A few minutes ago, the people beside them were allies, but just a few minutes later, they turned their blades on each other.
Betrayal is not uncommon among pirates. Most pirates are prepared for infighting the moment they form an alliance. They can unite for profit and also fight for it.
Whether the alliance is trustworthy and how far it can go depends on one's own judgment.
Arceus could offer Kaidou a temptation he couldn't refuse. At least Kaidou was much more reliable than John. They had no conflict of interest; Arceus needed manpower to find the Plates, and Kaidou wanted a corps of Devil Fruit users and powerful companions.
Unless someone brought the Demon Fruit Tree to Kaidou or came to Arceus with more than a dozen Plates, this alliance was quite solid. Moreover, Arceus despised nothing more than betrayal and deceit.
He couldn't control others, but at least he wouldn't do such a thing.
Silver Axe and John's subordinates began to fight fiercely, and gunshots rang out from below. As a thermal weapon, the musket remained one of the important weapons. Compared to cold weapons that required accumulated practice to form combat power, muskets could be mastered with simple operation.
The weaker one's strength, the more important guns became in determining outcome.
A strong sniper could inflict fatal damage even against a well-defended enemy, though such individuals were rare.
Cold weapons remained mainstream. Swords, axes, and even the shovels and picks used for treasure digging had become weapons. They were great pirates in the New World, but their subordinates also had varying strengths, and not everyone was proficient in Haki.
In the first battle, more than a hundred pirates fell out of hundreds, and the fight between John and Silver Axe had just begun.
Silver Axe was relatively short but possessed immense strength. His home country excelled in forging, and his armor was made of special metal. Though heavy, its defense was exceptional, and it reflected a silvery sheen under the moonlight.
Swinging his great axe, slash after slash flew towards John, who wielded two swords and cleverly dodged Silver Axe's attacks, charging towards him without engaging head-on.
Silver Axe was a strength-based Heavy Armor Warrior, and clashing with him head-on was not a wise choice.
Watching John charge at him, Silver Axe didn't evade but gripped the axe handle with both hands. Knowing John well, he didn't need his shield, as John lacked the power to break his defense.
Except for a viewing slit at the eyes, his armor had no gaps. Its joints were relatively weaker, but reinforced with Haki, he was confident he could block John's attack.
So he raised his great axe intending to take John's attack head-on while finishing him, but John only feigned an attack and slipped past Silver Axe's blade, stabbing at his side with a reverse grip.
To this, Silver Axe sneered. A side of his armor was encased in dense Armament Haki. Spinning, he smashed at John, for even without the axe blade, simply swinging the heavy axe could inflict substantial damage.
But in the next moment, his form hesitated slightly.
"When did you eat a Devil Fruit!"
John's longsword penetrated the armor, yet the armor remained intact. Silver Axe could feel that the blade had pierced his body.
Due to his habit of wearing heavy armor, Silver Axe's Haki usually coated the armor surface and rarely extended onto his body inside. Thus, when John's attack bypassed the armor, his body was naturally pierced.
This wasn't an effect of Armament Haki's internal destruction; he felt the blade inside him. Such a feat could only be achieved with those peculiar powers.
"Something like that, why would I tell you?" John twisted the blade intending to deal a fatal blow to Silver Axe, but such wounds couldn't deplete a monster of his level's combat power just yet.
Faced with Silver Axe's swinging blow, he could only avoid its edge. He regretted not taking Silver Axe down in a single strike, as opportunities like that were rare.
A lesson learned, Silver Axe was sure to coat his body in Haki, but the blood flowing from the armor's joints showed that John's strike was highly effective.
After the Battle of Divine Valley, John found a Devil Fruit and secretly became a user, a secret known only to a few trusted crew members.
Paramecia-type Door-Door Fruit.
He had just opened a corridor door in the space, allowing his blade to ignore the Haki-coated armor, opening a passage directly on the inside of the armor.
However, the Door-Door Fruit could only open doors in a direct line of opposition; otherwise, he could have opened a door directly to Silver Axe's neck.
"I really underestimated you, but I've still got an ace up my sleeve."
Fighting John, the two gradually moved to the center of the lake, where the ground became muddy, which was not advantageous for Silver Axe.
Then from somewhere, he pulled out a signal flare and fired it into the sky. This was the signal he and Ochoku had agreed upon. As the flare exploded in the sky, Ochoku's pirate ship seemed to receive the signal. Though still some distance away, cannonballs were already flying over.
The target was himself; with large-scale artillery fire, they fully intended to cover the area. This was Silver Axe and Ochoku's original plan: to drive John's men into a position and crush them with heavy artillery.
With his armor and Haki's defense, Silver Axe was unscathed in the bombardment, but when the shelling ceased a few minutes later, John was unfazed, not even a speck of dust on his clothes.
Door-Door Fruit: Space Gate, he had directly entered another space, completely avoiding the cannon's attack.
"What kind of fruit did you eat, really..."
"Only an idiot would tell you that. That stab should have reached your kidney; let's see how long you can hold on!"
At this moment, he assumed the shooters were Silver Axe's men. But when Ochoku brought more men to surround the rest of the John Pirates in the lake, he realized the gravity of the situation.
"Ochoku...."
"John, open the doors to the treasure. Even if you're a power user, against the two of us you stand no chance."
"Well, I see, you two meddling together isn't surprising, but if you want my treasure, perhaps in the next life!"
Regarding treasures, John had no intention of compromising. A peculiar power flowed from his body to the ground, as if this place was predetermined as their tomb!