Set Sail, Crossing Reverse Mountain!

Wude commandeered a decently sized pirate ship, and the surviving pirates were spared due to his "magnanimity," becoming laborers used to help him sail.

The chests filled with Berries were carried onto the pirate ship by the laborers, and the rest of the pirates followed Wude onto his small boat to help move his belongings over.

Arriving on the decently sized pirate ship with its clean deck, Wude put one hand in his pocket and looked up overhead.

Kuroh was striking a pooping posture in the crow's nest again, spouting strange words.

A weird, repetitive machine.

"Tear down the Jolly Roger for me," Wude said.

"Got it!" a laborer hurriedly replied.

Only when he looked up did he realize Wude wasn't speaking to him at all.

Kuroh ripped down the pirate flag in one go, and then was dismissed by Wude, his black physique vanishing.

"Are there any unmarked sails?" Wude looked at the skull symbol on the sail.

"There are," the laborer responded.

"Then swap in the blank sails."

"Understood!"

The laborers bustled about in succession.

Wude was heading to the Grand Line and needed a sufficiently reliable ship.

Hijacking a ready-made pirate ship directly was the most convenient option, but he didn't want to get accidentally injured by the Marines halfway, so he changed the pirate insignia.

He definitely didn't want to play the trick of obviously not being a pirate yet deliberately causing a misunderstanding that got him mixed up in the pirate faction.

Once those laborers finished tidying up everything and moved the supplies, booze, and food onto the ship, Wude waved his hand to signal setting sail and starting the journey.

As for the pirate crew, the corpses of the pirates with bounties were gathered together, placed on the deck, and packed into bags.

These were money too; when traveling away from home, preparing a bit more cash was always better.

Wude lay down to rest on a bedroom bed inside the cabin, while the laborers operated the ship, sailing toward Branch 144.

Because of the moves he and Kuroh had made earlier, these people guessed there was still an "invisible person" on the ship monitoring them, and they shivered one by one, not daring to resist or harbor any disloyal thoughts.

In reality, Kuroh had already been put away by Wude.

Wude lay on the bed, a dagger and a flintlock pistol placed under his pillow, clutching a sword in his arms.

On the wall opposite the door, a crossbow was also hung, with a cord connecting to the doorknob and the arrow aimed right at the entrance.

You had to knock upon entering, or you'd be dead.

Only then did Wude set his mind at ease, close his eyes, and sleep.

A few days later.

A vessel docked at the shore of the island where the 144th Marine Branch was located.

Wude walked off the ship, followed by a few laborers, those guys responsible for carrying the body bags.

All the way through the town, they arrived in front of the Marine base.

They happened to run into Bellemere walking out the front gate.

"What are you...?" Bellemere looked behind Wude in bewilderment, her expression startled.

Good grief, there were quite a few corpses; anyone who didn't know better would think they were headed for a crematorium.

"Ah, I just wiped out a large pirate crew in one go; these are all money, you see." Wude chuckled and spread his hands, implying that she should hurry up and fork over the cash.

"Impressive." Bellemere counted the corpses; besides Elton, Krieg, and a few other valuable pirates, there were also quite a few worth tens or millions of Berries.

"Follow me."

Bellemere led Wude into the Marine base to exchange them for the bounties.

Another tens of millions of Berries hit the account, and it felt great.

Before leaving, he met with Captain Vincent, and the other party gave him some items, among which was a Log Pose.

As he left the Marine base, Wude went to the town, bought some things, returned to the ship, and set off for Reverse Mountain.

There are two ways to head to the Grand Line: one is to cross the Calm Belt head-on and force your way through, which is not recommended; the other is through the canal of Reverse Mountain.

The supplies on the ship were fully prepared, and they passed Loguetown directly, approaching Reverse Mountain.

As they got closer and closer to Reverse Mountain, a large patch of dark clouds appeared in the distant sky.

The laborers nervously looked at Wude one after another. He took out a blueprint and briefly explained, "Actually, it's very simple. Passing through the canal is far safer than aggressively charging the Calm Belt; we can enter the Grand Line just by going through it."

"Oh, I see!" Laborer A said thoughtfully.

"So where on earth is the Red Line, anyway? How come I haven't spotted it yet?" Laborer A suddenly scratched his head again and asked.

"So what on earth did you understand?!" Laborer B slammed a palm onto Jia's forehead.

"It's fine, nothing will go wrong." Wude cheered the laborers on.

Well, it was him who would be fine...

After all, Wude could have Kuroh carry him away flying at any time.

"There's still danger..." Sitting by the side of the ship, Wude recalled Nami's analysis in the original story of the "four major ocean currents and Reverse Mountain," concluding that near the rock walls of the Red Line, extremely strong downward ocean currents would be generated, impacting ships.

If they failed to charge into the entrance of the canal, the slightest mishap would cause the ship to smash into the Red Line, destroying the vessel and killing everyone.

However, since he had already come, he had to appreciate the peak scenery no matter what.

The ship sailed into the rain cloud range; the rain fell harder and harder, and the weather grew worse and worse.

The laborers hurriedly stopped chatting, having discussed for half a day without figuring out why a canal would climb up a mountain.

They hurriedly started bustling about, making preparations for sailing into the Reverse Mountain canal.

"I must be crazy, what did I just see?!" Laborer C stared dumbfounded into the distance.

Following the direction Wude pointed, the people actually saw seawater rushing into the canal, flowing along one stone gate after another, heading straight up toward the heights of Reverse Mountain.

"I've seen water flowing backward; even if I die, this lifetime was worth it." Laborer A had just finished speaking when Laborer C smacked him across the mouth.

"Shut up, jinx!"

Aside from Wude, most people on the ship watched with their hearts in their throats.

"A whirlpool..." Laborer D looked into the distance at the boundary where the Red Line met the seawater, where a whirlpool swirled at high speed, terrifying as if it wanted to suck people's souls away. "My legs have gone weak."

With a calm expression, Wude waved his hand to signal them not to panic.

Only then did the laborers calm down.

Wude glanced at Kuroh, who had been released to the side.

The rain had an impact on the IBM, and Kuroh's movements would be affected.

Still, he had experimented previously; there was indeed an effect, but it could still fight and fly.

Affected didn't mean afraid of water.

"Look behind us, a pirate ship is coming over," a laborer shouted, and Wude hurriedly looked back.

"Hey, you bunch of losers, hurry up and make way for his lordship!"

In the rear, on a pirate ship bearing a flag with twin crossed snakes, a burly figure pointed at Wude's ship and roared arrogantly.

Beside the burly figure was a scrawny figure who raised a gun, looking ready to open fire and shoot.

"Oh no, these guys have bad intentions at a critical moment like this." The laborers anxiously looked at Wude one after another.

"Rest assured, it's not a big problem." Wude waved his hand and sat to the side, watching the pirates in the rear.

"Daring to put to sea without any strength, you guys might as well just crash straight into the Red Line and die."

"Ahahaha!"

Those pirates laughed frantically, yet despite shouting so aggressively, Wude's ship was about to rush into the canal, right in front of them.

These pirates would follow closely behind as well, and they didn't dare to actually attack.

Terrified that ship hulls reduced to wreckage would implicate them, they merely acted smug with their mouths, arrogantly firing a couple of shots into the sky from time to time as a threat.

With hair-raising narrowness, the ship's hull surged into the canal, and the laborers cheered out loud one after another.