--Outside the city.
As the two armies clashed, the Storm-class Battleships' elevated firing positions gave the Babylon coalition some advantage.
But this was precisely what made the technology of the pirate world so bizarre. Gunpowder-fired cannons that looked like seventeenth-century muzzle-loaders could actually threaten airborne targets...
As airships powered primarily by Flame Dials and Wind Dials, the Storm-class Battleships had undergone all kinds of weight-saving modifications. Their armor simply could not compare to that of seagoing warships of the same size.
After several probing exchanges of cannon fire, Dressrosa's artillery switched to air defense and started playing shoot-the-plane.
Babylon's airships climbed higher, sacrificing accuracy to pick lucky spectators at random in a game of whack-a-mole.
The artillery battle was turning into a sloppy mess, gradually reduced to background noise.
On the ground, the Donquixote Family had deployed the Diamante Army and the Pica Army.
The Heart Army was an intelligence unit and rarely appeared on the front lines.
Although the Club Army was supposedly a special-abilities unit, it actually existed entirely around Sugar and was not deployed lightly either.
But what they faced was fundamentally different from their previous opponents. Their first encounter was not with living people, but with Titans' Automated Control Legion.
Scorching gusts whipped up dust as three Mechanical Servants modeled after high-mobility Zakus swept over a collapsed earthen wall in a triangular formation.
Their shoulder armor had reinforced edges for ramming, and the externally mounted Electromagnetic Rocket Thrusters on their legs glowed blue. The three-meter-tall green robots' single eyes shone red as they grabbed their massive Heat Hawks and charged at incredible speed.
"--Those hunks of iron are coming! You go first!"
Relying on their status as Doflamingo's direct subordinates, the members of the Diamante Army sent the kingdom's soldiers ahead as cannon fodder.
What they