Pirate Worth Over a Hundred Million Kneels, Big Brother's Cover Blown

Ace touched his broken ribs.

The pain constantly reminded him of his own weakness.

He had once thought that as long as he built up enough strength, he could go anywhere he pleased.

Today, he finally understood that brute force was utterly worthless before true skill.

Ace felt the taste of blood welling up in his throat.

He forcibly swallowed it back down.

Sabo leaned against an abandoned cargo container, dragging his dislocated arm.

Sweat drenched his face from the pain.

His blond curls were soaked through and plastered against his forehead.

Yet he clenched his teeth and did not let out a single cry of pain.

His eyes, usually filled with cleverness and calculation, were now full of confusion and shock.

A pirate worth over a hundred million.

A monster with a name even in the New World.

Was actually Big Brother Kahn's subordinate.

And judging by how practiced they were at kneeling and kowtowing, along with the fear in their hearts.

There was no way that could have been achieved by force in just a day or two.

Sabo recalled the black armor wrapped around Garino's arm.

He knew it was called Armament Haki.

Big Brother Kahn had demonstrated it before them before.

But when Kahn used it, it had seemed as natural as eating or drinking.

When Garino used it, however, it carried a heavy stench of blood.

It was a killing technique forged through countless life-and-death battles.

Sabo then recalled the skinny man named Salome.

The instant the man disappeared.

He had not even caught an afterimage.

If Ace had not shouted and knocked that assassin unconscious.

Luffy's head would already have rolled into the trash heap.

Was this the New World?

Was this the real sea?

Sabo gave a bitter laugh.

He lowered his head and looked at the water pipe snapped in two by his feet.

For the past three years, they had used those lousy water pipes to play vigilantes in High Town of the Goa Kingdom.

They had beaten those pampered noble guards until they scattered in defeat.

They had even been smug about it.

They had thought the little puddle called the East Blue could no longer contain true dragons like them.

Now, it seemed like the greatest joke in the world.

Frogs at the bottom of a well.

They had not even touched the edge of that well.

Yet they had dreamed of judging the size of the sky.

Luffy's stomach let out a thunderous growl.

The sound was especially jarring in the deathly silent ruins.

"I'm hungry."

Luffy held his shrunken belly.

He looked at the pirate grunts sprawled unconscious across the ground.

"Do these guys have any meat on them?"

"Idiot."

Ace cursed irritably.

"Can't you think of anything besides eating?"

"But Big Brother said that if I don't eat enough, I won't be able to finish that ten-thousand-word self-criticism."

Luffy blinked innocently.

At the mention of a ten-thousand-word self-criticism.

Ace and Sabo's expressions became a hundred times worse than if they had eaten dead flies.

Ten thousand words.

For Sabo, a young nobleman who had received an elite education since childhood, it might only mean a sore hand.

He could probably scrape it together by staying up all night.

But for Ace and Luffy, two illiterates who could barely even write their own names straight.

It was crueler than skinning them alive.

"Big Brother did this on purpose."

Ace gritted his teeth and punched the ground.

"He just wants to watch us scratch our heads and make fools of ourselves."

"He's a complete and utter perverted demon!"

Sabo sighed.

He supported himself with his uninjured left hand and struggled to his feet.

"Stop complaining."

"If we don't finish it."

"Tomorrow, he really will throw us into the sea to feed the Lord of the Coast."

"Do you think Big Brother was joking when he killed people just now?"

Ace and Luffy shuddered at the same time.

They knew Kahn too well.

That monster always did what he said.

If he said he would hang you from a weather vane, he definitely would not hang you from a tree branch instead.

Ace struggled to his feet.

His legs were still trembling uncontrollably.

He walked over to Sabo.

He carefully placed Sabo's dislocated arm over his shoulder.

Luffy also came over.

Using his uninjured arm, he supported Sabo's lower back.

The three brats supported one another.

Limping toward Mount Colubo.

The setting sun stretched their shadows long and longer.

Casting them across the mountain-high heaps of garbage.

Ace walked in the middle.

He looked back at the bay that had been completely wiped away.

That searing heat seemed to still linger in the air, scorching his skin.

He touched his chest.

When that strange power had erupted just now.

He had felt as though he could control the life and death of everyone around him.

The feeling had been strange.

And overbearing.

Although Kahn had dismissed it as worthless.

He knew it was an incredibly terrifying power.

One day.

Before that perverted big brother.

He would unleash that power perfectly.

He would make Kahn take back those piercing words of mockery.

He would prove that he deserved the name Portgas.

That he deserved the identity of Roger's son.

He would never admit defeat.

Sabo walked on the right.

He was still calculating Kahn's influence in his mind.

Eclipse.

He had once overheard the name while hiding in a corner at a noble banquet, listening to important people discuss it in hushed voices.

It was an underground emperor that not even the king of the Goa Kingdom dared provoke lightly.

Rumor had it that they controlled all weapons and intelligence throughout the East Blue.

He had never expected the mastermind behind such a colossal force to be Big Brother, who lay on the mountaintop basking in the sun every day.

It was madness.

But he liked that kind of madness.

It only strengthened his determination to go to sea.

He wanted to see what kind of world could make pirates worth over a hundred million willingly submit.

He wanted to write the most truthful travelogue about this sea.

Not the hypocritical, pretentious fairy tales found in noble libraries.

Luffy walked on the left.

He was still agonizing over whether dinner would include roasted wild boar.

As for nearly having his throat cut earlier.

His big heart had long since tossed that matter aside.

But somewhere in his heart, he vaguely understood one thing.

His fists were still not hard enough.

If he could not train them until they could punch through mountains with a casual swing like Big Brother's.

He could not even block the bad guys' blades.

How could he become the Pirate King?

How could he protect the companions by his side?

"Hey."

Ace suddenly spoke.

His hoarse voice echoed across the empty Trash Mountain.

"What is it?"

Sabo turned his head to look at him.

"One day."

Ace stared at the sky growing darker in the distance.

His eyes shone with a frightening brightness.

"I'm going to beat that bastard Big Brother flat."

"And make him write a hundred-thousand-word self-criticism in front of me."

Sabo froze for a moment.

Then he burst out laughing.

The laughter pulled at his wounds, making him suck in sharp breaths.

"Count me in."

"I want to beat him up too."

Luffy raised his fist and shouted.

"I'll make him roast meat for me every day!"

"He won't be allowed to sleep until I'm full!"

The three bloodied brats.

On this foul-smelling Trash Mountain.

Made the most arrogant and distant vow of their lives.

The wind swept through the trees.

Bringing with it the scent of roasted meat from afar.

Dadan was preparing dinner.

Tomorrow would be another new day.

Their hellish special training.

Had only just begun.