Chapter 441 -441-Capturing the Royal Capital
By the tenth day of the war, more than five hundred thousand of John’s men had already died.
At last, he completely annihilated the Lather Kingdom’s final remaining Naval Corps fleet.
By the twentieth day, the battle for the royal capital had become a true fight to the death.
John paid the price of more than three hundred thousand lives before finally breaking through the outer harbor defenses and destroying every coastal battery guarding the port.
By the thirty-fourth day, John’s main force had pushed all the way to the royal capital itself.
After sacrificing another two hundred thousand men, his army finally landed on the main island and completely surrounded the city.
Then, on the thirty-fifth day...
the final battle for the royal capital of the Lather Kingdom finally arrived.
...
Outside the royal capital.
Hilt commanded a million pirates, surrounding the city so completely that it resembled a prison with no path of escape.
The course of the war had already gone far beyond anything the Lather Kingdom’s upper echelons had expected.
They had never imagined that these pirates would be so fearless in the face of death.
So vicious.
So relentless.
Originally, Hilt had commanded more than two million pirates.
Yet through the brutal siege battles, more than a million of them had already been consumed.
Only after paying such a horrific price had they finally pushed all the way to the royal capital.
The battle had already reached a level of brutality beyond imagination.
Whether it was the soldiers of the Lather Kingdom defending the city or the warriors of the King’s Edge Pirates attacking it, both sides were utterly exhausted.
They had reached their limits.
The defenders were under pressure from the fear of national destruction.
Outside the city walls stood an army of one million men surrounding them from every direction.
They did not dare relax for even a moment.
The pressure on the King’s Edge Pirates, meanwhile, came from the terrifying strength of the royal capital’s defenses and the unshakable will of the soldiers inside.
Both sides were already stretched to the breaking point.
But after coming this far...
there was no possibility that the warriors of the King’s Edge Pirates would suddenly stop now.
They had already reached the walls.
Victory was right in front of them.
One more step forward...
and they might obtain unimaginable wealth.
Even noble titles!
No matter what happened, even if they lost a leg and had to crawl forward with their bare hands...
they would grit their teeth and force their way into the city.
At this moment, thousands of cannons had already been positioned outside the walls.
John spoke coldly.
"Fire!"
At his command...
thousands of cannons roared at once.
It sounded as though thousands of primordial beasts were bellowing together.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Countless shells erupted from the cannon barrels, tracing elegant arcs through the sky before plunging down toward the royal capital.
At the same time...
cannon fire erupted from inside the city as well.
The royal capital was fighting back!
Both sides began bombarding one another!
John’s side possessed an overwhelming advantage in artillery.
And more importantly...
he had no shortage of ammunition.
The bombardment continued without pause for three entire hours.
During that period...
John’s army fired a staggering eight hundred thousand shells!
The spent shells alone, if piled together, would have weighed more than a large warship.
Under that carpet-bombing-like barrage...
the walls of the Outer City had already collapsed.
The buildings behind those walls were exposed.
But they no longer resembled the structures they had once been.
Most had already been reduced to ruins.
Seeing this, John immediately ordered,
"Storm the city!"
Sailors could fight aboard ships.
And once they stepped onto land...
they could fight there as well.
Because of the limited terrain, John’s million-man army could not deploy all at once.
So one hundred thousand pirates charged first.
They roared wildly, waving swords, sabers, and muskets as they rushed toward the royal capital.
After all...
John had already announced the rewards.
The first person to enter the Outer City would be set for life!
But the defenders were not going to surrender without a fight.
Countless soldiers formed defensive lines among the ruins.
They raised their muskets toward the pirates rushing at them...
and opened fire.
The pirates fell in waves like wheat being cut down by a scythe.
Yet those behind them continued charging forward without hesitation.
The defenders repelled one wave after another.
And the pirates replaced each fallen wave with another.
After several hours of brutal slaughter...
John finally wiped out the entire Outer City garrison.
The price—
one hundred and fifty thousand pirate lives.
Then...
the million-strong pirate army surged into the city.
Their next target—
the Inner City!
...
"Your Majesty! Disaster!"
"The Outer City has fallen!"
The instant the king heard the report...
he fainted on the spot.
Seeing the king collapse from fear, the supreme commander shook his head and sighed.
Then he turned around and walked away.
He made his way to the walls of the Inner City.
By now, night had already fallen.
Outside the city, the pirates had begun setting up camps in preparation for the next day’s assault.
The supreme commander looked out at the countless campfires stretching beneath the night sky like a brilliant galaxy.
His expression was extremely heavy.
"The Lather Kingdom is finished."
"The Inner City cannot hold."
His brows furrowed deeply.
Even now, he could not understand how the Lather Kingdom had reached this point.
Was the pirate chief blessed by fate?
Or had the Lather Kingdom simply exhausted its destiny?
Perhaps...
both were true.
...
Early the next morning.
The Pirate Crews repeated exactly what they had done before.
Thousands of cannons were positioned outside the Inner City.
Then—
bombardment.
Counter-bombardment.
Three hours of continuous artillery fire.
As expected...
the walls of the Inner City were blasted apart.
Then hundreds of thousands of vicious pirates charged through the breach.
After sacrificing another one hundred and fifty thousand men...
the pirates finally broke into the royal palace.
And captured the king alive.
The battle for the royal capital...
was over.
John had begun with two million troops, thousands of warships, and tens of thousands of cannons.
Now...
fewer than seven hundred thousand men remained.
Only several thousand cannons were still operational.
A full 1.3 million pirates had died during the assault on the royal capital.
But in exchange...
the royal capital itself had been reduced to ruins beneath the pirates’ attack.
...
John’s men brought the captured king before him.
John waved his subordinates away.
Soon, only John and the king remained.
"Y-You... why did you attack me?"
The king looked at John in fear, his voice trembling.
He simply could not understand.
"Ever since I ascended the throne, I have always worked diligently in governing the kingdom."
"I treated every matter concerning my people with the utmost caution."
"All I wanted was for them to live better lives..."
"You shouldn’t have attacked me!"
John had no interest in any of that.
He asked directly,
"I attacked you for one reason."
"You possess a Conqueror’s Proof."
"Where is it?"
The king stared at him in disbelief.
"You destroyed my entire kingdom..."
"just for the Conqueror’s Proof?"
"You didn’t do all of this because you wanted to become king?"
"Not for fame?"
"Not for wealth?"
"Not for power?"
John smiled proudly.
"The things you just mentioned..."
"are pursuits for mortals."
"But I..."
"am beyond the mortal realm."
The king could not understand.
He did not even know what John meant by "beyond the mortal realm."
But he understood one thing.
Whatever John sought...
it was not something an ordinary person would pursue.
Now that the king had become John’s prisoner, he did not dare resist.
He decisively handed over the Conqueror’s Proof.
The instant John received it, a system notification rang beside his ear.
[ Ding! You have obtained the quest item: Conqueror’s Proof! ]
[ Would you like to use it? ]
[ Reminder: After using it, you may leave this world and advance to the Top Eight. You may also keep it and use it at any time. ]
...
John’s eyes lit up when he heard the notification.
There were four members of Valhalla participating.
That meant they needed four Conqueror’s Proofs.
Right now...
they had only obtained one.
Three more were still missing.
If he used this one immediately, it would be difficult to decide who should advance first.
It would be better to keep it and wait until they had collected four.
"Now that I control the Lather Kingdom..."
"I’ve effectively become the ruler of one of the Maritime Kingdoms."
"Destroying the remaining Maritime Kingdoms shouldn’t be difficult anymore."
"As for obtaining more Conqueror’s Proofs..."
"at this point, it should be almost effortless."
Thinking this, John placed the Conqueror’s Proof into his inventory.
Then he told Holly and Hilt about his decision.
Naturally, neither of them objected.
"Next, we continue running the war machine at full power."
John looked at the two women.
"We need to conquer the remaining Maritime Kingdoms as quickly as possible."
"Do either of you have any suggestions?"
Holly shook her head.
"Anything that requires thinking..."
"I’ll leave that to the two of you."
"I’m responsible for using my hands..."
"and my mouth."