West Blue's Don

After listening, Whitebeard slowly lowered his sake bowl and took the newspaper. His deep gaze swept over the headline and the freshly printed bounty poster of the silver-haired young man with a cold expression.

After a moment of silence.

"Gurarararara!!!"

A bold laugh, immensely penetrating and infectious, suddenly burst from Whitebeard's mouth, making the air around him tremble slightly.

"What spirit and courage that rookie pirate has! He actually took down both World and Chinjao, those two old geezers? Although they were long past their prime, pulling that off is still quite incredible!"

A trace of admiration flashed in Whitebeard's eyes, but it was soon replaced by puzzlement and reflection.

"Still... he actually made that prideful brat Bullet submit willingly? That really does surprise me. Gurararara!"

Marco nodded in agreement beside him, the lingering shock still evident on his face.

"Yeah, are rookies these days really this terrifying? To have such outrageous achievements while still a rookie, he's a monster through and through!"

By common understanding, any pirate who had not officially entered the Grand Line or passed through the Sabaody Archipelago was still considered a rookie.

"Gurararara! A monster?" Whitebeard set down the newspaper, lifted his enormous sake bowl, and took another deep drink. As his laughter gradually faded, an age-worn look that seemed to see through the years appeared in his eyes. "This level is still far from enough to be called a monster, Marco."

His gaze seemed to pierce through time and return to an era that had been wilder, an era filled with even more great figures. By his standards, anyone who could not, like his late captain Rocks, begin their rise to fame as a rookie pirate by killing a Marine admiral was utterly unworthy of the word monster.

What constituted a monster had entirely