Blackbeard's Fear! The Red Hair Pirates' Collective Shock!

Blackbeard was the first to wake up.

"Pfft—"

Blackbeard suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs. The charred scar Amaterasu had burned into his chest was horrifying enough, not to mention where Lynn's final stomp had landed. His entire chest had caved in, and who knew how many ribs had been broken.

He coughed violently, every breath pulling at agony so severe it tore through his heart.

Still, his physique was undeniably formidable.

An ordinary person would have long since died beyond saving!

"C-Captain! A-Are you all right?!" Burgess's voice trembled, his face filled with terror.

His other intact hand still retained the numbness from when Lynn's Conqueror's Haki had overwhelmed him.

Blackbeard struggled to open his eyes. Those eyes, usually gleaming with schemes and ambition, now held only the shock of surviving a disaster and deep fear.

"That... that brat..."

"H-He's a monster! A real monster!"

He wanted to laugh, wanted to use his signature "Zehahahaha" to hide the fear in his heart, but he found that he could not even pull at the corners of his mouth.

Pain!

His whole body hurt!

Yet worse than the pain in his body was the trembling deep within his soul!

That baby!

That baby in crotchless pants!

Amaterasu!

The Eight Gates!

That earth-shattering kick!

Every image replayed endlessly in his mind like the most terrifying nightmare.

"My Dark Water... was actually useless against him..." Blackbeard muttered, his eyes full of disbelief.

The Dark-Dark Fruit he had taken such pride in, the power that restrained all ability users, had been nothing but a joke before that brat!

"W-What exactly is he...?"

Burgess was equally shaken. Looking at his ruined arm, he still felt lingering fear.

"Captain, what... what do we do now?"

Blackbeard fell silent.

What could they do?

He still wanted to fight for supremacy in the New World?

He still wanted to become the Pirate King?

But after witnessing Lynn's absurdly terrifying power, all his ambitions had temporarily been suppressed by a single thought: survive.

"The New World... is too dangerous..." Blackbeard said with difficulty.

"Kaido's son... is actually terrifying to this extent..."

"We... we're going back to Paradise first!"

"We have to find more companions! Greater strength!"

"Before we have absolute certainty, we must never provoke that little monster again!"

He was scared.

Truly scared.

That brat's gaze had been too cold, so cold that he could not sense the slightest trace of life within it.

At that moment, Rockstar slowly woke up as well.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Blackbeard's miserable face and Burgess's ruined arm.

"Y-You..."

He suddenly remembered everything that had happened before he lost consciousness.

That tiny figure, those strange eyes, that terrifying Conqueror's Haki!

"The letter! My letter!" he cried out, instinctively reaching into his clothes.

There was nothing there.

"It's over..." Rockstar's face turned deathly pale.

The important letter Captain Shanks had entrusted to him had been stolen!

And it had been stolen by a nursing baby!

What left him even more hopeless was that even a powerhouse like Blackbeard had been beaten half to death!

"I... I have to go back and report to Captain immediately!" Rockstar struggled to his feet. Without even bothering to greet Blackbeard and the others, he staggered toward the depths of the island. He had to find a ship somehow, or send out a distress signal.

Blackbeard watched Rockstar's retreating figure without stopping him.

He could barely save himself right now. How could he spare any thought for someone else?

"Kaido... Lynn..." He gritted his teeth and engraved those two names deeply into his heart.

Sooner or later, he would settle this score!

But not now!

The next day.

Aboard the Red Hair Pirates' Red Force.

"What?! Rockstar, you were defeated by a nursing baby?!"

Lucky Roux held a drumstick in his mouth, disbelief written all over his face. He nearly spat out the bone.

"And the letter was stolen too?!"

Usopp's eyes widened as well, and he whistled. "Hey, hey, Rockstar, have you been slacking off in your training lately? You couldn't even handle a little brat?"

Rockstar looked aggrieved and humiliated. His face was covered in bruises, and bandages wrapped his body.

"He wasn't an ordinary little brat!" he hurriedly argued.

"He was Demon Child Lynn! Kaido of the Beasts' son! That monster with a bounty of one billion!"

"Demon Child Lynn?"

"Kaido's son?"

The atmosphere aboard the ship instantly grew solemn.

Shanks sat by the railing. The smile on his face faded as his hand holding the wineglass froze in midair.

Benn Beckman held a cigar between his lips, his brow faintly furrowed. "Kaido's son... why did he take your letter?"

"I... I don't know!" Rockstar replied miserably.

"The moment that brat appeared, he specifically demanded the letter in my clothes! When I refused, he attacked right away! His Conqueror's Haki... was too terrifying! I couldn't even react before I..."

As he spoke, his body involuntarily trembled. Clearly, he had recalled that despairing pressure.

"Conqueror's Haki?" Shanks's gaze shifted slightly.

Conqueror's Haki strong enough to leave Rockstar completely unable to resist was no ordinary level of power.

"And that's not all!" As if remembering something even more terrifying, Rockstar's face turned even paler.

"There were two other fairly strong people there at the time... they were the ones who saved my life."

"But when I woke up, the two of them were in even worse shape than I was. Both were vomiting blood, and it looked like they had lost at least half their lives..."

"Wait, Rockstar." Benn Beckman frowned. "What was with those other two people?"

Rockstar described the entire sequence of events in detail.

Red-Haired Shanks's expression shifted slightly as he listened.

"You're saying... one of them had a mouth full of black beard? And missing teeth?!"

"Yes, Captain!"

"Blackbeard!"

Shanks's face darkened. His fingers lightly touched the scar over his eye. "It can only have been him!"

"But... even he was defeated by Demon Child Lynn?!"

The Red Hair Pirates' officers also showed subtle changes in expression.

No one understood Blackbeard's strength better than they did.

He had left a scar on Red-Haired Shanks.

He had killed division commander Thatch.

He had even escaped Whitebeard's pursuit.

And someone with that kind of strength had actually been defeated!

"That Lynn... was really just a one- or two-year-old baby?" Usopp felt as though his entire worldview had been shaken.

"Absolutely! He was wearing crotchless pants!" Rockstar said firmly, afraid they would not believe him.

Benn Beckman took a deep drag on his cigar and slowly exhaled smoke. His expression became grave to the extreme.

"Kaido's son... Demon Child Lynn... it seems we all underestimated how dangerous that brat is."

"To nearly kill even Blackbeard... his strength can no longer be summed up by the word potential."

Silence fell over the ship.

Everyone had been stunned by the news.

A one- or two-year-old baby possessing such terrifying strength completely overturned everything they knew.

Shanks was silent for a moment, then drained the wine in his cup.

"It seems the New World is about to stir again," he said slowly, his voice low.

"Rockstar, go get some rest first."

"Yes, Captain." Rockstar felt as though he had been granted amnesty and hurriedly withdrew.

"Captain, that letter..." Benn Beckman looked at Shanks.

Shanks shook his head. "The letter was stolen, so there's no way to pursue the matter for now."

"That Lynn is Kaido's son. With how overbearing he acts, he's probably not someone who can be reasoned with."

"Our top priority is still meeting Whitebeard first."

"Whitebeard must learn about Blackbeard as soon as possible. Ace has to be recalled quickly... otherwise, this will become a major problem!"