Chapter 425 -425-War Against the Great Pirates
It seemed those people were merely here to watch the show.
Seeing this, John lowered the monocular telescope in his hand.
A faint smile appeared on his face as he slowly said, "By now, they should have discovered my little secret. Send the signal."
The adjutant beside him immediately focused, waiting for John’s next command.
John spoke calmly.
"Prepare to fire."
The adjutant immediately nodded.
"No problem, Boss."
Meanwhile, within the Pirate Alliance formation, the scouting vessels suddenly began sending urgent flag signals after discovering something unusual.
Mysterious wooden barrels had been spotted in the waters ahead.
For dozens of nautical miles, the sea was covered with floating barrels—far too many to count by sight.
After receiving the report, Chief Gortar immediately ordered,
"Fish one of those barrels out of the water."
His men quickly carried out the order.
Before long, one of the barrels was brought before Chief Gortar.
He ordered it opened.
The instant he looked inside, a chill ran through his entire body.
Chief Logar saw what was inside as well and blurted out,
"Damn it! It’s gunpowder!"
Chief Gortar’s eyes widened, and his breathing gradually quickened.
He sniffed the air and caught an extremely pungent chemical smell.
His expression changed drastically.
"Gunpowder! And oil!"
"There’s oil all over the surface of the sea!"
Chief Gortar’s mouth fell open.
He suddenly realized what this meant, and his face turned deathly pale.
Gunpowder barrels combined with oil meant only one thing.
But by the time he realized it, it was already too late.
John’s fleet had long since spread into a semicircular formation around the grand Pirate Alliance.
At that moment, John’s fleet suddenly opened fire.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Thunderous explosions erupted one after another, followed by the terrifying roar of concentrated cannon fire.
Countless cannonballs descended from the sky like a tidal wave, pouring down like a torrential rainstorm.
The grand Pirate Alliance immediately fell into chaos.
Countless warships forgot their orders and began scattering in every direction, desperately trying to avoid the incoming cannon fire.
Although they possessed seven hundred thousand men and eighteen hundred warships, in reality they were nothing more than a loose collection of independent pirate crews hastily thrown together.
Forget obeying a unified chain of command—they did not even possess the coordination necessary to work together properly.
They had forgotten that once one ship began moving, it would naturally interfere with the movements of the ships around it.
In an instant, the grand Pirate Alliance’s enormous fleet descended into complete disorder.
Countless warships collided with one another, while even more pirates were thrown overboard by the impacts.
The entire formation became tangled together.
Their speed plummeted as ships clogged one another’s paths.
Then the cannonballs finally came crashing down.
Some struck the pirate warships directly, sinking them on the spot.
Others missed and plunged into the sea.
But in the very next instant, the ocean itself burst into flames.
Blazing fire spread across the entire surface of the sea, as though even the seawater itself had been ignited.
That was because the water had already been mixed with enormous quantities of oil.
Boom!
Gortar and Logar stared at the wall of fire suddenly rising dozens of meters into the air before them.
For a moment, it felt as though they were looking at the Grim Reaper himself beckoning them forward.
Oil could burn across the surface of the sea without being extinguished by the water beneath it.
Gortar gritted his teeth viciously.
"That bastard!"
"How despicable! He deliberately spread huge quantities of oil across the sea around the main island in advance, just waiting to ignite it!"
As he stared at the flames before him, the chill in his heart deepened.
If their warships sailed into that sea of fire, the consequences would be unimaginable.
He understood better than anyone just how unstoppable and deadly such a blaze could be.
It did not matter how many warships they had.
Forget eighteen hundred warships—even one hundred and eight thousand warships would be useless before a disaster like this.
Forget seven hundred thousand men and over ten thousand cannons.
Even if they had seventy million men and tens of millions of cannons...
they would still be powerless before this sea of flames.
"And... and the gunpowder barrels!" Logar stammered.
The moment he finished speaking, the flames reached the wooden barrels.
Just as they had feared, the barrels exploded.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Countless gunpowder barrels detonated one after another.
Sharp stones, iron nails, and all kinds of fragments packed inside were hurled outward by the enormous force of the explosions, flying wildly in every direction.
Countless pirates were struck by the shrapnel.
Casualties instantly soared, and screams of agony erupted throughout the fleet.
At the same time, the pirates became even more chaotic.
Warships darted around blindly, destroying what remained of the formation and causing an even greater wave of panic.
Many pirate crews had already forgotten John even existed.
All they cared about was keeping themselves alive.
They had no intention of helping pirates who did not belong to their own crew.
The Pirate Alliance formation collapsed into total disorder, completely losing its ability to advance or retreat effectively.
The larger the battlefield, and the more manpower and resources involved, the harder everything became to control.
And the greatest taboo of all was that these enormous forces did not belong to a single organization—they belonged to countless separate factions.
That was exactly what it meant to be a rabble.
No matter how powerful they were on paper, it meant nothing.
Things were fine when everything was going their way.
But the moment they encountered even the slightest setback, the entire force became a commander’s nightmare.
Gortar and Logar were both highly experienced naval commanders.
Watching the chaos erupt all around them, how could they fail to understand that the Pirate Alliance now existed in name only and had already fallen into a desperate situation?
No matter how capable the two of them were, there was nothing they could do to reverse the situation.
"I was careless..."
Gortar stared at the scene before him with unbearable pain and sighed.
"I was far too careless."
"I never should have gathered everyone together like this. I should have sent a smaller squadron ahead first to probe the enemy’s preparations."
If they had sent a detachment of warships forward to test the waters, the outcome would have been completely different.
Even if John had ignited the oil and created this sea of fire, they would have lost only a single squadron.
The Pirate Alliance had no shortage of men or ships.
And by then, John would have already revealed his final trick.
Once the flames died down, the Pirate Alliance could have led its main force forward and captured the island in a single battle.
And if John had chosen not to ignite the oil, then the detached squadron alone might have been powerful enough to seize the island.
Either way, John would have been doomed.
They never would have ended up in a situation like this.
One after another, the Pirate Alliance’s warships were gradually swallowed by the sea of flames.
Countless ships and countless pirates were thrown into complete chaos.
No matter how desperately the commanders signaled with their flags, it was useless.
No one was listening anymore.
As time passed, the destruction of the Pirate Alliance became inevitable.
And the reason they had made such a catastrophic mistake was nothing more than arrogance—the desire to display overwhelming might, the desire to crush everything in their path...
and the failure to exercise even the slightest caution.