One Piece: A Warlord's Path

Chapter 952: Chapter 952: The War Begins, The Big Mom Pirates’ Fleet at Tail Island

A few days later, Fernal Archipelago, Tail Island.

This was a small island spanning no more than three kilometers in circumference, shaped exactly like a tail. The island was covered in dense forests, with a mountain rising hundreds of meters high toward its tapering rear end.

As one of the outermost frontier islands guarded by the Chris Pirates to protect the Fernal Archipelago, Tail Island was heavily fortified. Dozens of steel bunkers had been erected across its terrain, outfitted with large-caliber heavy artillery that formed a formidable grid of interlocking fields of fire. Even if a colossal Sea King from the Calm Belt dared to breach this perimeter, it would find it impossible to withstand the sheer concentrated fury of such a bombardment.

"Gunners! All gunners, get to your combat stations immediately!"

"Haul up the shells and gunpowder! Move it, double time!"

"Alert Mount Four Island! Notify Oliver-sama at once, the Big Mom Pirates are attacking!"

"..."

The forces garrisoned on the island had thrown themselves into a frenzy of preparation. Gunners scrambled into their designated bunkers, while combat personnel busied themselves hauling heavy shells, scanning the horizon, or performing final checks on their weaponry. Everyone was a moving cog in a well-oiled machine.

According to earlier intelligence dispatched by their scouting vessels, a massive armada belonging to the Big Mom Pirates was bearing down on their position. Given that several patrol ships had already gone completely silent, it was highly probable they had met a grim fate.

Twenty nautical miles out, a massive fleet sailed majestically across the sea, churning the waters in their wake. Nearly ten uniquely customized pirate ships spearheaded the formation, closely shadowed by over a dozen vessels flying various pirate flags. Bringing up the rear was a dense swarm of dozens of Tart Ships, their sails emblazoned with serial numbers. This grand, unified armada cut through the waves, steering a straight course toward the Fernal Archipelago.

Not far behind them, the charred wreckage of several scuttled patrol vessels slowly slipped beneath the waves. Some sank bow-first, others stern-first, and a few had snapped cleanly in two, venting thick, billowing plumes of black smoke that smeared the sky.

Clack, clack, clack, clack...

On the deck of the leading flagship, Baron Tamago strode forward. Clutching a telescope in one hand, he addressed a towering, muscular man with deference. "Cracker-sama, Tail Island, the vanguard outpost of the Fernal Archipelago, lies just ahead. What are your orders, s’il vous plaît?"

"So we’ve arrived..."

Cracker opened his eyes, unfolding his crossed arms as he glared at the distant landmass rising from the horizon. "Finally," he growled in a dull, suppressed rage. "Those miserable bastards. Signal Opera, Bavarois, Amande, and Galette to get their squads ready. I am going to tear this place apart piece by piece!"

"Order the entire fleet: the absolute second we are in range, open fire! Flatten that island into a wasteland!" Cracker abruptly unsheathed his massive sword, pointing it toward the distant island as he unleashed a furious roar.

With the command handed down, crewmates across the fleet began purging residual fouling from their cannons’ chambers, while gunners meticulously calibrated their firing angles.

Before long, the vanguard of the armada drew close to Tail Island. Suddenly, blinding flashes of fire erupted from the mountain peak, followed instantly by a succession of deep, concussive booms that reverberated like natural thunder across the sky.

Whew! Whew! Whew!

In the blink of an eye, the air tore apart with shrill shrieks. Several blazing fireballs arced across the sky at blistering speeds, their fiery carapaces concealing dark, heavy shapes beneath, before plunging violently into the waters directly ahead of the Big Mom Pirates’ fleet.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Colossal detonations shattered the air. The impact of the heavy shells bursting beneath the surface triggered a chain reaction, throwing up towering walls of displaced water that violently churned the surrounding sea.

"Damn it! Those are large-caliber, heavy fortress guns!"

"Cracker-sama! Bavarois-sama’s vessel has sustained hull damage from a near-miss!"

"The enemy is range-finding! Brace for evasive maneuvers on the next volley!"

"The targets are beyond our maximum range! We cannot return fire!"

The sudden, long-range bombardment from Tail Island threw the Big Mom Pirates’ fleet into a brief panic, made worse by their utter inability to retaliate. The fleet was still over five nautical miles away from the island, a distance that standard muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons could never hope to bridge.

Artillery in this world consisted predominantly of muzzle-loading smoothbores, which explained why naval engagements traditionally favored close-quarters broadsides. While advanced nations and the Marines outfitted their capital ships with sophisticated multi-gun turrets housing modern breech-loading twin or triple main batteries, the vast majority of mainstream warships remained a hybrid of traditional ships-of-the-line and armored ironclads due to technological limits and environmental constraints.

Marine battleships, for instance, featured massive sails alongside reinforced armor plating, steam propulsion engines, and Seastone technology lining their hulls, allowing them to navigate safely through the Calm Belt. This technical superiority was a primary reason the Marines could suppress piracy globally. Yet even with such advanced engineering, Marine vessels required a distance of within 3,000 meters to execute an accurate, effective bombardment, with an absolute maximum reach of around 5,000 meters (roughly 2.7 nautical miles). Pirate vessels fared significantly worse.

Even for a Yonko-level syndicate as formidable as the Big Mom Pirates, the performance of their ships and cannons, while matching the Marines, could not engage a target five nautical miles away, even if that target was a stationary island.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Whew! Whew! Whew!

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Moments later, another wave of scorching projectiles screeched through the air. Amid a chorus of desperate cries to take evasive action, the shells tore straight into the thick of the Big Mom Pirates’ armada.

Tremendous explosions tore through the waves, sending shockwaves ripping through the water that erupted into geysers dozens of meters high. Because kinetic shockwaves carry far more lethal, concussive force through water than through open air, two Tart Ships were violently capsized on impact, the underwater pressure instantly crushing the internal organs of countless crew members.

"Mon dieu! This must be a new class of fortress artillery developed by the Chris Pirates, judging by the sheer caliber and destructive yield!" Baron Tamago white-knuckled the deck railing, his face a mask of shock and disbelief. "The eight 380mm heavy guns and sixteen 255mm cannons that man previously gifted to Mama are stationed on Totto Land’s perimeter islands. I witnessed their test-firing firsthand, and they lacked this level of range and raw power. These must be fortress guns with a caliber of at least 400mm or higher!"

As one of the world’s preeminent arms dealers, the Chris Pirates commanded a staggering third of the global weapons market. In recent years, they had introduced modern breech-loading artillery to the market, pushing a doctrine where a larger caliber directly equated to devastating power. However, these new breech-loaders were too massive to be stabilized on standard ships and were restricted to land defense; only nations locked in civil war bought them in bulk as field pieces and coastal fortress guns. Consequently, the reputation of these new weapons remained obscure on the open seas, praised mostly by war-torn countries clamoring to purchase larger calibers.

This technological disparity forced the mighty Big Mom Pirates’ fleet to endure a punishing, ultra-long-range pounding before the battle lines could even formally lock.

"Bastards!"

On the command deck, Cracker was jumping mad, his temper exploding as he roared, "Catch the full wind in the sails! Charge forward! I’ll butcher every last one of those miserable wretches!"

The words had barely left his mouth when a conical, aerodynamic shell hurtled directly toward his flagship, tearing through the air with a piercing screech.

"Get lost!" Cracker bellowed, swinging his massive sword in a wide, horizontal arc. A crescent of invisible flying slash-attribute energy flashed outward, cleaving the oncoming shell in two while it was still dozens of meters away.

The severed shell detonated instantly mid-air, unleashing a blinding fireball. The concussive blast rippled through the atmosphere, sending a violent gust of wind sweeping across the entire deck.

"Such incredible explosive force!" Cracker’s eyes narrowed in genuine surprise. It was the first time he had encountered a projectile packed with such highly volatile destructive yield.

Unfortunately, the other vessels in his fleet lacked a Sweet Commander’s protection. A Tart Ship took a direct hit to its starboard side, blowing a massive hole right through its hull below the waterline. The sheer kinetic momentum of the blast flipped the entire vessel over, sending it gurgling down into the deep.

Another subordinate pirate vessel caught the brutal brunt of a near-miss from a large-caliber shell. The underwater shockwave cracked open its thin armor plating along the port bow and keel, causing the ship to take on water rapidly.

The war had officially begun. Steeling themselves against the relentless downpour of large-caliber fortress fire, the Big Mom Pirates’ fleet caught the full wind in their sails, driving relentlessly toward Tail Island.