Silence enveloped the entire beach.
The air was thick with the smell of blood and the scorched odor of metal fragments subjected to intense friction.
The remaining pirates stared blankly between the three mangled corpses.
The enormous hole in Skullcrusher Dog's chest, Plague Borg's half-body stamped into the ground, and Ghost Eye Garris's head, burst apart like a rotten watermelon.
All three had bounties exceeding a hundred million. They were prominent figures even on Sin Island, feared and respected by countless pirates.
Yet now, they had died in less than a minute.
"Ah... aaaaaah!"
Someone let out a scream, their voice warped by terror.
That scream was like a spark dropped into boiling oil, instantly blowing apart everyone's reason!
"Run! Run!"
"Get out of here! Get off this island! I'm never coming back!"
The thousands of desperadoes who had been trying to surround and kill Lorne just a second ago collapsed completely at that moment.
They threw down their weapons and spun around like madmen, fleeing for their lives toward the island's interior, toward the ships moored in the harbor, toward any direction they thought would take them off this beach.
The surging crowd trampled one another.
To run a little faster, they even cut down the "companions" blocking their way without hesitation.
The entire beach became a chaotic hell on earth.
Yet amid that chaos, a few particularly vicious pirates saw no hope of escape, and a trace of desperate madness flashed in their eyes.
"Over there! Grab those people!"
A pirate whose face was covered in knife scars noticed several ragged figures trembling in the shadows of a row of crude shacks nearby.
They were civilians the pirates had abducted and brought to the island, intending to sell them on the Black Market!
"Right! Use them as hostages!"