Out at sea, the vessel turned its broadside toward the docks, its portside guns spitting flame and smoke one after another.
The thunder was fierce, but it served more as intimidation-the enormous columns of water continually erupting in front of the docks were proof enough.
On either side of the vessel, the Vinsmoke Family's snail warships opened fire in unison.
Their shapes defied every principle of fluid dynamics and aerodynamics, bearing little resemblance to the outlines of ordinary warships.
But as the two snail ships kept up their thunderous barrage, the shattered buildings across the docks scattered through the blazing light, amply proving the weight of the Vinsmoke Family's reputation as "warfare experts"
and what that name meant.
"Well, bombardment was never our specialty."
Gun smoke rolled low over the sea, and the blade hummed in Rossi's hand.
The artillery fire tore the sky in two-one half a lead-gray surge, the other an orange-red fissure.
"Our turn."
The words squeezed out between his teeth, mingled with the acrid taste of sulfur.
"Germa!!"
The roar exploded from deep within the ruins.
The remains of a shattered gun emplacement suddenly burst apart, spraying rubble like rain.
An enormous armored figure smashed through the smoke. As his iron boots hit the ground, the dock's planks let out an overburdened **.
He was Briken.
The people of the city called him "Silver Blade"
-though those fists could support a grown man's weight, though those arms were broad enough for warhorses to gallop across, what truly made him deadly was the glint of cold steel hanging at his waist.
"Those lunatics without a country..."
The legend of the North Blue haunted every general's nightmares.
Yet for a hundred years, beneath the shadow of the World **, that family had fallen as silent as reefs