Rematch with Zephyr

On the other side, the operations of Calvin, Rex, and Kite went just as smoothly.

Compared to the sea area Axel was responsible for, the pirates there were more scattered, though not excessively so.

The three of them needed to deal with three larger pirate strongholds before they could split up to pick up the pace.

Yet after they handled the first two pirate strongholds and headed toward the final large one, the pirates in this sea area basically gathered together on their own.

Although the difficulty of the battle increased quite a bit, having these pirates deliver themselves right to their doorsteps saved the group the trouble of hunting them down one by one.

It was a battle without much suspense, ending in less than two hours.

If the powerhouses of this sea area had gathered together right from the start, the battle might have held quite a few variables.

However, after Calvin and his companions successively wiped out two large strongholds, half of the strongest batch of pirates in this sea area was directly eliminated.

The remaining pirates were no match for the trio at all; matched against the officers and elite pirates of the Seventh Division, they were swept away directly.

After the battle concluded, the group decided to split into two paths.

They left Rex to lead his squad in clearing out the remaining pirates, while Calvin and Kite led their forces ahead to support Lind.

While the other two routes were clearing out the pirates in the Orlan Sea, Lind's side also ran into the main Marine force.

Unlike the previous two encounters where Sengoku and Zephyr had simply set sail on a single ship to barrel in headfirst.

This time they encountered a complete Marine fleet, with over a dozen massive Marine warships blocking Lind's path directly.

Even though there were only a dozen, far fewer in number than Lind's forces, the Marine warships were all standard-issue.

Compared to Lind's hastily cobbled-together fleet, both the size and quality of the ships were higher by several grades.

Three months of time was still far too short; there simply hadn't been time for Lind to slowly build ships, so he had been forced to acquire secondhand warships through various means to form a fleet.

Fortunately, this world ultimately revolved around individual might, and the role of warships wasn't all that crucial, so it didn't impact this battle too heavily.

Lind could just slowly build ships and warships after this major battle concluded.

Looking at the two familiar flagship warships on the opposite side, Lind sighed inwardly-Sengoku had come after all.

Luckily he had called Whitebeard over to help, and thankfully he didn't see a certain warship with a dog-head figurehead, or this time would genuinely be dangerous.

When the distance to the opposing Marine fleet closed to less than five kilometers, Lind and Whitebeard stepped onto the deck of the Wanderer together.

Looking at Zephyr and Sengoku on the other side, Lind and Whitebeard exchanged a glance, then flew toward them.

Sengoku and Zephyr on the opposite side did the same, flying out from their respective warships.

Enemies meeting face-to-face grew exceptionally hostile; upon seeing Lind and Whitebeard, Sengoku and Zephyr on the opposite side recalled the humiliating experience of being reduced to "commanders of lone poles" and having to wait in place for rescue.

With eyes burning red, they said nothing and charged straight toward Lind and Whitebeard.

Facing their aggressive and formidable attacks, Lind and Whitebeard had nothing to fear either, and each chose an opponent to fight fiercely.

Whitebeard took on his old rival Sengoku, while Lind locked onto Zephyr.

With the combat power of everyone present at their current level, improving further had become exceedingly difficult.

Compared to Lind, who could still make substantial gains in strength thanks to his youth and relatively low strength.

Compared to his last battle with Lind, Zephyr showed almost no progress; perhaps only Devil Fruits or a major battle like the one at God Valley could noticeably improve Zephyr's strength.

Against Lind—who was a step weaker in strength and forced to rely on medicine to barely hold on—Zephyr found it very difficult to use battle to achieve a breakthrough.

With one advancing in leaps and bounds and the other standing still, the two fought to a somewhat evenly matched standstill for a short time.

Especially with Lind's continuous development of telekinesis, it was no longer limited to just long-range methods.

Following the application method similar to Observation Haki, Lind had developed another application akin to Armament Haki, coating his body to enhance his offense, defense, and speed.

It was already difficult for Zephyr to completely suppress Lind as he had last time.

As Kunpeng and Autumn joined the battlefield, coordinating with Lind's swordsmanship—which had broken through to the level of a swordsman—to slash down upon Zephyr in tandem, Lind made Zephyr bleed for the first time.

Although defeating Zephyr remained very difficult, Lind could already threaten Zephyr instead of merely stalling him through various means.

Compared to the punch-to-flesh close-quarters combat between Lind and Zephyr, the battle scene between Whitebeard and Sengoku was undoubtedly far more exaggerated.

Whether it was Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit or Sengoku's Human-Human Fruit, Model: Daibutsu, the destructive power and visual effects of their various techniques were incomparable to normal martial arts.

As Whitebeard and Sengoku clashed in another head-on move, Lind and Zephyr were also caught in the aftermath and forced to move away from Whitebeard and Sengoku's battlefield.

After retreating several thousand kilometers and feeling that the fallout from Whitebeard and Sengoku exchanging blows would no longer cause any impact, Lind and Zephyr finally came to a halt.

This time Lind did not continue using hand-to-hand combat to fight Zephyr; instead, his right hand grasped the Kunpeng Sword, while Autumn maneuvered close by.

Since they had such a rare and good opportunity, besides hand-to-hand combat, Lind also wanted to hone his swordsmanship.

Come to think of it, having practiced the sword for so long, Lind had almost never fought with a sword seriously; previously, rather than calling it sword-fighting, it was more like fighting with telekinesis.

Lind casually spun a sword flower, then brandished the Kunpeng and charged at Zephyr, slashing a sword directly onto Zephyr's fist, which was wreathed in Armament Haki.

As the saying goes, no matter how high your kung fu is, you still fear a kitchen knife; even a master like Zephyr, whose Armament Haki was cultivated to an extremely profound degree, felt somewhat helpless when facing Lind armed with a weapon.

With strength on a relatively equal footing, having a suitable weapon indeed offered more advantages than fighting bare-handed.

Lind found it very difficult to understand why the people in the Marine forces all liked to fight bare-handed; aside from Shanks, none of the future Four Emperors were practitioners skilled in using weapons.

Yet those people all possessed weapons, and many techniques required weapons to unleash their maximum power.

Especially Zephyr, Garp, and Sengoku were fine since they all possessed long-range attack capabilities and could strike from a distance.

How could someone who relied purely on martial arts not use a weapon either? Could it really be because he wanted to become an admiral of non-killing that he acted this way?

Feeling the changes after switching weapons, Lind could not help but silently criticize Zephyr's combat style.

At the same time, he also wanted to complain about Oda-Oda bore most of the responsibility for the issues with the combat styles of the older generation of Marine admirals.

After using a weapon, Lind appeared much more composed when facing Zephyr in battle; the current Lind was certainly no longer the previous scraping warrior.

If he were slashed squarely at full force by Lind, Zephyr would definitely not have an easy time of it even with Armament Haki defense.

Facing Lind's attacks, Zephyr could only continuously block with his fists, which were wrapped in even heavier Armament Haki.

This made Zephyr somewhat suspicious of whether he himself needed to get a weapon; fighting this way put him at too much of a disadvantage.

After all, when Zephyr punched Lind, Lind at most let out a muffled groan and spat up a mouthful of blood at worst.

However, if Lind slashed a sword across Zephyr, it left a bloody wound.

For a moment, both battlefields in the sky fell into a complete stalemate.