"Huh, what happened while I was gone?"
At the city gate, Benson and Mando reappeared. Benson surveyed the plaza, where a vast number of soldiers and knights lay unconscious on the ground, seemingly unharmed.
Amidst this sea of "corpses," fewer than ten individuals remained barely standing and conscious, and the Great Knight Chad lay heavily wounded in a large crater.
"Nothing major, just your royal family being betrayed," Aeridar's lips curved into a slight arc.
Benson first froze, then noticed that the kingdom's marks and royal emblems on the armor of the fallen soldiers and knights had been scraped off or cut away. He then understood: "So that's what it is!"
"It doesn't matter. The royal family and all that are just illusions anyway." Benson chuckled indifferently. He had already abandoned the throne and traded away the entire country, so whether these ordinary soldiers, whom he no longer wanted, betrayed them or not was irrelevant.
"Here's the certificate of abdication. I'm giving it to you now." Benson produced two parchments. One bore a crimson seal and a few lines of text, while the other had only two lines. He then pulled out a square brocade box: "This is the genuine royal seal. I'll give it to you once the transaction is complete."
Subsequently, Mando took the parchment with the abdication certificate. With one hand, he picked up two palm-sized stones from the ground and tossed them towards Aeridar.
Clap! Clap!
The two stones landed before Aeridar, but in the next moment, the stones vanished, replaced by the two parchments.
"The Swap-Swap Fruit, quite an impressive ability," Aeridar grinned.
Arlan stepped forward, bent down to pick up the parchments. After scanning them, he turned to Aeridar and said, "The abdication certificate is fine. The other one will require an on-site search."
Aeridar nodded, waving his hand, and coldly declared, "You wouldn't want to know the consequences of deceiving me. You can take your people now. If everything is legitimate, you can send someone to collect your money in three days."
"Then, I shall pay my respects again in three days."
Benson performed a royal bow, then turned towards the plaza and announced loudly, "Well then, everyone, would you like to come out to sea with me and see the world? Oh, and Limmings-san, would you care to join us? Speaking of which, Aeridar-san wouldn't mind, would he?" Benson turned his head, smiling.
"Doesn't matter," Aeridar swept his gaze over Limmings, dismissively waving his hand. A mere Supernova with a bounty of 210 million wasn't worth his attention.
"Your Highness, I shall naturally follow you!" Colby Genno shouldered his massive spiked club, walking out from the remaining crowd with a sneer.
"If Your Highness doesn't mind, count me in too." Pushing aside the people in front of him, Bowen, shirtless, also walked over.
Facing these detestable pirates who had killed those he served, Benson, also a prince, seemed a more suitable person for him to pledge his allegiance to again.
After all, this prince's methods and strength surpassed those of the prince he originally served; he just had the misfortune of encountering an even more formidable individual.
"It's my honor," Benson's lips curled. He hadn't expected the Royal Guard Captain, Wilmin Bowen, to pledge loyalty to him.
Soon, scattered groups of officers, knights, and soldiers began to approach Benson. A quick glance revealed their numbers to be no less than a thousand.
And so, Benson's group left the plaza, heading towards the city gate. After all, with over a thousand people, even if Mando killed himself, he couldn't transport that many at once.
"Captain, what about these guys?" Oliver pointed to the tens of thousands of unconscious soldiers and knights, and Chad lying in the large crater, a clear murderous glint in his eyes: "Should we kill them all?"
Roar!
Just as Aeridar was about to speak, accompanied by a mighty roar, a massive shadow swept across the plaza. Everyone involuntarily looked up, to see three colossal metal black dragons.
"Captain! There are people on the black dragons, shouting down below!"
"That's... Millie and Mina!" Aeridar's heart swelled with joy as he looked at the two beautiful, charming figures on the black dragons.
Whoosh!
The black dragons flapped their enormous metal wings, descending from the sky and landing on the ruins of the broken city wall.
"Captain, we're here!" Millie and Mina dismounted from the black dragons, heading straight for Aeridar.
Indeed, the soldiers and knights in the plaza, upon seeing these colossal metal black dragons, were utterly dumbfounded, their hearts filled with unparalleled shock.
Such fully metallic black dragons... without top-tier experts to counter them, how many lives would they lose just to defeat these dragons? They might even lose tens of thousands of lives to no avail.
"Are you alright?" Aeridar reached out, wiping the bloodstains from their pretty faces.
"Captain, we're fine," Millie said with a cheerful smile.
"Captain, half of the First Legion from Micity Port was wiped out by us in Corisdo Grand Canyon! The First Legion Commander, Nail General Neo Cydrick, a Nail-Nail Fruit user, was killed on the spot by Dimitri, Enrod, and the others! The other half of the army on the main road completely scattered under the airstrike of our living weapons!" Mina recounted the main fleet's achievements to Aeridar, her face beaming with joy.
"Hahahaha! Excellent!"
Aeridar burst into joyous laughter, then turned to his crew, shouting triumphantly: "We've won! This country... it belongs to us now!"
"Oh! We won!"
"Fantastic, the Captain's going to be king!"
"Hahaha! Conquering a nation, we'll surely make a name for ourselves worldwide!"
In the plaza, hundreds of pirates cheered jubilantly, while the tens of thousands of soldiers and knights present lowered their heads in silence. Some had already dropped their weapons, feeling utterly dejected, like frosted eggplants. They had no idea what their future would hold under pirate rule.
"Cydrick... defeated, huh? Heh heh..." Chad, lying in the crater, let out a bitter laugh, knowing that all hope was lost. Although there were still the Fourth Legion at Unzan Port and other armies in various cities, a mere group of ordinary soldiers, no matter how numerous, had no choice but to die if they resisted these monsters.
The next moment, Chad's heart eased, and his vision went black. He had finally fallen unconscious.
...
Meanwhile.
On a tall building in the aristocratic district, several men in black suits and black fedoras stood on the rooftop.
"The Chris Pirates have won. And those black dragons, they seem to be entirely metal. Are they alive? Never mind, I should report this to higher-ups," one of the men put down his binoculars and pulled out a Den Den Mushi from his pocket.
...
Outside Nakor City, Benson looked back at the sky, a bitter smile on his face: "The legendary black dragons, with bodies of metal... Is this one of their trump cards? Heh heh... I suppose even a complete army of a hundred thousand would be crushed by them."
After all, such massive monsters couldn't be defeated by sheer numbers alone.
——————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to my patreon ——— patreon(.)com/JuanFiction [remove the parentheses ( )]
There are over 100 advance chapters available for you!