Sword Flight

"My Greatsword!"

Garen gritted his teeth and muttered, "It was stolen!"

He finally came to his senses: he had just been chatting and laughing with a thief.

Garen looked around. Everywhere were bustling crowds, along with densely packed shops and residences.

Such a lively, crowded place was undoubtedly the ideal environment for hiding one's tracks.

On Garen's system interface was a Minimap that could display the Avatars of humans within a thousand-meter radius.

But there were simply too many people around him. Garen had no way to find Nami's whereabouts through that method.

And with Nami's agile skills, she had probably already vanished somewhere far away.

"Damn it!"

Garen was so furious that his mind went blank.

Without his Greatsword, Garen was like Tahm entering Tongue-Pulling Hell, Blind Monk becoming paraplegic, or Barrel drinking Hongmao Medicated Wine.

He was practically crippled.

"Can it really work like this?"

Garen complained indignantly to the crashed system in his mind.

"Where's the promised Data Mode? How could Garen's Greatsword actually get lost?"

That would have been absolutely impossible in a game.

For a digitized game character, weapons and armor were inseparable parts of the body.

No matter how intense the battle, there was no way a weapon could slip from one's hand and fall to the ground.

Yet the system remained crashed, offering no response whatsoever.

"Ugh..."

Garen sighed helplessly.

"Looks like this Data Mode still has to compromise with reality."

Come to think of it, that made sense.

Garen was a real person, after all. It was impossible for the sword to stay glued to his hand forever, wasn't it?

"My Greatsword is gone. How am I supposed to play Garen now? Switch classes to Blue Fist?"

Garen could not help grumbling inwardly again.

"Couldn't there be some equipment retrieval feature? This is my exclusive weapon, at least!"

What Garen did not know was that—

The moment that thought crossed his mind, a striking anomaly occurred on the other side of town, several thousand meters away.

Cat Burglar Nami tightly hugged the Greatsword as she swiftly weaved through the crowds.

She knew she had already shaken off that Iron Can, but she still refused to slow down.

Nami's final destination was the docks, where a small boat she had prepared long ago was waiting.

The victim was still on the island. Only after sailing out to sea with the stolen goods and disappearing without a trace would Nami feel at ease.

As she hurried through the streets and alleys, Nami calculated rapidly in her mind.

Inside her little boat was more than two million Beli in cash, which she had recently stolen from the Steel Cutlass Pirates.

And the extraordinary Greatsword in her hands could probably fetch twenty million Beli from a weapons merchant in Loguetown even if she sold it cheaply.

Her goal of one hundred million was about to be achieved!

Cocoyasi Village, which had been trampled for years. The villagers oppressed and enslaved by Arlong.

An excited yet heavy smile appeared on Nami's face.

In that instant, all her beautiful hopes for the future gathered upon the Greatsword in her hands.

But just as Nami was about to reach the docks and embark on her final journey to save her hometown—

The Greatsword in her hands suddenly moved. On its own.

"What's going on?"

Nami stopped running in shock.

She felt the sword she was holding tremble suddenly before an invisible force dragged it toward the sky.

The force was utterly irresistible, as though heaven itself intended to take the sword away.

"No! Absolutely not!"

"This is my sword!"

Nami clenched her teeth, tears nearly spilling from her eyes.

Like an octopus, she wrapped herself tightly around the restless Greatsword and refused to let go no matter what.

Yet the Greatsword still took flight, carrying Nami into the air with it, until they became a streak of light across the horizon.

Nami did not fly for long, since the destination was not that far away.

The Greatsword automatically flew back into Garen's hand.

"It actually flew back by itself?"

Garen stared at the hilt in his hand, utterly stunned.

He had not expected his Greatsword to truly have a one-click retrieval function, just like Thor's Hammer.

What stunned him even more was that an Orange-Haired Girl was still clinging desperately to his Greatsword, refusing to let go.

Nami hugged the broad blade tightly, dangling from Garen's hand like a candied hawthorn skewer.

The sword had flown far too fast just now. The instantaneous, extreme acceleration had made Nami feel as though her insides were churning with nausea, and her entire body was still trembling uncontrollably.

At that moment, Nami was like a kitten that had climbed up a tree but was too scared to come down—cute and pitiful.

"Yo."

Garen could not help giving Nami a wicked smile.

"Isn't this my little girlfriend who ran away from home?"

"A girl is flying in the sky?!"

"Is she flying on a sword?!!"

"So cool!"

Even in the World of One Piece, where superhumans were everywhere, the ability to fly was hardly commonplace.

The residents of the East Blue, the weakest sea, had seen nothing so novel.

Sword Flight sent Nami soaring into the air, instantly making her the center of attention amid the bustling town.

And at that moment, a group of fierce-looking men noticed it as well.

Every one of them stood bare-chested, displaying knotted muscles and intricate tattoos. Combined with the gleaming steel cutlasses in their hands, they radiated the aura of people not to be messed with.

They were pirates—the Steel Cutlass Pirates, a notorious force in the East Blue.

Their captain was nicknamed "Steel Cutlass," and his weapon of choice was also a steel cutlass. His bounty stood at a full ten million Beli.

In the East Blue, the weakest sea, that amount was already enough to make people tremble in fear.

Steel Cutlass had roamed the East Blue with his underlings for years, committing every sort of arson, murder, and plunder. Yet few dared to provoke him.

Steel Cutlass himself was powerful but simple-minded. Once he got ruthless, he would even dare to directly challenge great pirates with higher bounties than his own.

Not long ago, Steel Cutlass and his crew had fought a bloody battle to seize a major haul from another great pirate with an even higher bounty.

That terrifying pirate had a bounty of fifteen million Beli, a full five million more than Steel Blade Captain's price.

Not only that, the pirate was also a powerful Devil Fruit user, an exceptionally rare sight in the East Blue Sea. In a direct fight, Steel Blade Captain was no match for him at all.

Yet despite how powerful their opponent was, the Steel Cutlass Pirates had relied on a bit of luck to snatch away valuable treasure right from under his nose.

Defeating a stronger foe and even gaining considerable advantage had been something worth boasting about.

If that glorious achievement got spread around, Lord Steel Cutlass's bounty would rise further, and he would not be far from the throne of East Blue overlord.

But afterward—

They had actually been outsmarted by an orange-haired little girl.

The treasure worth more than two million Beli that Steel Cutlass had fought so desperately to seize from that great pirate was completely stolen by Miss Nami with a little trick.

That was naturally an unforgivable crime.

Feeling that his intelligence had been insulted, Steel Blade Captain followed Nami's escape route all the way to Samwell Island.

"Is that brat really here?"

Steel Blade Captain, who had put not a single point into intelligence and dumped all his attribute points into chopping people, impatiently roared at his subordinates.

He had no hobby of taking his crew shopping. Robbery was more like it.

The crew's navigator wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and answered nervously.

"She is definitely on this island!"

"The direction she fled in points here. And this island is the largest supply stop along this route, making it perfect for hiding her tracks."

"That thief is definitely here!"

But the hot-tempered Steel Blade Captain could not calm down at all. He merely waved the long blade in his hand and snarled.

"Then where is she?!"

His blade was already thirsting for blood.

Suddenly, the surrounding crowd stirred.

"Boss, we found her!"

One lackey shouted excitedly, "I saw that female thief!"

"You found her? Hahaha!"

Steel Blade Captain revealed a savage, cruel smile. The blade in his hand reflected a chilling glint beneath the sunlight.

"Good!"

"Today, I'll let that lowly thief learn what it means to have no path to heaven."

Before he could finish his threat—

The lackey shakily pointed toward the sky in the distance, his tongue twisting into knots as he spoke.

"That, that thief..."

"She went to heaven."