Encountering a Celestial Dragon!

"Captain?" Norton called out softly from the side.

Swain was fast asleep on the deck, and the weather today was quite nice.

Before this, Swain had asked Jordi to build a grand master chair.

Jordi was the shipwright Swain had recruited at Water 7.

Swain simply described the shape and function to him briefly and let him get to work.

According to Swain, this task was his entry exam for joining the ship. (Though it was really just someone's hedonism.)

It took less than two days for him to cobble it out, and the result was not bad at all! Ever since then, Swain came to the deck for a nap every single noon.

He was even considering whether to recruit a pretty maid when they reached the Sabaody Archipelago, which would make things truly perfect.

"Hmm?" Swain heard someone calling him and groggily woke up.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It looks like some people are fighting ahead!" Norton said, pointing forward.

After sailing on the sea for nearly a month, they were less than half a day away from the Sabaody Archipelago.

With how many pirates wanted to go to the New World, running into a fight at a time like this was completely normal.

In fact, during their voyage, Swain and his crew had even run into two groups of pirates, but upon seeing it was Swain, those pirates had scampered off dejectedly.

You've got to be kidding!

This was a pirate worth 1.6 billion Beli! And someone who could fight an Admiral to a standstill! How could he be foolish enough to go court death?

That was the shared inner voice of every pirate who ran into Swain.

Actually, that was not an exaggeration.

At this point, Swain was probably one of the individuals with the highest bounties in the Grand Line.

1.6 billion was still selling a pirate who could rival an Admiral short!

After all, later on, after the Four Emperors Buggy the Clown founded the Cross Guild and put a reverse bounty on marines, a single Admiral was worth three billion Beli!

That alone was enough to show Swain's strength!

Swain looked in the direction of Norton's finger, and sure enough, two groups of people had started fighting.

The strange thing about the situation, however, was that one side was chasing while the other was running.

The group that was fleeing did not even fight back.

Even though their ship was already on fire from being shelled, they still refused to fight back.

"Is that guy out of his mind?" Norton could not help mocking.

Getting beaten up and not even fighting back?

That was definitely having something wrong with your brain!

"If he fights back, he'll probably die even more miserably!" Jordi chimed in, walking closer.

Swain was also watching silently.

Now it was Norton's turn to be utterly dumbfounded.

"Celestial Dragons?" Norton finally noticed the flag on the ship behind them.

"Sail right at them!" Swain ordered.

Upon hearing this, Jordi looked a bit hesitant and said, "We'd better not provoke them, right?"

After all, this was what most people in the pirate world understood.

Celestial Dragons!

Supreme and absolute! Even if you were bullied, you could not fight back!

However.

Swain had no intention of listening to some damn rule!

He had loathed the Celestial Dragons for a long time! In other people's eyes, they were supreme "gods."

In his eyes, they were just a pile of crap!

"Sail over there!" Swain commanded once again.

His tone left no room for question.

He knew that Jordi's advice came from a good place.

However...

He had specifically come to pick a fight with the Celestial Dragons!

The Neptune accelerated forward under Jordi's helm.

Meanwhile, on the side of the Celestial Dragons.

"Fire! Blast them into dust for me!"

"Wretched commoners! How dare they walk ahead of me!"

Two men wearing bubble helmets said one after the other.

"Understood." Their subordinates knelt on one knee to obey the decree.

On the attacked pirate ship:

"Captain! If we don't fight back, our entire crew is going to die here!"

"What are you blindly shouting for! Those are Celestial Dragons! Celestial Dragons!"

"They aren't just any stray cats or dogs! If we fight back, we'll die even more miserably!" the captain shouted in terror and anger.

Looking at the captain, who looked like a coward right in front of him, the crewman felt extremely helpless.

He picked up a gun, aimed it, and said, "Give the order already!"

"Dicky, what are you doing!" Faced with the muzzle of the gun, the captain stopped shouting and hollering.

Bang!

The man named Dicky was shot and dropped to the deck.

Blood flowed from the back of his head, and he was dead!

"Dicky!"

The captain looked at the person who had stayed by his side ever since they first set sail collapse onto the ground.

Every burst of laughter from the past, every sweet memory they once shared.

Flooded into his mind at this exact moment.

He was dead...!

That fear of the Celestial Dragons in his heart.

Was instantly overwhelmed by his own surging rage.

"I'm going to kill you!!!"

The captain screamed at the Celestial Dragon standing before him with a raised pistol.

The Celestial Dragon looked at him with a disdainful gaze.

It was as if an ant had just died, and this particular ant was making a somewhat noisy fuss.

"Audacious! How dare you disrespect a god!"

A man in a suit appeared and said.

This was naturally a bodyguard of the Celestial Dragon.

"Shigan!" He coated his fingers in Armament Haki.

And pierced directly through the captain's chest.

To the bodyguard's surprise, the man before him still wasn't dead.

The fury in that captain's heart had completely numbed him to the pain radiating from his chest.

He raised his saber, intending to slash the neck of the person in front of him.

However.

Before the bodyguard could even counterattack, another gunshot rang out, and the captain collapsed.

Before he died, the unwillingness lingering in his eyes never faded away.

"Such trash! I have to do a chore like this myself."

One of the Celestial Dragons behind the bodyguard said.

He fired a few more shots into the captain's head, sending red and white matter splattering all over the deck.

"Not bad, your marksmanship has improved again!"

The two Celestial Dragons conversed casually.

It was as if the lives they had just taken truly belonged to a pair of ants.

The ship of the Celestial Dragons was already approaching the port of the Sabaody Archipelago. Looking ahead, a large crowd of people had already come out to welcome them.

Right at that moment.

A ship of identical size sailed out from behind them.

At the bow of the Neptune, Swain and Norton stood side by side.

Showing not a shred of fear!

"Two more reckless commoners!" The Celestial Dragon was utterly enraged.

Today, people had dared to offend him repeatedly in succession.

This time, he was going to throw this offender into a frying pan.

Yet he never once considered that no one had actually provoked him at all.

It was always just him demanding that everyone else revere him like an emperor!

Yet there were always people who broke these rules!

And shattered his sweet dreams!

"Norton, burn down their flag!" Swain instructed.

Norton loosened up his joints, and a rapid crackle of colliding bones echoed through the air.

He had loathed the actions of these Celestial Dragons for a long time.

If the captain hadn't held his order, he would have already rushed out to turn this bunch of scum into roasted suckling pigs.

What Hoof of the Soaring Dragon? Just some suckling pig trotters!

He flapped his wings and soared high into the sky.

"What is that commoner trying to do?"

Norton was seen swinging his blade forward.

A blade-shaped pillar of flame burned away the flag fluttering proudly above!

This saber had been specially forged for him by Luke.

"How dare they?" People on the Sabaody Archipelago were naturally watching these developments unfold.

"That pirate flag looks a bit familiar!"

"It's that rookie pirate from a while ago! Swain!"

Someone recognized Swain standing on the Neptune.

"That person covered in full armor must be Norton, who has a bounty of 300 million Beli!"

"They're declaring war on the World Government! Isn't that too reckless?"

"Offending the Celestial Dragons means they won't live much longer!"

"That's not necessarily true! That Swain is a man who can fight Admiral Kuzan to a draw!"

The crowd discussed animatedly. Some agreed, while others argued against them.

Yet they still underestimated Swain's daring.

Offend the Celestial Dragons? He was even planning to kill them! (PS: "It" is not a typo by the author!)

Swain made his move as well.

With a thought, he slowly raised his right hand upward.

Instantly, the sea surface began to churn violently.

Following that, a massive wave nearly a hundred meters tall began to gather and rise.

At that moment, the Celestial Dragon's ship looked no larger than a tiny ant.