During the defense of Alabasta, Dalton had one thing that didn't quite make sense.
Alabasta's territory was incredibly vast.
Not counting the sea, just the land area alone made Alabasta more than ten times the size of Drum Kingdom.
A country with such a terrain, while difficult to defend, would also be quite a struggle for an attacking force if they truly wanted to wage "war" against it.
This was because there shouldn't be any power on this sea with enough soldiers to attack such a "long" coastline from all angles.
Therefore, if one wanted to attack Alabasta from the outside, there would inevitably be a so-called "main direction of attack."
At the same time, from a strategic perspective, the choice of this main direction had many "inevitable" elements.
As mentioned before, Alabasta's territory was just too vast.
Unless Alabasta completely gave up resistance, it would be impossible to conquer this country in a short period.
Therefore, the attacking side must be prepared for a long-term operation in foreign territory.
This meant that "supply lines," "unfamiliar environment," and "terrain" would all have to be considered by the attackers.
This wasn't a problem that could be solved simply by "being powerful."
Dalton once heard his old king tell a story from his youth.
There was a king who led a large army to attack a snow country on a winter island. That army had swept through many countries in the South Blue and had become synonymous with being almost invincible.
But in the end, more than half of that army froze to death on that winter island!
This was one of the many differences between "war" and "battle."
For a country with a vast territory, unless it faced the threat of annihilation, its inland cities were hard to threaten. At most, there would be conflict in the coastal cities.
If that were the case, why not move the residents of the coastal cities to the inland cities?
Therefore, in Dalton's opinion, Rowan seemed to have no reason to rashly arrange for all the residents of Alabasta to seek refuge underwater.
Although the "underwater bubble shelters" built with the help of the Fish-Men were indeed a unique idea on this sea, Dalton still felt it was unnecessary to expend so much labor and resources.
After all, the economic losses caused by a "nationwide evacuation" would take months, even years, for ordinary people to recover.
However, Dalton's thought was not a "rebuttal" to Ryan Rowan.
After all, he had witnessed Ryan Rowan's abilities with his own eyes, so Dalton was just puzzled in his heart as to why Rowan was doing these things.
Dalton thought to himself.
If he were to ask Rowan directly, the other party would probably smile and answer his questions.
But unfortunately, due to the tight schedule, the moment Dalton arrived in Alabasta, he received a notice from the Alabasta Royal Army: Ryan Rowan hoped they would defend the area on the spot.
What else could be done?
Dalton smiled helplessly, then began to seriously arrange the defense work.
Time would give him the answer.
If time didn't, then Ryan Rowan would, afterward.
...
As it turned out, Dalton's idea was indeed reasonable.
Because that was the most "normal" way to think about war.
But there was one thing Dalton hadn't considered: that whether it was himself, the old king who told him the story of the winter island, or the army in the old king's story, they were all "normal" people.
On this sea, besides those "normal people" whose actions could be predicted by "normal thinking," there was also a group of people—
They were "abnormal."
Or, more accurately, they were "anomalies" on this sea.
Such people could not be understood with normal thinking, because the starting point was fundamentally wrong, so how could the result of the deduction be correct?
Ryan Rowan was like that.
Kaido of the Beasts was also like that.
...
"An island!"
"It's flying!"
"Look, an island is flying towards us in the sky!"
When Dalton heard these exclamations from the lookout beside him, he finally understood why Ryan Rowan had gone to such lengths to arrange such a large-scale evacuation.
Because the "Four Emperors" represented the most incomprehensible "anomalies" on this sea!
Dalton took out his waist telescope and looked up.
With the dual enhancement of the telescope and his Zoan Devil Fruit ability, Dalton saw more than the lookout.
It was a strange island with a skull-shaped hill with horns. Faintly, many figures could be seen on it.
Dalton's ears twitched. His Zoan Devil Fruit also gave him extremely keen hearing.
He vaguely heard many noisy sounds coming from the strange island, as if there were many people on it.
And among those noisy sounds, there were the sounds of metal rubbing.
Weapons?
Yes, it should be weapons.
They don't come in peace...
Dalton frowned and immediately ordered someone to report the anomaly here to Rowan, while continuing to observe with his telescope.
Suddenly, Dalton noticed that on the protruding part at the very front of the island, a burly figure was sitting cross-legged.
Black hair cascaded down his shoulders, and he had long, dragon-horn-like horns. His mouth was adorned with a long beard like dragon whiskers, and his left arm bore a dragon-scale tattoo.
His upper body was bare, and he had an 'X' shaped scar on his right abdomen.
That was undeniably his iconic appearance.
That person was one of the Four Emperors, Kaido of the Beasts!
At this moment, Kaido was holding his sake gourd, which was stamped with the character "天" (Heaven), and was drinking it tilted back.
While drinking, he was covering his eyes, and tears were gushing out from between his fingers.
"Waaah!"
This Four Emperor, who was feared by everyone, was actually weeping bitterly at this moment!
"Joker... Joker!"
Kaido cried freely, completely unconcerned about his image.
Or rather, no one dared to comment on Kaido's unsightly behavior.
"Joker, there's only one reason for your defeat, and that's that you were too weak!"
Kaido muttered to himself loudly, not holding back his grief.
"Let me avenge you!"
Suddenly, Kaido's eyes widened, and his gaze fell directly in the direction of Alabasta.
This scene made Dalton's inner preparedness tremble involuntarily.
It was a sense of fear brought about by an absolute disparity in strength, making one feel as if they had fallen into an ice cave!
Is he looking at me?
No, that's not right.
Dalton quickly noticed something was amiss.
Kaido's gloomy gaze was not on him, but on the area behind him, Dalton's back.
What was behind me?
Dalton turned his head to look.
He saw that in the desert, a figure was slowly rising.
—
What a "huge" figure!
It was a sand giant!
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