Whitebeard asked again, curious.
The other man's eyes did indeed feel strangely familiar, as though he had seen them many times before.
Suddenly, the man flicked his right hand and tossed a jar of wine toward him.
Whitebeard was a little surprised, but he reacted quickly and caught it.
"What's this supposed to mean?"
He asked, puzzled yet amused.
He had never expected to have wine to drink in this prison.
Just then, the tall man before him slowly spoke his first words since arriving.
"It's been a long time, Newgate!"
In an instant, Whitebeard's pupils contracted, and he stared fixedly at the man before him.
"You're...?!"
The man raised his hand and slowly removed his mask, revealing a faint smile on a face both familiar and unfamiliar.
"It really has been a long time!"
"You must have forgotten me by now, haven't you?"
Shock, horror, disbelief—all these emotions flooded Whitebeard's heart at once, making his entire body tremble.
"No, impossible!!"
"You're still alive?!"
Whitebeard shouted in shock.
His eyes remained fixed on the man, who had changed completely from the figure in his memories. He could not believe what he was seeing.
Yet, although the man's features had changed, he was still the person Whitebeard remembered.
"Alive?"
"Perhaps you could call it that!"
"But it's not quite the same as being alive!"
The man smiled, his words carrying an obscure meaning.
To be precise, he should now be called an artificial human rather than a human in the ordinary sense.
The only thing that distinguished him from the artificial humans at the base was that he still possessed his own consciousness.
"I was there on the battlefield."
"I watched your fight with Xia Le from afar!"
The man spoke softly, a trace of wistfulness in his voice.
"You had