Chapter 162: Confrontation

‘How tall is this giant, Raideen?’

Ian didn’t measure his height or asked about it. But at least he knew that Raideen was much taller than uncle Kuma!

The shield in Raideen’s hand was specially made for him by the boatmen on the ship. It was made out of six door planks and then covered with iron plates. However, it still looks small when it was carried by Raideen’s hand.

However, when Raideen rushed with the shield to the ship’s bow, the shells flying over the front were almost completely blocked by him alone!

The Marine warship fired densely at them, but Raideen faced them while holding his shield. Then the shells, one after another, exploded after hitting his shield. If it was someone else, these would have been blown him away. However, Raideen did only shiver a bit by all the explosions, and with a little effort at his feet, he easily stood firm.

His tremendous strength stunned Ian a lot. It can be seen that as long as the shield doesn’t fall apart, Ian won’t need to worry about Raideen.

Ian was also hiding behind Raideen. His task was to get rid of the shells missed by Raideen, because some shells were coming over his tall body and toward their masts and sails. Ian’s task was to jump up and cut off these shells.

Currently, they had four cannons on board. At this time, they were all moved to the bow, and under the cover of Raideen, they kept shooting at the Marines’ Battleship.

Relying on such offensive means, it is estimated that no damage can be done to the Marines’ warship. The Marines’ ships were famous for their solidity. Even if they were hit by shells, it wouldn’t be a huge problem.

However, Ian never thought of winning this battle against these Marines with cannonballs. (T/N: A coin maybe!?)

He knew little about naval battles, and his ship’s firepower was not as powerful as the Marines’, so he thought about going for side-by-side warfare from the very beginning.

At the bottom of the cabin, in the blubber room, a lot of sailors were rowing their oars as hard as they could, and all the sails were wide open. The sailors who were in charge of controlling the steering wheel kept driving the ship in zigzag routes to avoid the upcoming shells. But even so, Ian’s ship was heading straight toward the marine battleship.

Even if it was their first time encountering the Marines on the sea, all members of this Pirate Group, the Dragon Hunters, were so skilled.

In fact, for those who have been slaves in Marijoa, the first thing they hated was the Celestial Dragons, next was the World Government, and the third thing was naturally the Marines. They didn’t forget that when they were escaping that Hell, it was because the Marines went out to hunt them, that many of them who couldn’t keep up were arrested again.

Now that they finally have the opportunity to engage in a head-on battle with the Marines, all of them took out their fierceness. The whole pirate ship rushed towards the marines with an indomitable momentum.

Rear Admiral Murney, who commanded the battle on the marine patrol ship, could naturally feel this momentum. For a while, he was dazed by their impulsive manner. He couldn’t understand why this pirate group was so crazy!?

It’s true that he was in shock, but that doesn’t mean that Murney was afraid of them. It was a little surprising that there was a giant on the other side’s ship. But it was because of him that Murney began to take it seriously.

“They want to fight us side-by-side! All the soldiers, get on the deck! Prepare your muskets!”

Murney quickly and loudly gave orders.

He was very familiar with naval battles, and side-to-side warfare was a common thing, especially between pirates. They liked this kind of battle the most, but the problem was that the marines were not comparable to the pirates. They have a large number of firearms and equipment. It can be said that the marine soldiers on the ship were completely armed with muskets.

As long as they knew from which side the pirates will engage in the side-to-side battle, and as long as they were lined up perfectly, they will be able to cause huge casualties to these pirates by shooting them with countless bullets.

And the entire patrol ship was big enough to carry more than 800 soldiers fully loaded. This huge number was the advantage of the marines.

With Murney’s order, a large number of marine soldiers poured out of the cabin and began to line up on the deck, and the marine ship began to slowly turn around, exposing its right side, luring Ian and the others to board from that side.

These marine soldiers were well trained, all of them were holding muskets, some were crouching in the front line, while others were standing in the middle row, and the rest were preparing to take position after the middle raw.

At this time, the ships on both sides were close. Ian saw the arrangement on the other ship’s ship at a glance, and he was shocked.

These soldiers were worthy of the Marines’ title. In such an arrangement, if Ian and his crew rushed to jump to their warship, so many people would be killed or heavily injured.

Ian’s entire ship, including him, has now only 76 people, and Ian doesn’t want to see any of them get injured.

As soon as he turned his eyes, Ian found a way to deal with this problem. He came to Raideen and said to him loudly, “Raideen, can you throw me over?”

“Yes, but captain… There are too many of them. Are you sure of this?” Raideen lowered his head and said to Ian.

“Don’t worry! I’m just going to mess their formation!” Ian pulled his mighty Sword and said: “After bringing chaos to their formation, you guys can jump over with me!”

“That’s great!” Raideen held the shield in his left hand, and put his right hand down, letting Ian stand in his palm. After standing firmly, he threw him toward the opposite warship!

His target was the group of marine soldiers who have already lined up.

Raideen’s movements were clearly visible to the Marines. They were not blind, and they could see him easily, but they never thought that he was throwing a person to their side.

“An upcoming attack! Prepare yourselves!” Murney shouted loudly.

However, it was too late. Ian was in mid-air, and when he confirmed that their position was still the same, he stretched his body and waved his sword in the direction of the marine warship!

A huge Flying Slash was launched towards the warship from the air. Before even landing, Ian made the first strike.

In the face of this Flying Slash, the armed soldiers didn’t know how to respond, so they were all in panic. Fortunately, Murney reacted. He rushed forward and stood in the direction of Ian’s projectile. At the same time, he pulled out his own sword and tried to resist this blow.

Murney himself was a master of swordsmanship in the Marines. He can reach the rank of Vice-Admiral easily. He has both merit and strength. After he swung his sword, Ian’s Flying Slash was endured by him.

In this way, Murney was also pushed by the strength of this projectile and made him slide back a few steps.

It was just a normal Flying Slash, but Murney felt surprised afterward. The person thrown over by the opponent was obviously a powerful member.

Sure enough, when Ian landed lightly on their warship, without even saying a word, his figure suddenly disappeared!

“Not good!” Murney looked back quickly, but saw that Ian’s figure had rushed into the crowd of marine soldiers. His figure shuttled back and forth among the crowd. Those soldiers weren’t strong enough to fight back, so many of them were slashed down.

Ian’s target was these ordinary soldiers. Now that the two sides were in the middle of a battle, he cannot naturally be merciful. He must first find a soft loophole to prevent the death of his crew, so with his appearance, the formation of these soldiers won’t be maintained, it is impossible for them to shoot Ian at close range in such situation, so they hurried to pull out their swords and went to encircle Ian.

But how could these soldiers’ swordsmanship and speed be comparable to Ian?

Clang! A marine soldier who reacted quickly and crossed his sword to stopped Ian’s chop, but he found that Ian had changed his movement instantly and swiped his sword across his waist.

A bloody wound appeared on the soldier’s abdomen, and he fell down with terror in his eyes.

But Ian didn’t even look at him again, and he had already rushed to the person behind him.

Speed! It was one of the things that these soldiers don’t have…

This was the case for these ordinary soldiers, as well as several lieutenants who were mixed in the crowd. Their speed can’t catch up with Ian at all, so when Ian knocked them down, it wasn’t different from dealing with the ordinary soldiers.

Just when Ian killed several of them, Murney couldn’t help it anymore. He originally thought that those elite forces could stop Ian, but after looking down, he found that this was not going to happen, so he had to deal with the intruder himself.

When Ian was about to cut down a soldier with a terrified look in his eyes, he suddenly felt a gust of wind coming from behind. He didn’t even think about it, and he immediately turned around with a strong swing to block what’s coming…

A loud clang with a bright sparkle emerged when Ian’s sword clashed with Murney’s.

Observing the opponent face-to-face, Murney said gloomily: “I am the Rear Admiral Murney, who are you, announce your name!”

Ian didn’t wear a mask at this time, but in this case, Murney didn’t recognize him. What they were tracing was a masked person or someone with certain abilities. So when Ian rushed without wearing a mask, he inadvertently hid his identity.

“The Captain of the Dragon Hunters, Ian!”

Ian smiled slightly, and then slammed his wrist with a violent push.

After getting Ian’s name, Murney didn’t remember that he had heard of such a name before, but he also knew that this was not the time to think about it. After being thrown away by Ian, he changed his movements and rushed to thrust Ian violently with his sword.

Ian found that the other side’s swordsmanship was very subtle that he couldn’t help fighting him in a serious manner.

It seems that this Rear Admiral was not a Devil Fruit user, but rather relies on his solid swordsmanship and physical skills to fight. So, Ian wanted to confirm his current swordsmanship level, so he didn’t plan on using other means to attack.

Dang Dang Dang… There was a symphony of continuous sword collisions, Ian and Murney fought at an extremely fast speed. Just in one second, they made dozens of clashes…

However, the more they fought, the more terrified Murney became. He found that his speed could not keep up with Ian’s.

When the two fought, Ian’s ship got very close to the Marines’ ship. A large number of hooks and claws were thrown out and hooked on the mast of the warship. Then the pirates shouted and swayed towards the warship.

After they jumped into their warship, the battle between the Dragon Hunters and the Marines has officially started…