Meanwhile.
News Coos flew over the New World, dropping newspapers from high above.
Taverns, ports, merchant ships, Marine Branches, Adventurer's Guilds—more and more people saw the same front-page photograph.
White hair, white clothes, curled eyebrows, and a ring of white cloud trailing behind his shoulders.
Luffy threw back his head, grinning extravagantly.
[Captain of the Sunshine Adventure Group · Monkey D. Luffy!]
[Unknown White Awakening Form makes its first appearance in the New World!]
[Blackbeard Pirates officers Pizarro and Catarina Devon captured!]
[Basco Shot confirmed dead!]
Further down were two more inconspicuous lines in small print.
[Following the incident, several Cipher Pol operational units under the World Government abruptly terminated their original missions.]
[Large numbers of secret forces have urgently redirected toward the target sea area.]
Ordinary people naturally had no idea what "Nika" was.
They only knew that a newcomer who had entered the New World not long ago had suddenly made the World Government put aside many matters it had been handling.
Even stranger, after everyone had been deployed there, they had all stopped outside.
Red Hair Pirates.
Shanks sat by the rail, having stared at a newspaper for a long time.
The people around him drank, argued, and carried on as usual.
Lucky Roux was fighting over the last piece of meat, while Yasopp stood beside him scolding him for having no shame.
Only Beckman noticed that Shanks had barely spoken since receiving the paper.
He walked over and lowered his eyes for a look.
"Luffy?"
Shanks did not answer. His finger pressed down on one corner of the photograph.
White hair.
White clothes.
And that smile.
After looking for a long while, he finally let out a quiet murmur.
"So this is it..."
Beckman's eyes shifted slightly.
"You know what happened to him?"
"A little."