Chapter 380: Hundreds Of Thousands Of People Died

At dawn.

Most of the Mariejois residents who had come to watch had already dispersed.

Only the Five Elders remained, dew hanging on their clothes as they faced the rising sunlight and looked over the smoke-covered New World.

Tap, tap, tap...

An intelligence officer in a black suit ran over, cold sweat dripping down his face.

He lowered his head respectfully and reported, "Reporting to the Five Elders. The numbers have been compiled. Last night, communication points from forty-three islands were lost. All of those islands were territories currently occupied by the pirates Knox and Red-Haired Shanks. They have all been reduced to ashes.

"We still cannot complete a full count. But last night alone, at least..."

The black-suited officer swallowed hard. His body and voice were both trembling.

"Several hundred thousand people died!"

Those horrifying numbers made it feel as if the whole world had fallen silent.

Only after a long while...

Saturn slowly spoke. "Bring me a map of the New World."

Sakazuki’s decision to detonate the New World, along with the true structure of his plan, was gradually taking shape in their minds...

A CP agent brought out the New World map that Saturn had previously marked and placed it inside the white hall.

Sakazuki’s deeper objective was now plainly visible on paper.

At first, they had thought he intended to divide the pirate forces and destroy them one by one in a prolonged war.

But now, within the circles on both sides of the New World, every island representing the forces of Knox and Shanks had already been erased.

Only the largest circle at the very top remained.

Inside it were the forces of Big Mom and Kaido, along with the remnants of Knox and Shanks that Aramaki and Borsalino had been driving toward them.

All the mysteries and unanswered questions from before were now completely solved.

Why had Sakazuki continued advancing toward the center ever since the war began?

Why had he suddenly split his forces at a critical moment, sending Aramaki and Borsalino outward, yet not to close in from behind but to push deeper into enemy territory?

Now they understood everything.

What prolonged war? This had been Sakazuki’s goal from the very beginning. He had deceived everyone.

From the moment he declared war, he had already begun laying out this plan. He continuously divided and exhausted the battlefield, making the whole world believe it was a war of attrition. But in truth, he had only been waiting for one opportunity...

That was right.

Just as they had provided intelligence to the pirates to stall the Marines, planning to eliminate the Revolutionary Army first before cleansing the New World, Sakazuki’s goal had been the same.

The only difference was what he had been waiting for.

He had been waiting for the Revolutionary Army. He had been waiting for the moment they seized the Four Blues and fully clashed with the World Government.

Then he detonated the New World.

The divided New World had been swept clean in one strike.

Knox and Shanks’ forces, built over many years, had been nearly completely destroyed with terrifying ease. The few subordinates they had left were being driven nonstop by Aramaki and Borsalino toward the center, into the final and largest encirclement.

That place was the pirates’ last gathering ground...

After the islands were detonated last night, three-fourths of the New World was now under Marine control. Once that final encirclement was completed, the pirates of the New World, including the Four Emperors, would soon be exterminated.

Looking at the New World map, the minds of the Five Elders turned ice cold.

They had overplayed their hand...

That phrase appeared in all of their minds at once.

The reason they had tolerated the Revolutionary Army so much was because they wanted to use them to cleanse the kingdoms and member nations of the Four Blues.

Then, once the World Government ruled the world again, they would no longer need to play childish games like the so-called Reverie with those swine, listening to their ridiculous faces speak nonsense about deciding the future of the world.

The Empty Throne, vacant for eight hundred years, would finally seat that one unrivaled sovereign.

Everything had clearly been proceeding according to their plan. But now, in a single night, everything had reversed.

The Revolutionary Army had only just occupied the Four Blues. The World Government had not even begun to act. Yet the war in the New World had suddenly become one-sided under Sakazuki’s ruthless hand.

The collapse of the pirates could no longer be stopped.

What the World Government now faced was a pincer attack from the Marines and the Revolutionary Army.

Those scraps from the Revolutionary Army hardly mattered. But the Marines...

The moment they thought of those battle forces, the Five Elders felt headaches coming on.

Beyond Sakazuki, there were legendary powers like Bullet, Garp, and Sengoku. Then there were Marines themselves such as Borsalino, Enel, Zephyr, Soter, and other Admirals or Admiral candidates. Together they numbered close to ten. That did not even include the powerful fighters recruited during the World Military Draft.

Nusjuro came back to his senses and slowly opened his eyes. "We cannot wait any longer. Immediately order the sleeper agents inside the Revolutionary Army to launch attacks and stall them.

"Send expendable men to assault every location suspected of being the Revolutionary Army headquarters. If anything seems wrong, erase it at once."

The losses would be severe. But there was no other choice...

Originally, they had planned to lure out Dragon, leader of the Revolutionary Army, and eliminate him once the fighting reached the Grand Line.

But the current situation made it obvious they no longer had time to slowly guide events through careful planning.

Overnight, the Marine blade had been placed against the World Government’s throat. They had not been given even a moment to react...

Saturn beside him spoke in a heavy tone. "This is our only option."

The veins on the hand gripping his cane bulged violently.

"That bastard... Sakazuki..."

* * *

Deep in the South Blue, at the edge of the Calm Belt.

A massive fleet of Revolutionary Army ships had gathered there, with more arriving nonstop.

These vessels had all been built using technology passed on by Vegapunk, seastone-coated ships capable of crossing the Calm Belt.

There were two landing routes for an assault on Mariejois.

One was to cross the Calm Belt between the East Blue and South Blue, enter the first half of the Grand Line, then attack the Red Line through the route near Sabaody Archipelago.

The second was to cross the Calm Belt between the West Blue and North Blue, enter the New World, seize the Red Port behind New Marineford, and charge into Mariejois from there... but that was clearly impossible.

So when Dragon slowed the offensive, he had already begun gradually relocating the Revolutionary Army’s main forces to the East and South Blues, planning to strike through the entrance to the first half of the Grand Line.

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