Chapter 462: Crushing You Has Nothing to Do with You!

His burly figure, his arrogant posture, and the overwhelming aura far surpassing the familiar silhouette in the Five Elders' minds made it impossible for them to connect the Blackbeard of their memories with the man before them.

More importantly, Blackbeard had appeared silently in Mary Geoise without even triggering the Holy Knights' alarm, which pointed to only two possibilities.

The first was that Blackbeard had suppressed all enemies in Mary Geoise with absolute force.

But on these seas, only Im on the Wang Zuo and the Lionheart King, who had just bared his fangs to the world from Britannias, could accomplish such a feat.

The former had no need to do such a thing, and the latter would never ally with Blackbeard!

Then it could only be the second possibility...

"You..."

Blackbeard plopped down onto the sofa, casually grabbed a bottle of red wine from the table, gulped down several mouthfuls, then frowned slightly as he looked at the label on the bottle:

"Rocondi?"

"A legendary wine I've only seen in newspapers; yet its taste falls far short of my expectations."

"It's simply... simply like an inferior flavor fermented for decades in a cellar, mixed with a sour, rancid stench."

"Tsk..."

As he spoke,

Blackbeard glanced around, his gaze sweeping one by one over the five men with their solemn expressions.

A certain segment of memory was awakened in his mind.

He still remembered how domineering these very people had been when they wantonly slaughtered the Davy family in God Valley, but now, looking at them...

They were no different from this bottle of red wine in his hand.

Blackbeard instantly felt utterly bored, his expression turning grave as he said:

"That person is currently dealing with a few insects that broke into Mary Geoise; I am here to deliver a message on his behalf."

"After this affair in Britannias, you few should step down from your positions."

"As for whether you can keep your lives, that depends on your future performance, but at least right now, I think you are not far from death!"

"Zei hahahaha—!"

Amidst the wild laughter,

Blackbeard slammed the wine bottle in his hand heavily onto the table, shaking the entire building, while the tabletop cracked with a ring of visible fissures!

The Five Elders dared not make any move, silently watching Blackbeard turn and depart.

The office fell into a deathly silence; the five men wordlessly stared at the darkened projection screen, feeling a chill run through their bodies, an immense terror filling them from head to toe!

Yet there was no solution.

Staying in Mary Geoise meant certain death, while going to Britannias to face that monster was an even more certain path to demise!

"Why!?"

"Why can't these vermin quietly accept their fate of enslavement?"

"Why must they resist!?"

"Shouldn't offering everything to the gods be their honor?"

Saturn's murmuring voice echoed in the darkness, only to fall silent again the next instant.

This time, apart from the Five Elders, no one could hear his questions, and no one was willing to listen to them.

Off the coast of Britannias.

Avalon's bombardment had subsided; endless seawater had been evaporated, liquefying in the air to form a vast white mist that completely shrouded the coastal region.

A sea breeze blew, slowly dispersing the mist and exposing the hellish scene off the coast of Britannias.

The seabed near the shore was exposed to the air, where melting reefs met the seawater, emitting piercing sounds.

Further out on the sea surface, the warships that had originally stood there like maritime fortresses, baring their fangs and claws to encircle Britannias completely, had vanished.

Only the seawater remained, tirelessly pushing the wreckage of pirate ships, mixed with flesh and blood, onto the beach.

In just a few short minutes, the wreckage on the beach piled up like mountains, a sight that made one's scalp tingle at a single glance.

On a pirate ship on the verge of sinking, the pirates who had miraculously survived were terrified to the extreme, with no heart left to continue this war.

Avalon, modeled after one of the three Ancient Weapons, Pluton, had revealed its ferocious firepower to the entire world for the first time.

Its power had already silenced the whole world, in the true physical sense of the word.

It was not until a full half-hour later that scattered cries for help and wails finally rose from the sea surface.

"I..."

"I want to live!"

On a pirate ship about to sink, an injured man issued a plea-like sound, struggling to look at his companions on the deck.

All that met his eyes were corpse after corpse, long cold—or rather, scorching hot.

Some had been struck by the blue light earlier, half their bodies vaporized while the remaining halves were burned to charcoal.

Some had been bisected at the waist by iron shards splashed up by the explosion.

Others had their eyes burst open on the spot, unable to withstand the intensely brilliant blue light...

Only then did he realize that he was actually the luckiest person on this ship.

No, perhaps not.

When he looked down, he discovered that he had already been bisected at the waist; surviving until now was already a miracle.

Glug—!

The seawater rose, gradually swallowing the survivor's body.

An immense terror filled his entire being, yet he was powerless to resist its arrival; in this moment, he only wished that he had been the one killed in the earlier explosion!

Similar scenes were unfolding in every corner of this sea.

The desperate wails rising from the sea formed a stark contrast to Britannius's silence.

After all, what does it matter to you if I crush you?!

This was the most barefaced contempt!

"Hiss—!"

Britannius Border.

King, who had narrowly escaped death, lay on the beach, gasping for air.

Even though he had activated his Lunarian bloodline ability the instant before impact, raising his defense to the utmost limit, he still suffered severe injuries.

His twin wings were incinerated, and the skin over his entire body was badly burned.

As for Queen, whom he had yanked down with all his strength, he was nearly at death's door; had he not undergone inhumane modifications to his own body, Queen would have been blasted into mere scraps by that earlier attack!

"Queen?!"

King murmured, and seeing no response from the other, simply closed his eyes.

The pain ravaging his body counted as no torment to him, who had endured the World Government's most agonizing experiments.

Yet the unwillingness gnawing at his heart continuously tore at his flesh and blood.

Originally ambitious, willing to be exploited by the World Government just to avenge Kaido, he had been mercilessly crushed without even catching a glimpse of his opponent.

What kind of torment was this feeling?!

"King..."

Queen's weak voice rang out, filled solely with defeat and fear:

"Listen to me."

"You... cannot fight against Knight Gao Wen!"

"Having done this much, you have already shown utmost benevolence and duty toward Big Brother Kaido; from now on, you ought to consider yourself."

King opened his mouth, but found himself instinctively unable to voice any rebuttal.

These two, who usually could not stand each other and often bickered, were now, while severely injured and near death, rarely speaking a word of true feeling.

It was just...

Too late.