A Second Private Meeting

"This should be our second time meeting, right?"

A towering cliff, the sea wind fierce.

Teach gazed at the man before him, who wore a dark green coat. His appearance had hardly changed over all these years.

"Yeah. May I ask what you wanted to see me about this time?" Dragon asked thoughtfully, looking at Teach with a hint of wariness.

This was indeed their second meeting. During the Golden Sea Battle, Teach had approached him with an invitation and proposed a deal. It had earned the Revolutionary Army a great deal of money and food, putting them on the fast track to growth. Their forces had expanded rapidly in just a few short years.

Though that kind of growth had also brought the Revolutionary Army some problems, it had taken them many years to more or less resolve them.

Still, he had gained plenty from the deal, especially considering he had only needed to make a single move.

The slave-liberation incident at Mary Geoise hadn't involved the Night Pirates directly. Instead, they had served as the go-between, securing the Revolutionary Army plenty of money, comrades, and prestige.

But things were different from back then. The man before him now stood at the pinnacle of the world's power, with an influence on the world no less than that of the Gorosei—and perhaps even greater.

With a single word, he could determine the life or death of countless people. No other pirate could do that.

The Night Pirates—or rather, the Night Empire—had grown terrifyingly powerful.

Dragon had access to special intelligence from within the World Government. He knew that the government had lost a great deal of its forces in the Night Sea Domain some time ago.

He didn't know exactly how many forces had been lost, but he could work