Out of His Depth

"What?!" Shiryu could hardly believe his eyes.

He swung Raiu again, unleashing a Blood Blade even stronger than the last, and only then managed to steady his footing.

"Looks like all those years in prison have left the former chief jailer of Impel Down behind the times," Swain said calmly.

In Swain's eyes, Shiryu was strong!

But he was nowhere near the ranks of the very strongest.

At the very least, Shiryu wasn't strong enough to make Swain use his awakened abilities.

Shiryu hated being called the former chief jailer of Impel Down. It was the sorest point of his life!

"Don't get too full of yourself, brat!" he snapped. "I haven't shown you my true strength!"

Behind him, Blackbeard listened to Shiryu's bluster in terror. He almost wanted to cut ties with him on the spot. Shiryu, that's one of the Four Emperors! How dare you talk like that?

And how did a few words from him get you so worked up?

It was true!

Shiryu hadn't even noticed that Swain's words had driven him to prove how strong he was.

But a member of the Four Emperors was a member of the Four Emperors. There was nothing hollow about that strength!

If they were so easy to defeat, newcomers to the New World wouldn't pick and choose between challenging Red-Haired and Big Mom.

And most of them chose to challenge Big Mom.

Very few newcomers challenged Whitebeard or Swain.

They often got driven off by powerful subordinates before they even saw either man's face.

Otherwise, they were sent to the mines in Wano Country. These newcomers had constitutions a hundred times stronger than ordinary people's and worked like tireless machines.

After a period of observation, those willing to join the pirate forces would be taken in, but they