One Piece: A Warlord's Path-Chapter 695: Chaos in Ronalfort

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"Fire! Put out the fire, quickly!"

"Get the hoses! Extinguish it!"

"Don’t get close! There are still explosives going off!"

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but ruins and infernos. Countless soldiers scrambled back and forth in a frantic bid to contain the flames. The once-massive armory had vanished, replaced by charred masonry and twisted, glowing red steel.

Intermittent secondary explosions continued to rip through the air, their shockwaves frequently buffeting the soldiers attempting to douse the wreckage. It was fortunate that no residential areas were located near this military depot; otherwise, the death toll would have easily reached into the thousands.

"It’s over... it’s all over!"

A knight, blackened by soot and covered in wounds, stood paralyzed before the smoldering remains of the warehouse.

His gaze was vacant as he muttered to himself. His armor was largely shattered, and the stench of scorched flesh rose from his burns. Blood seeped from several open gashes. He was one of the officers responsible for guarding the armory. At the moment of the detonation, he had been at the gates conducting a shift change with another officer. The other man had been vaporized instantly; he had only survived through sheer, agonizing luck.

"Tell me, what are the losses?"

Andrei grabbed the officer by the shoulder, his face twisted in a dark scowl.

"All gone..." the officer replied, his voice hollow with despair.

SLAP!

Andrei delivered a stinging blow across the officer’s face. "Stop playing dead dog with me! I asked for the damn losses!"

"I don’t know... hardly any of the brothers on guard duty survived!" The slap seemed to stir a spark of focus back into the officer, though his face remained a mask of misery. "As for the munitions... the entire warehouse was leveled!"

"Tsk."

Andrei took a sharp breath, then patted the man’s shoulder. "Go get that bleeding stopped and get patched up."

He gestured for two soldiers to escort the officer to the military doctors. Once they were gone, an Elite Strike Team warrior approached and whispered, "Captain Andrei, I’ve checked the perimeter. That officer is the only survivor."

"So, out of a five-hundred-man guard detail... they’re all dead?" Andrei raised an eyebrow.

"Yes. Furthermore, this armory contained enough firearms and equipment to outfit ten thousand men, along with over a dozen cannons and countless rounds of ammunition and explosives. It is all destroyed," the warrior continued. "Without the resupply from this depot, our remaining stocks can only sustain one more major engagement."

"Damn it! Was it a Revolutionary mole? Or..." Andrei snarled, but before he could finish his thought, a thunderous roar of voices swept over the area like a tidal wave.

"The night is coming! There is no tomorrow! Salvation for all lies only in the Night!"

"Overthrow the nobles! Overthrow the royals! Establish the perfect Kingdom of God on Earth!"

"Kill the lapdogs of the crown and the aristocracy!"

Countless voices rose from every direction, as if they had manifested out of thin air in a single instant.

"The... Church... of... the... Night!!!"

Andrei spat the words through gritted teeth. The moment those liturgical chants began, he knew exactly what was happening.

"The night is coming! There is no tomorrow!"

"Salvation for all lies only in the Night!"

Suddenly, a soldier nearby drew his blade and swung it in a violent arc, decapitating the comrade standing next to him. As the head rolled, the traitor screamed the slogans of the Church at the top of his lungs.

This was the signal. Dozens more soldiers began chanting the Church’s creed, turning their weapons on their unsuspecting peers. Blades flashed and guns barked; in a heartbeat, scores of loyalist soldiers lay dead.

"Shit! Church of the Night sleeper agents!" Andrei’s heart jumped. He scanned the chaos and roared, "Watch out for anyone with a black headband and a white cross on their right arm!"

As he spoke, two soldiers wearing the black-and-white cross bands charged him with swords drawn. They clearly recognized Andrei and believed that by killing him, they could plunge the local garrison into total disarray.

While Sriya and Andrei were technically mercenaries hired by the royals and nobles, their status as members of the Chris Pirates set them apart from common sellswords. Given the rampant corruption and incompetence among the Kingdom of Bivins’ generals, the nobles of Ronalfort had frequently ceded direct command of the troops to the two of them.

Squelch—!

Andrei didn’t even have to lift a finger. The Elite Strike Team warrior beside him swung a massive battle-axe in a wide horizontal sweep, cleaving both assassins in half at the waist.

BOOM! BOOM! BANG! BANG!

Heavy gunfire and cannon blasts now echoed throughout Ronalfort. It seemed the entire city had been plunged into the fires of war.

"Rally! Stop fighting the fires! Fall in!"

"Watch the men next to you! If they have a black-and-white cross band on their arm, do not hesitate, kill them instantly!"

Andrei knew a catastrophe was unfolding and shouted himself hoarse to maintain order. With him acting as a pillar of stability, the soldiers, who had been spiraling into a panic following the internal betrayals, managed to regroup. They gathered around Andrei, eyes darting nervously toward their neighbors’ sleeves.

In short order, over three hundred rebel soldiers were cut down, though nearly five hundred loyalist troops had already perished in the initial confusion. Because of the armory explosion, several thousand soldiers had already been concentrated in this area for fire control and security; effectively, the garrison’s primary strength was focused here.

Fortunately, since the number of traitors was still a minority, Andrei was able to stabilize the situation locally.

However, other parts of the city were not so lucky.

The four city gates, the granaries, the main thoroughfares, the Inner Keep, and the various noble estates, every vital point in Ronalfort was under simultaneous assault.

Three hundred Paladins of the Church of the Night moved in disciplined groups. Clad in black armor emblazoned with white crosses, they acted like armor-piercing arrows, effortlessly shattering the hastily formed defensive lines of the Bivins military. They carved a path of slaughter, killing over a thousand men in their initial push.

Accompanying them were clergymen in black-and-white robes. Along with thousands of fanatical commoners, they screamed the Church’s doctrines and charged the royal army with a suicidal fervor.

What was even more staggering was that these "regular" troops, who should have been battle-hardened veterans, broke and fled instantly under the pressure of a mob! Ronalfort’s original city guard had been largely wiped out during the early stages of the rebellion. The current garrison consisted of only ten thousand local troops and twenty thousand reinforcements transferred from coastal forts.

These thirty thousand men had already suffered thousands of casualties against the rebels. Those who remained were merely biding their time, looking for any excuse to survive another day. Their combat morale was non-existent.

On the ramparts of the East Gate, Sriya looked down with ice-cold eyes at the routing garrison, the fanatical mobs, and the robed zealots of the Church.

"Deploy the Dragonians! Suppress all rioters!"

His frigid command echoed through the biting night air.

"ROAR—!"

Accompanied by terrifying, bestial howls, six massive, grotesque silhouettes leaped from the top of the city walls and plummeted into the chaos below.