The lion-headed, three-masted sailing ship was now the sole survivor of the Grand Lion Fleet. A group of pirates stood on its deck, their eyes filled with confusion, fear, and apprehension, staring at the rapidly approaching Dog Head Warship.
"Captain Freud, what should we do? They're about to board us!" a pirate shouted.
Paul Freud let out a lion's roar, activating his Zoan transformation: the Neko Neko no Mi, Model: Lion. His body rapidly swelled, transforming into a five-meter-tall human-beast form with a lion's head and a human body.
"What are you panicking about! They've run out of cannonballs; they're preparing to board! Seize that warship for me!"
After Garp's barrage of "Love Fist · Meteor Shower," twelve of their thirteen ships had sunk. Over a thousand members of the Lion Pirates had fallen into the sea. At this moment, they were scrambling from the outside of the three-masted sailing ship, continuously regrouping on the main vessel.
Paul Freud knew that in the world of pirates, one could disregard laws and morality. But... one absolutely must not lack integrity, even if it was just superficial integrity, it had to be maintained! If the crew's morale fractured, the team would be difficult to lead! Especially if the matter of him abandoning the majority of his crew spread. Then his reputation in the pirate world would be utterly ruined. At that point, how could he recruit new pirate crew members...? Who would trust someone who had abandoned their comrades before...?
To boost morale, Paul Freud could only raise the greatsword in his right hand and shout to the pirate crew members beside him: "Kill those Marines, avenge our comrades!"
"Revenge!"
"Revenge!"
"Revenge!"
The pirates' sagging morale finally recovered under Captain Freud's leadership. After reaching a certain distance, both sides exchanged gunfire for a while, each claiming several enemy crew members.
On the Dog Head Warship, Garp stood at the bow, shouting: "All soldiers, charge with me!"
Instantly, he leaped onto the lion-headed, three-masted sailing ship, activating his punching mode, knocking down one opponent with each strike. A group of Marine soldiers, seeing Garp lead the charge, also roared and stepped onto the gangplanks, surging into the pirate throng.
Sephiroth also mingled with the Marine crowd, boarding the pirate ship, and swinging the Autumn Leaf Sword in his hand, swiftly harvesting pirate lives. Pirates continuously boarded the lion-headed, three-masted sailing ship from the sea, and even on the Dog Head Warship, pirates boarded the deck from outside the ship, engaging in battle with the Marines who remained there.
With two large sailing ships as their battlefield, pirates and Marines engaged in a desperate fight!
Captain Freud watched as his combat captain, who had a bounty of over a hundred million, was sent flying by just one punch from Garp, spitting blood, and falling into the sea with a "thump!" He could no longer sit idly by!
"Damn Garp!" Freud roared, and the greatsword in his hand quickly turned pitch black with Busoshoku Haki. His body glowed, and he charged directly at Garp.
"Clang!" The greatsword's blade instantly collided with Garp's right hand, which was dark due to Busoshoku Haki, creating a deafening clang of metal.
"Interesting, I didn't expect to still meet someone with Haki in the first half of the Grand Line..." Garp laughed heartily, a hint of fighting spirit in his eyes. "In the first half, pirates who are relatively strong and possess Haki... Since the Great Pirate Era began, I've captured quite a few of them over the years! That makes people like you who possess Haki barely count as strong now..."
"Don't underestimate me! Bastard!" Freud's left hand was imbued with Busoshoku Haki, and he slammed it into Garp's head.
Wham! The blow landed directly, yet Garp acted as if nothing had happened, twisting his neck, then delivering a backward right hook that struck the target's chest, sending him rebounding backward and crashing into a cabin.
On the pirate ship's deck, in a corner, Sephiroth tilted his head and glanced at the battle between Garp and Freud.
"Die for me! How dare you get distracted while fighting me!" A pirate wearing a gray leather outfit, with a fierce grin on his face, savagely thrust his long sword into Sephiroth's left chest, directly into his heart, and through the wooden wall behind him.
However...
The next moment, black bats, one by one, flew out from Sephiroth's chest, flapping their wings.
"Huh!" Under the leather-clad man's astonished gaze, a fiery red Autumn Leaf Sword instantly sliced his neck, blood spurting out and staining his white military uniform red.
"How could I be distracted... That was a trick to deceive you...!" When Sephiroth's body fully moved away from the long sword, the black bats flew back into his body, filling the void in his heart.
It must be said that Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki) combined with bat transformation was truly useful, giving Sephiroth almost pseudo-elementalization abilities. Even if the bats died or were injured, he could consume life force to quickly restore the missing parts. After a period of development and training with this fruit, he had become proficient in using bat transformation to avoid sword attacks and the like. Next, he planned to try using bat transformation to expel bullets that entered his body and other such problems. This required a higher degree of control... Otherwise, even if he transformed into bats, the bullets would remain in the bats, and when he reformed his body, everything would be the same as before...
Captain Freud's strength was considerable, but unfortunately, he met the old man Garp. Under the old man's barrage of punches, he eventually passed out. Then, under Garp's sweeping momentum, like a whirlwind, all the pirates on the ship collapsed.
The pirates still swimming in the sea, seeing the situation, some surrendered voluntarily, while others clung to a piece of driftwood and swam desperately into the distance, hoping to escape.
After the battle, the Marines apprehended these pirates. Freud, in particular, received special attention and was fitted with a pair of sea stone shackles. What awaited these pirates was legal judgment. Those who were extremely wicked would be executed or sentenced to life imprisonment, while the rest would be enslaved, losing their freedom and human rights entirely, and sent to the Bridge Kingdom in the East Blue, to be enslaved until death. Of course, some high-quality slaves would also be kept by the Tenryuubito (Celestial Dragons) for their own use...
Therefore, pirates and serious criminals were the largest source of slavery in this world. Laws prohibiting slave trading had actually been established long ago, but the World Government never enforced them, and many people weren't even aware of these laws. If the system of slavery were truly abolished, the first to object would surely be the World Nobles Tenryuubito. After all, the number of slaves they owned and their rate of consuming slaves were among the highest in this world... To meet the needs of the Tenryuubito, the Sabaody Archipelago near Mary Geoise had also been built into the largest slave trading area in the world. The Tenryuubito, who held the highest power, openly bought and sold a large number of slaves. Other nobles or influential individuals would naturally follow suit, which is why the laws prohibiting slave trading were simply ignored.
Therefore, Sephiroth had once been very suspicious that the World Government actually deliberately allowed pirate forces to grow, limiting them to a certain extent, so that their noble class could have a continuous source of slaves. After all, if the World Government truly wanted to eliminate the Great Pirate Era, the difficulty would not be high for them. The World Government could directly send heavy forces and Marine Admirals to guard the entrance to the Grand Line, Twin Cape. Upon seeing a pirate flag, they could directly launch heavy weapon attacks, which would allow the new generation of pirates to experience a terrible beginning.
The total area of all islands in the Grand Line might not be as large as one of the Four Seas. As long as Twin Cape was turned into a pirate graveyard and the number of new pirates in the first half of the Grand Line was reduced to its lowest point, the pirate forces in the second half of the Grand Line would lose a lot of fresh blood. This would lead to two outcomes: the new generation of pirates would either enter the first or second half of the Grand Line through the Calm Belt, which is full of Sea Kings, using a method of nine deaths and one life; or they would reach their peak upon debut, and the new generation of pirates would possess the combat power of a Marine Admiral, forcefully breaking through the Twin Cape blockade.
What about the pirates in the Four Seas? This was because the magnetic field of the Grand Line was chaotic, making it difficult to pinpoint specific locations, and many islands could not be located with a Log Pose, allowing pirates to appear and disappear unexpectedly. Otherwise, in the open sea, as long as a pirate ship didn't have a sophisticated powerhouse, with the sheer number of cannons installed on a warship, in terms of firepower, a warship could completely overwhelm most pirate crews.
Furthermore, Sephiroth also found a very interesting merit rule within the Marines: besides killing wanted pirates, killing ordinary pirates did not count as merit... However, if you could capture ordinary pirates alive, you could gain a certain amount of merit. Therefore, Marines were actually very enthusiastic about capturing pirates alive.
Wearing a cloak of justice, flying the Marine flag, and doing the work of a slave-catching team...?
Returning to the topic, after the battle, they didn't hold any celebratory feasts but were busy treating the wounded soldiers and clearing the battlefield.
"Those with minor injuries, please come here to receive medical supplies and dress your wounds."
"Those who are unharmed, immediately take the severely wounded to the operating room for emergency treatment!"
In this battle, although Garp performed exceptionally bravely, fighting a hundred men alone, there were still casualties among the Marines. Seven people died on the spot, thirteen sustained minor injuries, and six suffered severe injuries.
Sephiroth and the other recruits were ordered by an officer to use stretchers to carry the severely wounded to the operating room entrance, awaiting treatment. As there were only two doctors and limited medical staff, two severely wounded and unconscious men were left in the ship's cabin corridor, and they were given stimulants... These two men actually had more severe injuries than the four who were pushed into the operating room! Sephiroth knew that these two had essentially been given up on for treatment...
At present, both military doctors were too busy to perform operations on these two, and the operating room was also full. To ensure the highest survival rate, the military doctors could only make the most reasonable decision and choose to treat those with less severe injuries...
Thinking this, Sephiroth frowned, extended his right hand, and pointed to the four recruits in the ship's cabin corridor. "You guys help me carry these two men to the medical room next door."
At this moment, most of the recruits had panicked and helpless expressions on their faces. Having just joined the military, they hadn't undergone any training, but had witnessed a fierce battle, and they were somewhat panicked inside.
"What do you want to do?" Among them, a recruit frowned and asked back.
"What do I want to do? I'm a doctor, of course I'm preparing to perform surgery to save people! Hurry up, don't just stand there!" Sephiroth turned and glared sharply at the recruit, scaring the man into a shiver and causing him to panic inwardly.
Because he had just fought, not only was his clothes covered in blood, but so was his face. Therefore, his words and gaze now automatically carried a menacing aura, and the recruits who had not yet killed anyone or seen blood were too scared to speak any more.
Several people quickly carried the unconscious wounded on stretchers into the medical room and laid them on white hospital beds.
"Cut their clothes..."
"Ah!?"
"Ah what ah! Go now!"
"Draw the curtains..."
While instructing several recruits to help, Sephiroth rummaged through the medical room for surgical instruments and other items. Human lives were at stake, coupled with Sephiroth's overly sharp gaze, those few recruits could only obediently follow his instructions.
What Sephiroth didn't know was that while he was busy performing internal surgery and extracting bullets from the two severely wounded men, the old man named Garp quietly walked out from behind the curtain. With a poker face, he silently observed the busy silver-haired young man through the gap in the curtain. After a while, he turned and left the medical room.
The injuries sustained by the two Marine soldiers were very severe; there were several gunshot wounds, and even with stimulants, it couldn't stop the loss of their vitality. In desperation, Sephiroth could only secretly use the Vampire Fruit's Life Reversal to slowly inject the stored vitality he had absorbed into their bodies, stopping the bleeding from their wounds.
For Sephiroth, vitality could be used for super-fast regeneration and eternal youth, but when used on others, vitality could only enhance vitality, remove physical aging, and inhibit the worsening of injuries. Actually, Sephiroth could have chosen not to save them... After all, he didn't even know these two men's names; one could say they were just comrades in arms. Saving them or not saving them was his freedom.
But...
Having been a doctor for many years, doing his best to treat the wounded had become an instinctive act. Therefore, he didn't think much about it now and subconsciously chose to treat these two severely wounded men. Since he had decided to save people, as a doctor, doing his best to keep patients alive was a fundamental principle and basic tenet he had to uphold!
"Which of you knows how to sew clothes?" After Sephiroth extracted a bullet from a Marine soldier's wound, he looked up and asked the four recruits who were assisting him.
"Me!"
"Me!"
Two recruits quickly raised their hands to answer, and Sephiroth nodded: "Alright, watch me operate once. Although sewing wounds is different from sewing clothes, we can't be too concerned about it now..."
After quickly stitching this wound, he began performing bullet removal operations on the other wounds. While he performed two operations simultaneously, the four recruits assisted him according to his instructions...
Both wooden doors of the operating room were opened from the inside by an old military doctor wearing glasses. When he saw the empty ship cabin corridor, he couldn't help but be stunned. Did those two severely wounded men die...?
"Don't just stand there, quickly use cotton to stop the bleeding, then stitch the wound..." Just as the old military doctor lowered his head and sighed, he suddenly heard a young man's scolding voice coming from the medical room.
Filled with doubt, he quickly walked into the medical room and pushed aside the surrounding curtains. Then, he saw a scene of a group of recruits performing surgery on two wounded men... No! It was a blood-stained young man directing four recruits to assist.
Seeing the young man's proficient surgical techniques, the old military doctor couldn't help but be shocked. This level of proficiency could not be achieved without five or six years of clinical experience.
As for the two recruits' wound stitching, it was somewhat horrific to look at...
Finally, the old military doctor could not stand it any longer and roared angrily: "Are you two sewing clothes or sewing wounds?!"
"Get out of the way, let me do it." As he spoke, the old military doctor pushed the two recruits aside, quickly picked up a needle and surgical thread, and began stitching the wounded man's injuries.
Sephiroth glanced at the old man and said nothing, continuing to lower his head and focus on his surgery. The two worked for almost an hour before completing the treatment of the two wounded men's injuries.
After the operation was finished, the old military doctor first raised his hands and opened their eyelids, then checked their neck pulses, and only then did he say with a surprised expression: "Amazing! I didn't expect their lives to be this tough..."
Nonsense! After wasting ten years of my life span, how could these two men's lives not be tough...? Sephiroth muttered inwardly as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Young man, did you study medicine?"
"Yes, for a few years."
Hearing this, the old military doctor's face immediately broke into a smile: "How about after your recruitment training ends, you submit a report to the medical department? The number of doctors at G3 Branch is always short..."
"Sorry! I still prefer to stay in the front-line combat units and fight pirates," Sephiroth shook his head and took off the blood-stained medical rubber gloves on both hands.
"Is that so! What a shame..." The old military doctor sighed softly and did not continue to persuade him. For young people, fighting was indeed the best way to quickly accumulate merit and get promoted. However, how many people could guarantee that they would survive the next battle...?