Chapter 422 -422-I Am the Strongest!
John discarded the letter as casually as though it were something completely unnecessary, then looked toward the envoy standing across from him.
The man claimed to be an envoy of the Pirate Alliance.
When he saw John toss aside the declaration of war—something that represented the dignity of the Pirate Alliance—as though it were trash, anger immediately flashed in his eyes.
"You’ve gone too far!" he shouted angrily.
John merely smiled and said nothing.
The envoy said coldly, "Since you’ve already made your decision and intend to become an enemy of our Pirate Alliance, then so be it. I’ll return and tell the chiefs that you’ve chosen war."
John finally spoke in an indifferent tone.
"Then I won’t see you out."
Watching the envoy storm away in fury, John fell into thought.
As one of John’s trusted men, Izer waited until the envoy had left before immediately asking,
"Boss, have we gotten ourselves into trouble this time?"
When John had first occupied the Inferno Pirates’ territory, Izer had not thought it was much of a problem.
Even when John later wiped them out completely, he still had not considered it particularly troublesome.
But now that all the pirates were joining forces to deal with John, Izer suddenly felt that things had genuinely become difficult.
John, however, spoke calmly.
"It’s just a Pirate Alliance made up of a rabble."
"Since they’ve chosen to gather together, they’ve actually saved me the trouble of eliminating them one by one."
After saying that, he turned toward Captain Leonard beside him.
"Leonard, tell me. Roughly how much combat power can this Pirate Alliance bring together?"
The captain hurriedly replied,
"Boss, the Gortar Pirates, the Logar Pirates, and the Inferno Pirates used to be the three strongest pirate crews in the Lothar Kingdom."
"Their strength was fairly similar, and each of them had one or two Maritime Kingdoms secretly funding them."
"As for the remaining medium-sized pirate crews, they’re roughly comparable to the Northwind Pirates. The smaller pirate crews are simply too weak to matter much."
Captain Leonard continued,
"Conservatively speaking, I estimate the Pirate Alliance can assemble more than a thousand warships, several hundred thousand sailors, and over ten thousand cannons."
"Their overall combat strength would be roughly two-thirds that of a Maritime Kingdom’s Naval Corps."
Hearing those numbers, Izer immediately felt the terrifying scale of the situation crashing down on him.
Only now did he realize that this problem was far greater than he had imagined.
John currently had only a little over a hundred warships, several hundred cannons, and tens of thousands of pirates who had only recently pledged themselves to him.
His one real advantage was that he possessed a battleship.
Aside from that, no matter how one compared the two sides, the Pirate Alliance overwhelmingly outclassed John.
Against such a massive disparity in strength, a single battleship hardly seemed enough to change anything.
After Captain Leonard finished speaking, he looked at the perfectly calm John and could not help but feel admiration.
As expected of someone who could casually throw around fortunes without blinking.
Even after hearing numbers like these, his expression had not changed in the slightest.
Did the Boss not realize that the pirates he was about to face possessed strength comparable to an entire Maritime Kingdom?
That was practically the power of a nation.
Yet under such overwhelming pressure, John remained completely confident and utterly unconcerned.
His calm composure made him seem as though everything was still firmly under his control.
Leonard could not help but admire him.
John naturally understood exactly what he was facing.
However, he had already formed a plan.
As long as that plan succeeded, the so-called Pirate Alliance would be nothing more than passing smoke—something he could scatter with a wave of his hand.
Becoming a pirate king who ruled an entire kingdom was his true objective.
With that thought in mind, John immediately said,
"There are several things I need the two of you to do."
The two men immediately listened closely.
Meanwhile, on the other side, John’s reply was carried back by the envoy—with plenty of exaggeration added along the way.
Standing before him had been an envoy.
For the time being, he could be considered an envoy of the Lothar Kingdom’s Pirate Alliance.
When the envoy saw John throw the declaration of war representing the Pirate Alliance’s dignity onto the ground like garbage, anger flashed in his eyes.
"You’ve gone too far!" the envoy shouted angrily.
John only smiled without speaking.
"So you’ve made your decision to become an enemy of our Pirate Alliance?" the envoy asked. "Fine. I’ll return and report this to the chiefs."
"I won’t see you out," John replied calmly.
Watching the envoy storm away, John’s eyes revealed a thoughtful look.
Izer was one of John’s trusted men. After seeing the envoy leave, he asked,
"Boss, are we in trouble this time?"
When John had first occupied the Northwind Pirates’ territory, Izer had not considered it much of a problem.
When John decided to challenge the Inferno Pirates with only a handful of warships, he still had not thought it was particularly troublesome...
But now, when he thought about every pirate joining forces to deal with John, he felt that perhaps...
this really was trouble.
John said indifferently,
"It’s only a Pirate Alliance, nothing more than a rabble."
"Since they’ve gathered together, it saves me the trouble of uprooting them one at a time."
"What trouble is there?"
After saying that, he looked toward Captain Leonard beside him.
"Leonard, tell me roughly how much combat strength the Pirate Alliance might have."
Captain Leonard hurriedly replied,
"Boss, the Gortar Pirates, Logar Pirates, and Inferno Pirates used to be the three strongest pirate crews in the Lothar Kingdom."
"Their strength was fairly similar, and each had one or two Maritime Kingdoms backing them financially."
"Their leader was unbelievably arrogant! He actually threw our declaration of war onto the ground like it was garbage!"
"He could barely even be bothered to speak to me. He showed absolutely no respect for our great Pirate Alliance!"
"To ignore us is the greatest insult of all! How could we possibly swallow such humiliation?!"
When the various pirate chiefs heard about John’s attitude, they flew into a rage and became even more determined to destroy him.
Riding that wave of anger, the pirates immediately elected the leaders of this newly formed grand Pirate Alliance.
Chief Gortar of the Gortar Pirates became the Alliance Leader, while Chief Logar of the Logar Pirates became the Deputy Alliance Leader.
"Pirate crews from every direction are still arriving one after another," Chief Gortar said to Chief Logar. "Once all the major pirate chiefs have gathered and the alliance reaches its peak strength, we’ll attack that man."
Chief Logar nodded in agreement.
"Even a lion uses its full strength when hunting a rabbit."
"More importantly, the enemy belongs to the Naval Corps. They’re bound to receive support from Naval Corps warships."
"If we don’t commit everything we have this time, we may suffer for it."
Chief Gortar agreed.
"Exactly. We’ve already made grand declarations to everyone."
"If we act recklessly and things go badly for us, being mocked by pirates from the other Maritime Kingdoms would be a minor problem."
"But being defeated by the Naval Corps and suffering crippling losses would be disastrous."
"That opponent thinks he can lure us into a trap by openly showing only a little over a hundred warships and a single island."
"What he doesn’t know is that every one of us has survived countless battles between life and death."
"We’re all cautious people."
"Then it’s decided," Chief Logar said. "Give it a few more days. By then, almost every pirate crew willing to join the alliance should have arrived."
"Anyone who still hasn’t come probably has no intention of coming at all. There’s no need to wait for them."
"Good."
Chief Gortar’s expression turned cold.
"Then we’ll announce it to the world!"
"Tell everyone that our grand Pirate Alliance will mobilize all of its strength and crush our enemy!"
"Tell him to obediently wait for death!"