"You came, Shanks."
With a long, complicated sigh, a spine-chilling scene unfolded.
The shadow in that corner suddenly twisted like boiling water.
Then those shadows actually peeled away from the ground, climbing and gathering upward like black liquid, until they slowly condensed into substance and took on Beckman's familiar, towering form.
Seeing the eerie way he appeared, Shanks's face darkened sharply, and his hand instinctively pressed to the hilt of the sword at his waist. "Looks like I shouldn't have come!"
"What do you think this is? A reward I got for betraying my brothers and surrendering to the World Government?"
Beckman looked at Shanks's guarded movement and gave a self-mocking laugh.
That face of his, always so calm and wise, was now filled with the deep exhaustion of someone who had seen through everything.
Then, in the next second—
Shanks's Observation Haki failed to catch even the slightest hint of air movement or muscle contraction.
Beckman's figure vanished from his retina out of thin air.
No path of movement!
No afterimage!
By the time Shanks's mind had just registered that Beckman was gone, in that split half-instant, a warm touch had already landed silently on his right shoulder.
So fast!!!
Shanks's pupils instantly shrank to pinpoints.
Every hair on his body stood on end like steel needles, and the extreme sense of danger made his body instinctively move to draw his sword and counterattack.
If what had landed on his shoulder just now had not been a hand, but a blade, he would not even have known how he died.
But years of comradeship, the trust forged through countless brushes with life and death, ultimately forced Shanks's muscle memory down at the critical moment.
He released the sword hilt, clenched his teeth, and did not turn around.
He believed