One Piece: Blue Scale Admiral

"Hibari, Law, Lucci, you should be able to identify which pirates have bounties. Please help us pick out the bounty-bearing pirates; these are our spoils of war, which we can exchange for bounties. Also, please tally everyone's contributions, and I will report it to headquarters. After this, quite a few people should be promoted."

Luo Xia said to Yun Que and the others, and then walked towards the blood-red battlefield on the harbor shore, intending to go and help.

"Brother Luo Xia, you should go back and rest. Leave this to us. You must be very tired."

The lark followed and whispered beside him.

"Don't worry, I'm not that fragile. Let's all work together; it'll be faster that way. But I really do need to go back now..."

Rorschach smiled wryly and gripped the cloak of justice wrapped around his waist.

Chapter 274 I Killed Ten Thousand People

"Splash!"

Buckets of seawater were lifted from the sea and poured onto the ground in the harbor to be rinsed.

The intense stench of blood and stench transformed the once bustling port of Queen's City into a nauseating slaughterhouse.

The stench in the air lingered, so thick it seemed to solidify, filling everyone's nasal cavity and lungs.

Rorschach stood on a dark brown patch of ground, looking at the blood plasma that had congealed into a paste at his feet, speechless.

At this moment, all the severed limbs and broken pieces on the port grounds have been swept into the sea.

However, the bloodstains and granular meat scraps on the ground require a large amount of seawater to wash them off, and also need to be manually rinsed to get them completely clean.

No one will forget the brutal battle that took place here just a few tens of minutes ago.

More than three thousand pirates died in this small port, mercilessly torn apart and slaughtered by the guards led by the Navy.

Similarly, hundreds of the defending troops also perished here.

Despite the fact that Rorschach rushed out the moment the pirate fleet arrived, delivering a devastating blow to the 20,000-strong pirate fleet.

But the remaining pirates still inflicted deep wounds on the city.

Even the most perfect victory in war cannot prevent a small number of people from paying the price with their lives.

Most of those who perished under the swords and spears of pirates were royal guards and a few bounty hunters.

Although the royal guards wore armor, they were basically ordinary people, at most slightly stronger, and could not stop the pirates who, in Luo Xia's eyes, were pitifully weak.

Fortunately, none of his naval soldiers were killed.

The moment the thought crossed Luo Xia's mind, a look of shame appeared on his face.

He felt he was being too selfish; how could he have such selfish thoughts?

"What are you thinking about? Aren't you tired? Why don't you go back and get some sleep?"

An old voice came from behind.

Rorschach turned around and saw Jonathan throwing a bottle of wine at him as he approached.

He reached out and caught it, and then he saw his own foot raised.

On the surface of the black military boots, there was a large patch of thick, paste-like blood plasma stuck to the ground.

As he lifted the soles of his feet, blood-red threads were pulled up, making it difficult to lift his leg, as if it were glued on.

Within each strand of blood, it seemed as if countless silent, howling souls were wailing and weeping.

Rorschach shook his head, pulled out the cork from the bottle, tilted his head back, and gulped down the entire one-liter bottle of strong liquor in one go.

Then, with his large hand gripping the bottle, he squeezed it hard, crushing the glass bottle into a pile of shards, which he then flung heavily into the distant sea.

"This is the most bloodthirsty I've ever been since I joined the Navy."

The young naval officer suddenly let out a long breath and looked at the seawater, which still appeared pale red after a long time.

"I don't even know how many people I've killed. Five thousand? Six thousand? Or ten thousand?"

Luo Xia looked at the sea in the distance.

There, on the vast sea, floated the wreckage of ships of all sizes.

Naval soldiers and bounty hunters boarded the intact ships at the port and sailed out to sea to search for and capture the pirates who were submerged in the water.

As dusk fell, the setting sun, as red as blood, floated on the horizon.

Upon hearing this, Jonathan sighed inwardly.

The young man before me is so young, yet his strength is already enough to place him among the world's top talents.

But I haven't experienced enough.

"Don't feel guilty. They are pirates. The ones you killed were incorrigible criminals."

"But... they are also human beings, tens of thousands of them, living, breathing human beings."

Rorschach's expression was somewhat complicated.

He knew that those he had killed were pirates, criminals.

But I can't help but wonder if any of the pirates who died were just people who accidentally went astray.

Are there innocent people who have been taken hostage by pirates and are unable to leave the pirate ship?

Are there people who don't deserve to die, but can turn over a new leaf and start anew after being imprisoned for a few years?

Whose husbands, fathers, and sons were those pirates?

If so, wouldn't my actions be equivalent to destroying thousands of families?

This is killing people, not killing chickens.

This is different from the killings in Beihai.

The pirates he killed were all clearly documented by the 177th branch for their crimes.

But now, there is no time for him to look up information about pirates.

"The fact that you can think this way shows that your heart is still warm and you still have goodwill. You haven't been completely chilled by this dirty world, which is a good thing."

Jonathan stepped forward, patted Rorschach's arm, and gestured for him to look towards the royal city.

There, the residents who had originally sought refuge in the inner city had gradually emerged and were walking among the ruins of the houses, seemingly searching for belongings from their homes.

Hundreds of corpses lay in a row, like a long dragon, across the harbor shore, and residents were lingering in front of them.

Faintly, Rorschach heard sorrowful weeping coming from there.

"Do you see those ordinary people?"

"If you had softened your heart, hesitated, or wavered during the previous battles, there would probably be ten times, a hundred times, or a thousand times more people lying on the ground now."

"Young man, I don't have any grand principles to preach to you. I just want you to remember the simplest truth, which is..."

"They're here to kill us, so we should be prepared to be killed!"

Jonathan nodded to Rorschach and patted his arm again.

"To this city, to the Kingdom of Saint Poplar, you are their hero, you saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people."

"Don't think too much about it. If you're tired, go back and rest early. Leave this to me."

"Yes, I am indeed tired."

Rorschach sighed and walked towards the Hunter's Guild's headquarters.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a petite figure running quickly towards me.

Then, his hand was grasped by a soft little hand.

Luo Xia was stunned, and then he saw Yun Que, whose face was slightly flushed, holding one of his hands and walking forward side by side with him.

The two walked in silence without saying a word.

Rorschach noticed that Lark's white military uniform was stained with blood that had turned dark red.

Especially on his right arm, the entire sleeve was stained dark red with blood.

Seemingly noticing Rorschach's gaze, Hibari's body trembled slightly.

She pursed her lips, lowered her head, and whispered, "Brother Luo Xia, I... killed a lot of people today too."

“Lark…” Luo Xia’s gaze was complicated as he tightened his grip on the small hand that was holding his own.

The girl stopped in her tracks, looked up, her eyes slightly red, and gazed at Luo Xia.

“You know what? When I was little, I actually hated being with my dad. Because he… his reputation was really bad. Even in Marineford, many naval soldiers looked at him with fear.”

“My yard is so close to the canteen and the Fortress of Justice, yet very few people come to visit. Apart from a few people like Dawes, Uncle Denor, and Uncle Borsalino, no one else dares to even get close.”

"In the places I've been, people say that Admiral Akainu is a mad dog of the Navy, an inhuman executioner, the most brutal man in the world, and that the number of people buried by his lava could fill an entire island..."

“I used to be very insecure, had few friends, and resisted being with my father. And he really rarely had time to come back to Marineford. For a long time, I lived alone in our yard. Because of this, I even hated him a little and didn’t understand why he had to be so cruel. Couldn’t he be gentler like Uncle Borsalino, Uncle Kuzan, or Grandpa Garp?”

Lark wiped the tears from the corner of his eyes, pulled Rorschach forward, and stopped in front of the long line of corpses on the harbor shore.

Upon arriving here, the cries of the dead guards and the hunters' families became exceptionally clear.

The two saw many elderly people with white hair, weeping uncontrollably over the corpses, and their hearts sank.

Yun Que held Luo Xia's hand tightly, watching the tragic scenes of parents burying their children, and her tone slowly became firm.

"But after witnessing your tragedy, Brother Rorschach, and after experiencing today's battle, I understand that some things must be done resolutely by someone. Some tragedies could have been avoided. The fact that some people are alive is unfair to some innocent people who have died."

“Brother Luo Xia, I don’t want you to become like Dad. It’s just that I think we might end up like Dad, killing many, many, many people…”

Rorschach placed his hand on the girl's head and gently stroked it a few times.

His gaze swept over the ruins and corpses before him, then turned to the gradually darkening sea and sky.

"Yes, a lot, a lot."

Chapter 275 Good! You revolutionary spy!

What... happened here?

More than an hour later, over the sea not far from the Queen's City in spring, Sabo, sitting cross-legged on the back of a raven, narrowed his pupils as he scanned the scene below.

On the vast sea as far as the eye could see, he saw rows of tilted and broken pirate ships.