Normally, if any soldier dared to utter "Let’s retreat," words that bordered on inciting panic, the commander would undoubtedly cut him down on the spot. However, this situation was different.
The musketeer was right: the enemy was an immortal monster. No matter how much they killed him, he wouldn’t die, while they were being unilaterally massacred. There was indeed no point in continuing the fight.
Considering this, the Strale Kingdom army commander, atop his white horse, pulled on the reins, turned his horse around, and shouted, "Retreat! Retreat!"
"We’re retreating! We’re retreating!"
"Commander’s orders! Retreat!"
Hearing this, the Strale Kingdom army, who had already all but lost their will to fight, wished they had two more legs. They turned and ran back in a disordered rush.
"General, should we pursue?" a young soldier from the Exeter army asked their highest-ranking officer, General Donte.
Donte smacked the soldier’s helmet, roaring, "Pursue your mother! Retreat! We retreat too!"
The Exeter army also had no intention of continuing the fight and quickly fled. They weren’t fools; they knew when to leave.
Alucard really wanted to pursue them, as it was rare to encounter so much "food." But he was still surrounded by the bodies of those he had already killed, and chasing after more would be putting the cart before the horse.
With that in mind, Alucard sat atop a small mountain of corpses piled three meters high, appearing quite bloodthirsty as he licked the fresh blood from his hands. He had been so focused on killing that Alucard himself had forgotten which army he had been slaughtering; it seemed like both.
"Six thousand and something lives? Not bad." Alucard assessed the results of his massacre over the past few hours.
He had probably killed over ten thousand people, but only six thousand lives had ultimately assimilated into his body.
This wasn’t surprising.
To integrate someone’s life into his own River of Life, he had to obtain their blood and ingest it within a limited time.
After all, a battlefield was chaotic, and Alucard couldn’t guarantee that the blood of every deceased person could be consumed by him.
Only when he reached the level of the River of Death could he perfectly devour others’ lives.
"Ah..." Alucard let out a soft sigh, swallowed a drop of blood from the back of his right hand, and slowly rose.
Facing the gradually rising sunlight, he impatiently put on his sunglasses. He was still a vampire after all; even if he could move freely in sunlight, his natural inclination towards darkness remained unchanged.
Speaking of which, a considerable number of soldiers from both armies remained. This meant he could wait here a bit longer. If he could devour all of them, he wouldn’t hesitate to take on not just Kaido, but even Roger and Whitebeard.
The main reason was that without a specific goal, Alucard didn’t like fighting for too long. While he didn’t dislike it, and even enjoyed it somewhat, Alucard still lived by his motto: acting for joy and pleasure.
Fighting for ten days and ten nights, like Aokiji and Akainu? Didn’t that sound boring?
The armies of both the Exeter and Strale kingdoms reported their encounter with Alucard to their respective kings. Upon hearing this, neither king was surprised by someone suddenly intervening in the war; what mattered was this individual’s strength.
While pirates who disregarded rules and attacked nations were rare, they certainly existed.
After investigations, both sides successively confirmed Alucard’s identity. Alucard had barely faded from the headlines before, and almost the very next day after the military reports, the kingdoms knew who he was.
They never expected him to be a Great Pirate with a 400 million Berries bounty. When they saw the amount, even as kings, they were profoundly shaken.
Alucard the Immortal... In the Exeter army camp, when Donte saw a report about Alucard, he couldn’t help but marvel at how fitting the title was. The despair of being unable to kill an opponent, no matter how hard they tried, still gave him goosebumps just thinking about it.
However, Alucard, still waiting on a stone mountain on the southern battlefield of the Rulusas continent, began to grow impatient after a week.
A week had passed, and there was still no movement from the armies. Yet, outwardly, there was no sign of them abandoning the war. Could they be waiting for him to leave?
As a hedonist, how could he tolerate spending a week bored in such a desolate, godforsaken place? But leaving just like that felt pointless.
Rulusas, as one of the few supercontinents in this Grand Line, had several nations vying for supremacy. He might as well pick one to let off some steam.
The Exeter Kingdom was located in the west of the continent, while the Strale Kingdom was in the east. The northwest and northeast were occupied by three other smaller nations. In Alucard’s perception, those weren’t even "nations," just "cities."
If he was going to a city, of course, he’d pick the largest and most magnificent one.
After five seconds of thought, Alucard ultimately chose the western Exeter Kingdom. He rose, his body dispersing into bats, and flew westward across the continent.
Just as Alucard had predicted, both armies were indeed waiting for his next move. Although the Marines didn’t interfere in the internal affairs of independent kingdoms, nations could certainly seek their help if a pirate was causing chaos.
However, very few monarchs did this; seeking Marine aid to deal with a pirate was seen as a sign of incompetence.
Now, both armies were observing, anticipating Alucard’s next move. But they probably wouldn’t have imagined that Alucard would just directly enter one of their countries, would they?
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