New World Disturbance
The navy failed to capture him.
Marineford was reduced to ruins, Steel Bone Kong was dead, and even the legendary Lord of the Void Throne was forced out. And then what?
The navy withdrew from the entire West Blue.
What this means is clear to anyone who has spent a few years in the New World — the West Blue is now ruled by the Uchiha.
The first to react were the small and medium-sized pirate crews that were struggling to survive between the Four Emperors.
They are not qualified to participate in the territorial disputes of the New World; Division Commander under one of the Four Emperors could easily crush them if he happened to pass by.
But now, the West Blue is empty.
To be precise, the West Blue is controlled by one person, who neither flies the banner of the Four Emperors nor recruits pirates.
While some were afraid, others sensed an opportunity—no matter how strong the Uchiha was, how many of them were there?
The vast West Blue always needs people to run errands and manage the ports and shipping routes abandoned by the navy.
Even being a mere peripheral vassal of the Uchiha is better than being cannon fodder in the New World.
Within a few days, several pirate ships quietly set sail from a dozen or so inconspicuous ports in the New World.
There were no grand oaths, no farewell drinks, and no crowds to see them off. They simply drew a new route on the nautical chart late at night, then turned the ship around and headed towards the West Blue.
Among them were a small captain struggling to breathe under the pressure of the Four Emperors, a lone wolf with a bounty exceeding 100 million but unable to find a powerful backer, and several intelligence brokers who had been observing the situation before the Summit War.
Everyone was surprisingly in agreement—let's go take a look.
Even just touching the edge of those three guardian islands surrounding Origin Island, to see with my own eyes what the man who cleaved Marineford two with a single strike really looked like.
This sea has never lacked gamblers.
This time, they placed their bets on the new player, the Uchiha.
When the first batch of pirate ships arrived at the outskirts of Spirit Awakening Island, the port's garrison was changing shifts.
The sentry on the watchtower lowered his binoculars, rubbed his eyes, and took another look.
On the sea, a dozen or so pirate ships of varying sizes were slowly approaching in a loose formation. The flags hanging on their masts Eight Gates with no uniform markings, clearly indicating that they were not from the same group, but rather like a group of stragglers who had met by chance at sea and temporarily banded together.
Garrison Captain Uchiha Ryosuke put down his patrol log, picked up Amplifying Den Den Mushi, and spoke in a calm tone belying the dozen or so fully armed pirate ships, "Vess ahead, you have entered Uchiha- controlled waters. Stop, report, and submit to inspection."
The pirates did as instructed.
There was no resistance, no shouting, not even a single unnecessary word.
These seasoned pirates, who had lived a life of constant danger in the New World, obediently followed the port guide's instructions to dock their ships at the designated berths, registering their ship names, captains, crew numbers, and weapon lists one by one.
Ryosuke looked at the long list of pirate crews, some familiar and some unfamiliar, on the registration form and raised an eyebrow slightly.
Among these people are several captains with bounties exceeding 100 million, who could roam freely in any sea area, but now they are obediently queuing up to receive temporary passes.
When the news reached Origin Island, Natsu Yin was checking the Nightingale Guard's organizational list with Fugaku.
He took the message scroll, glanced at it, and casually handed it to Fugaku, speaking in a flat tone as if he were talking about today's cafeteria food, "Let them investigate, and handle it according to the rules."
The port is open; supplies will be sold at market price. Temporary passes are valid for fifteen days; if expired, you must either renew them or leave the port. As for those who wish to seek refuge—"
He paused, tapping his fingertips lightly on the table twice. "Have Tekka set up a temporary recruitment point on Spirit Awakening Island. Bring over the Royal Academy's regulations and screen them first."
This migration began as a tiny, insignificant ripple.
A small pirate crew, overwhelmed by the Beasts Pirates, set sail under cover of night, leaving behind a provocative letter for Kaido, and the next day headed at full speed towards the West Blue.
Immediately afterwards, the second, third, and fourth—the fastest to react were those marginal forces struggling between the Four Emperors. They had little territory to defend, so they ran without any psychological burden.
By the fifth day, even some medium-sized pirate crews that were somewhat famous in the New World began to waver. They gathered in the tavern and argued endlessly. Finally, in the dead of night on the seventh day, they quietly set sail without disturbing even the drunken regulars at the dock.
Two weeks later, this trickle had grown into a staggering torrent.
It took less than ten days for the berths at Spirit Awakening Island Port to go from being half empty to being completely full. Port management personnel had to urgently open up a temporary anchorage on the west side of the island, using buoys and cables to demarcate a temporary mooring area in the nearshore waters.
More than one-tenth of the pirate crews in the New World are converging on the West Blue from all directions—not to fight, but to find a place to survive under the umbrella of the Uchiha.
At that very moment, standing atop the watchtower on Spirit Awakening Island, Uchiha Ryosuke lowered his binoculars and whispered to the newly arrived Heavenly Star Guard squad leader beside him, "Our Lord Natsu's strike cleaved Marineford."
However, pirates are ultimately mostly vicious thugs who live on the edge.
There were those who dutifully obtained their passes, but there were also those who, seeing that the Uchiha were few in number and thinking they couldn't manage such a large area of West Blue, dared to test the limits.
Alderlai Island is like a piece of tofu that no one bothers to care about. It's right next to the shipping lane, with no troops stationed there or sentries. The town is just a bunch of honest fishermen and merchants.
As the fishing boats returned to port in the evening, a pirate crew casually docked.
The fire started in the warehouse by the dock.
When the dry wooden planks were splashed with strong liquor, flames shot up into the air, illuminating the harbor.
The fishing boats' mooring lines were burned through, and they drifted out to sea with flames trailing behind them, like lanterns floating downstream.
Before the old fishermen guarding the warehouse could retrieve their account books from the dock, they were hacked to pieces on the steps. Their blood flowed into the sea through the cracks in the stones, attracting a group of sharks that circled around the dock.
On the second floor of the bakery at the entrance of town, a mother was huddled in a corner, holding her infant.
Her husband, the town's only doctor, was being held down on the clinic floor by three pirates, forced to bandage the wounded pirates first.
He knelt on the ground, his white coat splattered with other people's blood, his hands trembling so much he could barely hold the hemostats, yet he kept saying, "Please don't go to the backyard, please don't go to the backyard."
Only his wife and their newborn baby were in the backyard.
Nobody listened to him.