By then, the Five Elders were tired of fighting. Or rather, once they realized they could do nothing about Lind for the moment, they stopped tangling with Raditz and the others.
Instead, they returned straight to Pangaea Castle to discuss how to deal with Lind and Shiki, especially Lind. The explosive growth of his strength and forces made the Five Elders feel as though they were facing the Rocks of old.
In fact, because Lind maintained such good relations with other pirates and powers, he was even more troublesome than Rocks.
The Five Elders had originally considered Shiki to be Rocks's successor, the pirate who posed the greatest threat to the world order after Rocks. They had never expected an even more terrifying man like Lind to be lurking in the shadows.
Now, the Five Elders had little energy left to spare for Shiki. They would leave the Marines to continue confronting him in the North Blue.
Meanwhile, once Kizaru returned, Lind decided to send out half the Kunpeng Squad to speed up the conquest of the first half of the Grand Line.
As the most elite force under Lind's command, the Kunpeng Squad naturally did not disappoint him.
Before long, and before the Five Elders could make another move, the Kunpeng Squad worked with the thirteen Squads to conquer half of Paradise.
Lind then ordered them to stop advancing, adopt a defensive posture, and focus on consolidating the territory they had occupied.
Lind himself stopped blockading Marine Headquarters. Instead, he went to his old base in Paradise, Mock Town, to stand ready as a fallback against a Marine counterattack.
Just as Lind expected, once he left Marine Headquarters, the Marines refused to abandon so much territory without a fight and repeatedly attacked the Lind Pirates.
However, after Axel and