloodshed, hatred, and battle were enough to make people forget some of their differences.

There was also a chance that CP0 Agents would make a move against Hades, though it was unlikely.

As it happened, the Marine Vice Admiral guarding G-36 Fortress was named Vic.

Hades never waited to settle a score. His presence in the waters near G-36 Fortress was no accident.

Vic had dared to leave a scar on his mother's face. Hades could hardly wait to smash his skull and make him pay in blood.