Chapter 216: Rem Descends from the Sky!
"That's right!" Leo took over the conversation, laughing wildly.
The burly, intimidating Captain of the Fire Lion Pirates threw his massive head back.
His thick, fiery-red mane of hair shook violently with his boisterous, mocking laughter, resembling the roaring flames that gave his infamous crew their name.
He cruelly kicked a wooden barrel of fresh drinking water aside, shattering it to splinters to emphasize his absolute dominance over the ruined village square.
"And the ones who violently took them down from their high and mighty thrones are the absolute rookies, the newcomers of the New World!" Leo gloated, his voice echoing off the burning houses. "The 'Suzaku' Pirates!"
Leo grinned maliciously, revealing a row of yellowed, highly uneven teeth.
"From now on, in this entire sea, there are absolutely no more Beasts holding us down!"
"As for this pathetic little place of yours..." Garo raised his chin arrogantly, smoothly cutting into the conversation.
The Captain of the Azure Wolf Pirate Crew sneered down at the defeated locals.
His sharp, predatory eyes scanned the terrified, huddled masses of the islanders, looking at them not as human beings, but as mere livestock waiting to be slaughtered or sold.
He casually rested a heavy, calloused hand on the brass hilt of his massive, blood-stained cutlass hanging loosely from his waist.
"It's already been officially claimed by our mighty Azure Wolf Pirate Crew!" Garo declared, his booming voice carrying a heavy, suffocating pressure across the blood-soaked dirt of the square.
"Your hidden treasures, your beautiful women, your miserable little lives..." Garo paused, drawing his blade just an inch to let the steel gleam in the afternoon sun. "...from now on, I have the absolute final say over all of it!"
"Bullshit!" Leo flew into an explosive, instantaneous rage, his previous laughter vanishing entirely.
The Fire Lion Captain aggressively slammed his massive, iron-spiked club directly into the dirt, violently cracking the stone pavement beneath it.
The sheer physical impact sent a tremor through the ground, making the terrified villagers whimper and shrink further back.
"Our Fire Lion Pirates clearly got here first! We dropped our anchor before you even saw the coastline, you mangy dog!" Leo roared, spit flying from his lips.
"Garo, if you fucking dare to cross the line and compete with me for this prime turf again, believe it or not, I'll burn your shitty, rotting ship to the ground right now!"
The two rival pirate Captains instantly started arguing again, their faces practically inches apart.
They spat vile curses, horrific insults, and bloody threats at each other, their respective crews drawing their flintlocks and cutlasses, ready to turn the village into a pirate warzone.
In their greedy, power-hungry dispute, they completely ignored the heavily bleeding, half-dead Simon lying helplessly on the dusty ground directly beneath their heavy leather boots.
They also completely ignored the hundreds of innocent villagers gathered forcefully in the square.
The locals' tear-filled eyes were brimming with a potent, agonizing mix of profound hatred for the invaders and suffocating, absolute despair for their own inevitable dark fates.
But lying there in this seemingly endless, suffocating darkness of defeat, a sudden, sharp glimmer of light miraculously caught in Simon's fading mind.
His ragged, painful breathing hitched in his throat as his battered brain desperately tried to process the arrogant, boastful information the pirates had just carelessly spouted.
The newly formed Suzaku Pirates... had actually completely defeated the invincible, legendary Beasts Pirates...
The harsh logic of the Grand Line and the New World was incredibly simple and undeniably brutal.
Those who possess the terrifying power to completely defeat an ultimate, apocalyptic enemy will absolutely only be even more ferociously terrifying themselves!
A crazy, completely desperate, suicidal idea rapidly formed in his bleeding, desperate mind!
Simon gritted his teeth, tasting the metallic tang of his own blood.
He struggled violently against the excruciating pain of his broken ribs, painfully propping up his upper body with his scraped, trembling elbows.
He dug his fingers into the dirt, gathering every single ounce of remaining, precious air into his burning lungs.
Ignoring the agony that threatened to send him into unconsciousness, he roared again with all his fading, desperate might:
"Hey! You arrogant bastards!"
His sudden, raspy, blood-choked shout momentarily drew the annoyed, murderous glares of the two fiercely arguing Captains.
"Since... since you already know so well that it was the mighty Suzaku Pirates who completely defeated the Beasts Pirates..."
Simon coughed violently, a spray of crimson blood dotting the dirt between Garo's boots, but he forcefully pushed through the pain to finish his ultimate bluff.
"...doesn't that logically mean... our entire Purple Bamboo Island is now officially the Suzaku Pirates' sovereign territory?!"
He glared up at the towering pirates, his eyes wide and burning with a desperate, final flicker of defiance.
"You're running wild, plundering and killing innocent people right here on the new Emperor's territory!"
Simon's voice cracked, but he pushed it to the absolute maximum volume his ruined body could muster.
"Aren't you afraid... aren't you terrified of the Suzaku Pirates' absolute, bloody retaliation?!"
He roared it all out in one single, continuous, agonizing breath.
His heavily bruised chest heaved violently as he collapsed back slightly, staring nervously up at the two towering bandit leaders.
He was praying frantically, desperately in the deepest, darkest corners of his heart that his complete, fabricated nonsense would somehow work to scare them off.
This time, there was absolutely no burst of mocking laughter.
There were no sneers, no cruel jokes, and no kicks aimed at his ribs.
The entire chaotic, noisy village square instantly fell into an incredibly eerie, heavy, and profound silence.
It was exactly as if an invisible, icy hand had violently grabbed the throats of every single pirate present on the island.
All the pirates' aggressive, looting movements completely stopped in their tracks.
Men froze with their hands inside chests of stolen valuables.
Even the fiery, violent, seemingly unstoppable argument between the two rival Captains came to a sudden, extremely abrupt halt.
The very name 'Suzaku' seemed to carry an invisible, terrifying magic.
It made the warm afternoon air suddenly feel as heavy and suffocating as a solid block of frozen lead.
The lower-ranking lackeys of both the Azure Wolf and Fire Lion Pirate Crews exchanged highly nervous, shifting, and deeply terrified glances.
They clearly began to show a highly visible, undeniable hint of wavering and deep-seated, instinctual fear in their eyes.
Their hands began to tremble slightly, causing their drawn swords to lightly rattle against each other.
Seeing his crew's morale plummeting so rapidly toward total panic, Garo cursed vehemently inward.
He immediately spoke up, raising his voice loudly to force some fake, bravado-filled courage into himself and his trembling men:
"What the hell is there to be so afraid of?!" Garo barked, spitting a large glob of phlegm onto the ground to show his supposed disdain.
"The Suzaku Pirates just barely finished surviving an all-out, bloody, apocalyptic battle with the Beasts!"
He waved his heavy cutlass dismissively in the air, trying to project an aura of complete control.
"They must be completely exhausted, severely injured, lacking vital supplies, and entirely unable to even look after themselves right now!"
"Besides," Garo continued, pacing back and forth with heavy, thudding steps, "they are the newly appointed Yonko of the sea!"
He pointed his blade mockingly at the humble, burning wooden houses of the village.
"With so many massive, incredibly rich territories in the New World waiting to be officially taken over... who the hell would actually care about protecting a pathetic, worthless backwater place like ours?"
He puffed out his muscular chest, his voice getting progressively louder and noticeably more strained.
It looked exactly as if he were desperately trying to convince himself of this logic much more than anyone else in the square.
"And remember this well, boys! Our Azure Wolf Pirate Crew have been fiercely roaming the treacherous waters of the New World for many long, bloody years!"
Garo thumped his chest proudly, relying on the hollow comfort of his criminal resume.
"In a way, regarding pure seniority and experience on these deadly seas, we're basically the seasoned seniors of these arrogant, lucky newcomers like Suzaku!"
He raised his chin, adopting a look of supreme, misplaced arrogance.
"They still have to give us at least that much professional face! They wouldn't dare start a war over a pile of dirt!"
"That's right! Garo is absolutely right!" a brave, desperately hopeful lackey suddenly chimed in from the back of the pirate formation.
"Our Captain is a great, terrifying pirate with a massive, officially recognized bounty of eight hundred million Berries!"
"What the hell is a Suzaku anyway?! They're absolutely nothing in front of our invincible Captain's experience!"
The surrounding lackeys, desperate for any shred of reassurance to calm their racing hearts, immediately began to loudly boast and cheer in unison.
The previously terrifying, silent atmosphere became violently arrogant and chaotic once again, filled with the hollow sounds of fake confidence.
Seeing his old, hated rival acting so incredibly tough and commanding his crew's respect, Leo naturally couldn't stand to lose any face in front of his own men.
He immediately roared along, his booming voice violently shaking the fragile, unbroken glass of the nearby windows:
"Well said, Garo! A lucky little brat from the East Blue who just magically rose to power actually dares to call himself a true Emperor?!"
Leo slammed his massive club into the ground again, pointing aggressively at the sky.
"I'm not afraid of him or his little upstart crew! This entire island, its gold, and its people belong entirely to me, Fire Lion, today! No one is taking my prize!"
Watching the hundreds of pirates easily fall back into a violent, looting frenzy of self-delusion, the very last, desperate bit of light in Simon's eyes completely extinguished.
His bluff had failed entirely.
The psychological gamble had been crushed by the sheer weight of pirate arrogance and greed.
He lay completely flat on the cold, hard, blood-stained ground, the agonizing physical pain from his severe injuries finally overwhelming his fading senses.
His heart was filled with absolutely nothing but endless, suffocating despair.
He looked at his weeping fellow villagers, knowing he had failed to protect them.
It seemed a miracle would truly not come to save the peaceful people of Purple Bamboo Island today...
Just then.
A crisp, incredibly pleasant, yet terrifyingly cold and utterly emotionless girl's voice suddenly came drifting down from directly above them.
"Looking down on our Suzaku Pirates, are you?"
The voice wasn't particularly loud.
It wasn't a booming, haki-infused roar, and it certainly wasn't a terrifying, bloodcurdling scream.
But it possessed a strange, penetrating, almost supernatural acoustic quality.
It clearly and effortlessly drowned out all the chaotic, boasting noise, the clinking of swords, and the crackling of the burning buildings on the scene.
"Rem cannot simply pretend she didn't hear such blatant, unforgivable disrespect."
Everyone in the village square—the boasting pirates, the bleeding mayor, the terrified, trembling villagers—was instantly stunned into complete immobility.
Driven by pure, confused, and deeply primal instinct, hundreds of heads simultaneously snapped up to look at the sky.
Then, their eyes widened to the absolute physical limits of their sockets.
They saw a terrifying, impossible scene they would absolutely never, ever forget for the rest of their short, doomed lives.
It was a sight massive and overwhelming enough to completely and permanently overturn their entire worldview.
At some point, without a single person on the ground noticing, the bright, sunny afternoon sky... had completely darkened.
It wasn't a sudden, unnatural storm rolling in, and it certainly wasn't dark, heavy rain clouds blocking the warm rays of the sun.
But a solid, metallic shadow so incomprehensibly huge it was completely beyond human description.
The sheer, terrifying mass of the object was entirely, flawlessly covering the sky above the entirety of Purple Bamboo Island!
It was a... massive, heavily armored Steel Warship floating completely silently in the sky!
The Vermillion Wing completely blotted out the sun, casting the entire island into an eerie, artificial twilight.
Its dark, highly advanced sci-fi cannons were pointing ominously downward, locked directly onto the gathered pirate crews.
And standing perfectly balanced at the very edge of the steel railing of that giant, floating ship of doom.
A petite, delicate figure dressed immaculately in a classic, perfectly tailored blue and white maid outfit was quietly hovering in mid-air.
She had short, incredibly refreshing blue hair that fluttered gently in the high-altitude, freezing wind.
She possessed a flawless, delicate face that looked exactly like a beautifully crafted, highly expensive porcelain doll.
But the expression worn on that beautiful, angelic face was terrifying beyond comprehension.
A pair of striking, sky-blue eyes looked down at the chaotic, bloody mess of the pirate crews below without even the slightest, microscopic ripple of human emotion.
It was a look of absolute, freezing indifference.
She was looking at the hundreds of armed, dangerous men exactly as if she were looking at a pathetic group of... annoying, dead bugs waiting to be casually crushed beneath her heel.
In Simon's fading, despairing pupils, the stunning figure descending slowly from the sky like a vengeful, beautiful deity was perfectly reflected.
His dry, cracked mouth opened unconsciously, his jaw going completely slack.
His paralyzed vocal cords couldn't make a single sound, but tears of pure, unadulterated shock and relief rapidly pooled in his eyes.
And standing directly beneath her, the two supposedly "great" and "experienced" pirates with massive bounties exceeding seven hundred million Berries.
The two heavily armed men who, mere seconds ago, were arrogantly shouting about 'not giving face' and demanding deep respect as 'seniors' of the sea.
The healthy, robust color on their rugged, battle-scarred faces was rapidly fading to a sickly, pale, corpse-like white at a rate completely visible to the naked eye.
Their fake, boisterous bravado evaporated in an instant.
It was completely replaced by a bone-deep, paralyzing fear and absolute, soul-crushing horror!
The terrifying, instantly recognizable, flaming phoenix flag violently fluttering on the mast of the floating giant ship...
The chilling, emotionless words that had just casually dropped from the sky...
The thick, tough muscles on Garo's and Leo's faces began to twitch wildly, completely out of their control.
Their knees knocked together so violently they could barely stand.
Their teeth chattered uncontrollably, making a pathetic, rhythmic 'click-clack' sound that echoed loudly in the totally silent square.
The heavy cutlass Garo had been proudly resting his hand on suddenly slipped from his sweaty, numb fingers, clattering loudly against the stone pavement.
Some of the older, veteran pirates present in the trembling crowd still had a tiny bit of worldly knowledge left functioning in their terrified, overloaded brains.
They pointed trembling, violently shaking fingers up at the massive steel hull blocking the sun and tremblingly identified the apocalyptic visitor.
"It's... it's the Suzaku Pirates!!!"
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