At the center of the Colosseum, a group of contestants gradually gathered.
They were renowned powerhouses from all over the world.
Some were burly, some sinister, some wild and unruly, while others were calm and reserved.
Every one of them radiated a powerful and dangerous aura that no one dared underestimate.
Shanks, Luffy, Blackbeard, Marco, and Jozu stood among those powerhouses, proudly facing the countless gazes from the surrounding stands.
Those gazes held admiration, awe, curiosity, and mocking schadenfreude.
Just then.
"Fufufufufu!"
A distinctive, bizarre laugh rang out from the crowd.
Doflamingo strutted over toward Shanks and Blackbeard with that swaggering, nobody-in-his-eyes gait.
"Well, well, aren't these our three great pirates?"
He adjusted his sunglasses, his lips curling into undisguised mockery.
"Red-Haired Shanks, Straw Hat Luffy, and Blackbeard Teach."
"Fufufufu! What a rare combination."
He first turned his gaze toward Shanks.
"Say, Shanks."
His eyes fell on Shanks's arms, and his smile became even more cutting.
"Those two arms of yours are quite interesting."
"Your own hands were chopped off long ago, weren't they?"
"The two attached to you now belong to that old man Rayleigh, right?"
He let out a shrill, bizarre laugh.
"Fufufufu! That antique Rayleigh has been dead for more than ten years, hasn't he?"
"You're still here pretending to be some powerhouse with the arms of a dead man from decades ago?"
"If that doesn't make you patched-up junk, then what does?"
Shanks's expression did not change in the slightest.
As a pirate, he had heard far worse insults than that.
A baboon barking in front of him was not worth another glance.
But Doflamingo had insulted not him, but Rayleigh, and that inevitably stirred some anger within him.
These hands could be called something the World Government had forced upon him, or Rayleigh's final gift