Vane rubbed his chin and said, "If you put it that way, is the old king of the Six-Gold Kingdom still alive?"
"According to rumors he's still alive. That bastard didn't kill his own father, but imprisoned him instead. He should be on the Gold Mine Island of the Six-Gold Kingdom."
Gold Mine Island is the richest island, an island that produces gold ore.
In Vane's heart, the plan had already shifted from using the banner of avenging the Nanami Kingdom to go cause trouble for the Six-Gold Kingdom, into overthrowing the false king and enthroning the legitimate ruler.
"Bear Guard, do you want revenge?"
"Of course I do! Actually, just now I was thinking of asking the princess to entrust herself to everyone's care. She's a Devil Fruit user, and I believe she can help your team in the future."
As for him, he would infiltrate the Six-Gold Kingdom and wait for the right moment. When the chance came, he would assassinate the false king—avenge his comrades, avenge the citizens who were captured and thrown into the mines to suffer, and avenge the royal family of the Nanami Kingdom.
"You trust this 'pirate crew' of ours that much? Actually, we're very interested in standing up for injustice too. We're very 'willing' to help you overthrow the false king's regime in the Six-Gold Kingdom. If the old king is still alive, we can also scoop him out while we're at it."
Bear Guard: "Huh?"
Why does this pirate crew look so much like the Navy… no, the Navy wouldn't meddle in a World Government allied nation invading a non-allied nation.
"You all… what do you want out of this?"
Bear Guard didn't believe there could be such a good pirate crew in the world. This meant making an enemy of a rather powerful World Government allied nation. If the plan failed and they couldn't rescue the old king, they would definitely be targeted crazily by the World Government.
There were huge risks both during and after the execution of the plan.
Worrying about the World Government's targeting was something for later. Trying to use the power of a single pirate crew to resist the Six-Gold Kingdom's combined forces sounded utterly unrealistic.
"The Six-Gold Kingdom has a naval combat fleet composed of nine ships. Three are as big as your ship, and six are a size smaller."
"The sea forces have at least three thousand people, and the land forces are even more."
"And the Three Great Generals of the Six-Gold Kingdom are also very formidable…"
Bear Guard revealed this information to tell Vane that taking a single ship to crash head-on into them was pretty much like throwing away their lives.
"You don't need to worry about combat power. You just need to cooperate with us and find the old king of the Six-Gold Kingdom."
Bear Guard wasn't very clear where Vane's confidence came from. Even if this ship were filled to capacity, it would only be a few hundred fighters. In reality, he had seen fewer than a hundred people.
"Uwah."
A shadow appeared in the sky. Bear Guard couldn't help but look up. A legendary dragon landed on the deck, and a cool black-haired woman got down from the dragon's back.
"Lena, did you see anything?"
Charizard has the advantage of flight. Whenever there's a need for reconnaissance, Charizard carries Lena to scout in the sky.
This Charizard has a pretty good temperament and didn't show any resistance to letting people ride it. Of course, it might also be that it knows it isn't the strongest and isn't so proud anymore.
"There's a Six-Gold Kingdom warship approaching from that direction."
Bear Guard's face immediately turned ugly.
"It must be people from the Six-Gold Kingdom trying to hunt down Her Highness the Princess."
"Meowth, face the enemy head-on."
The Thunder Fortress adjusted the ship's heading. Very soon, a ship about the same size as the Thunder Fortress, with the Six-Gold Kingdom's emblem carved on its sails, appeared in the field of view of Rocket Team's crew.
"Report! We've discovered the small boat that escaped from the port yesterday, but now there's another large ship beside it."
"What large ship?"
"Their flag has a cat on it… should be a merchant ship."
The Thunder Fortress was facing the enemy head-on, and the front only had the Lightning Projector. The gunports on the sides of the hull couldn't be seen. Coupled with the cat-head flag, the Thunder Fortress was immediately mistaken for a merchant ship.
"Harboring a kingdom's major criminal—this merchant ship has committed a capital crime. Everyone prepare for battle. Gunners, fire and sink them."
This Six-Gold Kingdom warship had received news that the Nanami Kingdom's princess had escaped onto the sea. They chased and searched all the way and had basically given up, but unexpectedly found the princess's escaped small boat here.
So the captain directly ordered an attack, intending to cut off any possibility of the princess continuing to flee, and at the same time put all the 'goods' of this merchant ship into his own private treasury.
Within the Six-Gold Kingdom, there is nominally no slave system, but after the new king took the throne, he implemented a lifetime miner system, which is no different from slavery.
In the past, miners were paid workers. Now they're fed but not paid—mine until they die, mining slaves.
Anyone caught and thrown into the mines can continuously produce ore. No matter which merchant guild this ship belongs to, he can guarantee that unless the guild president personally goes down into the mine to look, no one on this ship will ever be heard from again.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Six-Gold Kingdom's warship is somewhat similar to Navy warships. On the front there's a triple-barreled turret. After a slight adjustment of the barrels, flames burst out.
Three relatively large shells flew straight toward the Thunder Fortress.
"They're firing right away? That's really unreasonable."
Whoosh! Whoosh…
Just as the shells were about to land, Bonez and Tant jumped up. With one kick and one claw, they knocked two of the shells that were going to hit the ship off their trajectories.
The third shell was already off and was going to fall into the sea, so Tant and Bonez didn't bother with it.
Who would have thought that Dice, this masochist, would actually jump out on his own, catch the shell that didn't need blocking, spin in midair, and throw it away.
"Haha! Feels great!"
Dice's hands had quite a bit of skin scraped off, but the pain made him feel incomparably refreshed.
Vane turned back to look at the control room where Meowth was.
"Meowth, punch through them."
"Roger, meow!"
The excited Meowth began pressing several buttons on the console.
At the very front of the ship, the Lightning Projector began to produce strands of electric arcs! These arcs appeared scattered at first, and soon connected into one piece, forming a stable, large arc.
In the distance, the Six-Gold Kingdom warship was about to fire a second round. From far away, they saw something on the enemy ship's bow that looked like a huge light bulb lighting up.
"Turning on a light bulb to dazzle people?"
In the control room, Meowth looked at the indicator light representing energy accumulation. When it lit up to seventy percent, Meowth pushed a lever.
The lightning energy that had been bound inside the projector opened a vent!
Zzzrt! Boom!
A lightning beam as thick as a leg spanned over a thousand meters. Even the sea surface seemed to be neatly parted down the middle.
Crack!
On the Six-Gold Kingdom warship, everyone only felt the world in front of them suddenly light up. That beam struck head-on into the bow of the warship.
The entire warship was pierced through. The lightning energy released a massive number of arcs like spreading tree branches.
Those arcs instantly set the warship ablaze or triggered the gunpowder shells, and thunderous explosions continued without end.