A Host of "Heroes" Rise

Luffy returned to his seat excitedly, grinning like an idiot.

"Hey, Luffy, are you alright?" Usopp held up his right hand and waved Luffy's eyes, asking worriedly.

"Huh... huh?" Luffy took a while to react, then scratched his head with a silly grin. "I'm fine."

Usopp sighed. "You don't look like you're alright at all."

"Luffy, the people in this room are no ordinary characters. Even though we're on the same side now, there's no guarantee they'll behave the same way once we get to Nightmare's territory. So, if you don't want the tragedy to repeat itself, you'd better memorize all these faces," Zoro reminded him from the side.

"Hmm... you're right!" Luffy replied seriously.

"Among the Supernovas, besides the three you've seen before, there are two more in this room. The one with the heart-shaped mark on her mouth is Jewelry Bonney, whose abilities seem to be related to time. The one with wings on her back, who looks remarkably like the Skypieans we saw two years ago, is Mad Monk Urouge, whose abilities seem to be related to the amplification of his body and strength."

"The kind-looking hunchbacked old man over there is Conical Drill Qingjiao, the 12th generation leader of the Happo Navy, a great pirate with a bounty of over 500 million at his peak. The three people in the corner are Destruction Cannon Ideo, Blue Gilly, and Warrior Leo, and behind them represent the forces of the Longarm Tribe, the Longleg Tribe, and the Dwarf Tribe, respectively."

"Those two disgusting-looking guys over there are the Supernovas who just entered the New World this year, Wet-Haired Caribou and his brother Blood-Spraying Coribou."

"This is..."

"Besides these, there are four people who deserve the most attention: Rayleigh, the former vice-captain of the Roger Pirates; Ben Beckman, the former vice-captain of the Red-Haired Pirates; Marco the Phoenix, the former first division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates; and Sabo, the chief of staff of the Revolutionary Army."

"What did you say, Sassasa... Sabo?" Luffy's eyes widened, and his heart pounded violently.

"Is there something wrong with the name Sabo?" Nami asked curiously.

Luffy quickly searched through the crowd, and sure enough, a familiar face kept overlapping with the memories in his mind, and his eyes instantly welled up with tears. "Yes, he is my and Ace's brother."

"..." Usopp and the others were almost speechless. The previous brother was the Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, and now this brother has appeared as the Chief of Staff the Revolutionary Army. Your network of connections is just too powerful.

"Sabo, thank goodness, you're still alive!"

"You, you are..." Sabo frowned, feeling that the person in front of him was very familiar.

"Hey, who are you?!" Seeing this guy suddenly appear out of nowhere and cling to her boyfriend, Koala asked him with a hint of jealousy.

"Sabo, don't you remember? I'm Luffy! And Ace, don't you remember me either?"

"Luffy..." Sabo gritted his teeth, long-buried memories gradually surfacing and assaulting his mind, causing him to howl in agony. "Ah!!!"

"Sabo, what's wrong with you? Don't scare me! You bastard, what did you do to Sabo?" Koala was worried and wished she could fight Luffy to the death.

"Wait... wait!" Sabo forced back his words, enduring the pain. "I finally remember, you're Luffy, my little brother!"

"Huh?" Koala looked completely bewildered.

"Alright, forget it, let's not count on that idiot Luffy," Zoro said weakly. "Let's listen carefully."

"... The defection of former Admiral Black Arm Zephyr from the Marine Headquarters was orchestrated by them, with the aim of testing Nightmare's reaction," Ben Beckman said.

"Hey, you even know this kind of classified information. It seems your connections with the Marine Headquarters are closer than we thought. Who knows, you might sell us for a good price later?" Caribou said sarcastically from the side.

"You don't need to worry about that. At least until we defeat Nightmare, the Marine Headquarters will definitely not settle scores with you." Ben Beckman didn't care. Pirates were a bunch of unruly madmen. Expecting them to obey him was just wishful thinking.

"That's true. When it comes to dealing with Nightmare, the Marine Headquarters is more proactive than anyone else. After all, the Fleet Admiral, the Marine Hero, and the Marine Admiral all died at the hands of that monster. It's no exaggeration to say that the two sides have a blood feud," Kid said with a smirk.

"Interesting. What's this? Nightmare is Four Emperors, and we are the Shichibukai used by the Navy to control him?" Capone Bege sneered.

"Regardless of the Navy's objectives, the key question is what we can gain from their actions," Beckman calmly analyzed.

"I've been thinking about why Nightmare used his clone two years ago, and why he remained silent for two years after using his main body."

"It is very likely that his main body was seriously injured or severely restricted, forcing him to use his clone. After using his main body, he had to fall into a deep sleep. This also explains why he has never interfered with the development of the Dream Domain in the past two years. It's not that he was unwilling, but that he was unable to."

"The Navy's probe was also to see how Nightmare would react. If he remained hidden in the face of the possibility of destroying the New World at any moment, it would mean that his current state might indeed be as I guessed."

"In addition, in order to search for the whereabouts of former Marine Admiral Zephyr and stop his crazy actions, Nightmare's side will likely deploy a large number of troops and high-end combat forces, which will temporarily leave the defenses of the Dreamland Kingdom vulnerable, making it easier for us to infiltrate and carry out our operations."

"That sounds nice, but shouldn't this operation be led by the World Government and the Revolutionary Army? Otherwise, we don't have the power to deal with a behemoth like the Crimson Dreamscape."

"That's right. Everyone knows that Nightmare has countless top-tier combatants under his command. Even if we were to deal with someone at the level of a former Marine Admiral, we couldn't leave them with too much power to guard the Crimson Dreamscape. It would be unrealistic to think that we could deal with Nightmare with the power we have here."

"We banded together only to deal with the Nightmare's ever-growing ambitions and prevent him from swallowing us whole. Otherwise, no one would want to confront that monster."

Seeing that the conversation had touched on the Revolutionary Army, Koala quickly interrupted Sabo and Luffy's sweet talk.

Reminded, Sabo knew that the important matter was still at hand, so he stepped forward and said, "Don't worry, everyone. Our Revolutionary Army has already sent people to participate in this operation. Moreover, we don't have any crazy idea of taking this opportunity to destroy Nightmare. We are just preparing for any possible changes at the martial arts tournament and suppressing Nightmare's ambitions. So, don't worry that this World's Number One Martial Arts Tournament will turn into a new war."