Tiger, Dragon, and Phoenix: Howling Overlord Tiger

"This is... Conqueror's Haki?!"

At that moment, Gu Sheng's strength was elevated to a whole new level. He finally understood what it truly meant for Conqueror's Haki to possess an unyielding refusal to submit to anyone.

It was a state of mind—a mindset of self, the mindset of the strong.

Gu Sheng's path had been far too smooth before this. He had also relied somewhat too heavily on his foresight and golden finger, leaving a certain flaw in his sense of self. Put simply, he lacked confidence. Marco suffered from the same problem. His dependence was Whitebeard—Whitebeard had made him, but had also shackled him.

In the world of One Piece, refusing to submit to others did not simply mean possessing a spirit of rebellion. Nor did every Conqueror's Haki user have to be the leader of something.

Take Rayleigh and Barrett from Roger's crew, or Katakuri, the First Sweet Commander of Charlotte Linlin's crew. All of them were powerful men who possessed Conqueror's Haki. Even the Marines, who were seen as puppets of the Celestial Dragons and the least likely faction to produce a Conqueror's Haki user, had a powerhouse like Wise Marshal Sengoku among them.

If refusing to submit to others merely meant pursuing freedom, then Sengoku would definitely have been unqualified. For the sake of the justice he believed in and the burdens he carried, he had compromised many times—especially when facing the World Government.

Refusing to submit to others represented a kind of will: the will to uphold and protect what one believed in without wavering.

Sengoku pursued justice, and everything he did was for justice. He had always firmly believed that. Similarly, Whitebeard, Katakuri, Rayleigh, and the others all had pursuits of their own. They had never wavered, and had continued onward until reaching the