Battle! So Exhilarating!

On a small pirate ship in the Paradise section of the Grand Line, Shanks, wearing a straw hat, looked at the newspaper in his hand, a trace of longing flashing through his eyes.

A year ago, after Roger had been executed, Shanks had set out to sea directly.

He had decided to retrace the path his captain had once traveled.

Red-Haired Shanks had already begun making a name for himself across the seas.

"Captain!"

A round-faced young man clutching a huge drumstick leaned over to look at the newspaper in Shanks's hands.

"Huh?"

Hearing someone call him, Shanks blankly raised his head and looked at the chubby face beside him.

"Hahahaha, the captain was scared stupid!"

Seeing Shanks like this, the fat man threw back his head and laughed, and the other crew members immediately burst into laughter as well.

Hearing his crew mock him, Shanks froze for a moment, then raised a hand to hold down his straw hat and joined in the laughter.

After a while, the laughter died down, and Shanks shook the newspaper in his hand.

"You saw it, right? This man fought Kaido for seven days without a winner. That's what a true powerhouse of the seas looks like. Before this, he was just a great pirate with a bounty of eighty-seven million."

Shanks waved the newspaper in his hand, his expression excited.

"We're going to make our names known across the entire sea too, and conquer the whole Grand Line."

"Yeah!"

The moment the pirates heard Shanks's words, they began cheering.

No one believed they could not do it.

Shanks's personal charisma had already begun to show.

"Captain, that guy caught up again!"

Just as everyone was cheering, a pirate suddenly raised his hand and pointed into the distance.

Shanks looked up at once. A small boat was rapidly approaching from afar. On it, a hawk-eyed man rowed with the blade in his hand. Seemingly noticing that they had spotted him, he raised his hand and slashed. A green Flying Slash shot toward them.

Shanks gripped the hilt at his waist and answered with a slash of his own.

The two Flying Slashes collided and shattered.

"Men, sail! Now!"

Shanks was a little flustered. That guy was a battle maniac.

They were not enemies and had only met a few times, but after learning that Shanks knew swordsmanship, the man challenged him countless times every day, leaving him completely drained day after day.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Amid the sounds of Flying Slashes colliding, the larger and smaller ships began a pursuit across the seas of Paradise.

Dragon, who had already resolved to change the world, looked at the newspaper in his hand, his eyes filled with astonishment.

He had been following the battle in Wano Country closely and had been curious about who this powerful man was.

Now that he knew, he found it unbelievable instead.

He even felt that Lin Ye looked familiar, as though he had seen him somewhere before.

"Chief, should we recruit such a powerhouse into our great cause?"

The person beside him, with an enormous head and clown makeup that made it impossible to tell their gender, asked.

"It would be difficult to change the mind of someone that powerful."

Dragon was tempted, but he shook his head in the end.

What they needed now was time to develop.

He knew very well that, following this newspaper report, countless eyes would be fixed on this man.

Under such circumstances, even if they invited him and he agreed, it might not be a good thing for them.

"But this man does look familiar. Madman Lin Ye... I should have seen him before!"

Dragon stroked his chin, his gaze sweeping over the newspaper.

"He joined the Moria Pirates a year ago? A year ago?"

Dragon hesitated, then his eyes suddenly narrowed.

"Loguetown in the East Blue? The day King of the Pirates Roger was executed... the day I resolved to change the world."

Dragon's eyes widened.

He remembered.

Was this the child who had killed Marines back then?

How had he changed so much in just one year?

But back then, judging by his attacks, his strength seemed to be...

Dragon's eyes were filled with disbelief.

This made no sense!

He had been able to judge Lin Ye's strength back then. Lin Ye definitely had not been a powerhouse.

And only one year had passed?

What exactly had happened?

Dragon stopped thinking. His mind had completely frozen.

With the World Economy News Paper's report, the entire world was in turmoil.

Morgans, determined to create a huge story, had truly gone all out this time.

Thanks to him, even fishermen on remote islands who lived by fishing knew that another top-tier powerhouse had appeared on the seas.

Another major figure capable of shaking the world.

Of course, Lin Ye himself still knew nothing about any of this.

Lin Ye, currently fighting Kaido, felt only one thing.

Battle! So exhilarating!

Lin Ye had never imagined that fighting could make him feel this way.

Before, he had always treated battle as a means of obtaining Blank Entries.

And against those opponents he had encountered before, with his cheating advantages, they would die in one or two moves at most.

Or rather, those had not counted as battles at all. They had merely been slaughter.

Only this battle against Kaido was a true fight.

A battle of fists against flesh truly set one's blood racing.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Lin Ye swung his fists. His suddenly thickened arms struck the descending spiked club, producing the sound of metal clashing against metal.

With the force of Lin Ye's final punch, the spiked club was smashed high into the air.

Boom!

Kaido, exposed by that punch, could only watch as Lin Ye's fist crashed into his face.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

His body was sent violently backward, his feet stamping across the shattered earth.

Kaido raised a hand to cover his face.

"You bastard, what exactly are you trying to do?"

Kaido covered his face with one hand and propped his spiked club against the ground with the other, looking completely frustrated.

"I can't kill you now, and you can't kill me either!"

Kaido stared fixedly at Lin Ye.

"Our battle is meaningless."

Looking at Kaido, panting heavily and growing increasingly frustrated, Lin Ye also breathed lightly.

Several new wounds had appeared on his body as well.

Yet his spirit was more vigorous than ever.

"Battle is meaningless?"

Lin Ye raised his fist. Two Types of Haki coiled around it, and even the space around his fist distorted slightly.

"Battle itself is the meaning, Kaido!"

A fervent smile appeared on Lin Ye's face.

Previously, he had directly added points to his entries to grow stronger, and his power had indeed increased. But to him, his control over that power had been far from effortless.

After seven days of fighting Kaido, his use of Haki and his body had improved far beyond what it had been seven days earlier.

Of course, although he was stronger than he had been seven days ago, he had not improved by much.

After all, at this level of strength, even becoming a little stronger was extremely difficult.

But he was still improving.

Hearing Lin Ye's words, Kaido across from him clearly became even more frustrated.

Why had he not realized at the start of the fight that this guy was a battle lunatic?

And over these seven days, Kaido had clearly felt that Lin Ye, whose combat experience had been severely lacking before, was rapidly developing his battle instincts.

Was he being used as a punching bag for practice?