The Interrupted Battle

"I'm telling you, Nereus, do you not believe in your own strength, or do you think I'm not strong enough? Harald may have peace on his mind all day long, but there's no questioning his might.

As long as the three of us join forces with one heart, we can take the first step toward conquering the entire world!"

On this sea, conviction was an extremely important thing. Those whose beliefs were not firm would usually encounter all kinds of setbacks on their path to growth.

Even for the same person, whether they lost their ideals could bring enormous changes to their future path and even their appearance.

Without exception, everyone who ultimately stood among the world's strongest possessed absolute faith in their own beliefs.

In Rocks's eyes, there was nothing wrong with his ideas. It was simply that everyone else refused to cooperate with him.

"I never said you were weak. But the World Government isn't weak either.

Think about the Celestial Dragon elites within the Holy Knights, the Admirals of Marine Headquarters, and CP0's covert agents. All of them are powerful forces the World Government can directly command.

More importantly, when necessary, the World Government can even use methods like the World Military Draft to replenish lost troops in an extremely short time and quickly recover its strength.

What about you, Rocks? What do you truly have to rely on?

Those so-called 'loyal' crew members you won through the Davy Game?

Compared with notorious Pirates who made people tremble at the mere mention of their names, more people on this sea still chose, deep down, to believe in the World Government.

To believe in that entity which, though already rotten beyond measure, still maintained an outward appearance of order."

The World Military Draft was indeed the World Government's usual method of rapidly replenishing its forces.

And it did not merely add ordinary rank-and-file soldiers. It could even uncover and recruit civilian powerhouses capable of matching an Admiral in combat strength.

Fujitora Issho and Ryokugyu Aramaki were civilian experts discovered in precisely that way.

Even though Ryokugyu was later mockingly called a "temp-hire Admiral" because of his various performances, he still possessed crushing power over ordinary fighters.

And hidden powerhouses like them generally leaned more toward trusting the legitimate order represented by the World Government.

As for the Davy Game Nereus mentioned, it was a special form of contest that circulated among Pirate crews sailing the seas. Its full name was the Davy Back Fight, also known as the Davy Jones Fight.

The game mainly involved setting up various events to compete for the other side's crew members or the Pirate flag symbolizing a crew's honor.

Within the Rocks Pirates, the members were either an alliance of interests gathered for their own ambitions and purposes, or subordinates forcibly claimed through the Davy Game.

If a true crisis came and they encountered serious trouble, those people would probably be completely unreliable.

"The overwhelming majority of people in the world still choose to trust the World Government. Even if your ideas, Rocks, somehow succeeded in taking the first step, you would inevitably face endless trouble and resistance afterward."

"What can those pathetic fodder do, no matter how many there are? What I want is to become the King of the World who rules the entire world!

Whether they resist or not is none of my concern! Is that the trivial nonsense you're worried about?!"

Their fierce battle never stopped, yet amid the gaps between their fists, kicks, and clashing blades, such pointed arguments continued without cease.

"That's exactly why I say our fundamental beliefs are vastly different."

"You... In the eyes of those lofty world nobles and ordinary people alike, aren't you still defined as a heinous Pirate? Do you possess the things you keep talking about?"

"We haven't known each other for just a day. Don't you know what I've been doing on this sea all these years?"

The seawater that had been forced back in every direction by the shockwaves of their violent clash now began to surge back.

The scene resembled a terrifying tsunami, with enormous waves rushing toward the center of the battle.

Yet those towering waves, which seemed capable of swallowing everything, were now precisely gripped by an invisible giant hand under Nereus's exquisite Fish-Man Jujutsu, transformed into a powerful weapon in his hands.

Guided by Fish-Man Jujutsu, the massive wave that blotted out the sky came crashing down on Rocks's head with overwhelming force.

"Hmph, those slaves you keep talking about having freed? They can't even guarantee their own basic safety. They're nothing but a bunch of weaklings. What use could they possibly be!"

Rocks roared and swung his blade, splitting the overhead wave in two with a single strike before charging at Nereus again without hesitation.

In his deeply rooted view, weaklings of that level were worthless no matter how numerous they were.

"I never expected them to charge into battle. Think carefully—are there more nobles, or more commoners scattered everywhere?

Even citizens of World Government member states cannot escape the tragic fate of being targeted and abducted by lawless slave traders. Is that really such a rare thing?"

There were countless islands scattered across this vast sea, as numerous as the stars. Among them, the number of non-member nations far exceeded that of member nations.

From the World Government's official perspective, those non-member nations were lawless lands beyond legal protection.

There, whether it was large-scale slaughter or the wicked capture of slaves, such acts were actually tacitly permitted as legal under the rules established by the World Government.

From the standpoint of so-called legal justification, selling the people of non-member nations as slaves was an extremely common occurrence on this sea.

But once someone unfortunately fell into the hands of those utterly unscrupulous slave traders, no one cared whether the captive came from a member nation, nor would anyone investigate it.

"What I need is only for the people I rescue to tell those around them who gave them their freedom.

As this message spreads and accumulates day after day, people's views and opinions of us will naturally begin to change.

Isn't what Harald has done the best proof? Haven't quite a few people already started to believe that the Giant Race, which looks incomparably fierce on the outside, is actually kindhearted and good?"

"On some of the islands we sailed past, I did hear people discussing how your Fish-Man Pirates had been freeing slaves everywhere. I even met slaves whom you had personally freed."

"I hope you didn't make a move against those poor people who had only just gained their freedom."

There was teasing in his tone. Nereus knew Rocks's habits well, and in truth, that was indeed the case.

"Bastard! What do you take me for? What could those penniless fools possibly have that was worth robbing!"

"Then you have seen the results with your own eyes. Whether what I've done all these years has had any meaning, I'm sure you understand perfectly well by now.

Those two legendary Devil Fruits you've been desperately searching for—by now, you probably haven't truly obtained even one of them, have you?"

"..."

Rocks fell into brief silence. He could still argue against their earlier disputes over ideals. But now, faced with this established fact pointed out by Nereus...

His progress truly was infinitely close to zero. Harald's inclinations clearly leaned more toward the World Government, and persuading him to join would likely be far more difficult than persuading Nereus before him.

Since he could not win with words, he would finish this with a fight first. But before Rocks could make another move, a man with striking golden hair forced his way through the powerful aftershocks stirred up by their fierce battle and flew toward them.

"You two... stop! Stop fighting for now! There's news about Hachinosu's 'treasure'..."