Pirates: A Blood Feud-Kill Every Celestial Dragon!

"That's..."

Everyone looked out the window, stunned.

Not far from Marineford, a figure was repeatedly punching a mountain!

With every punch, the mountain shook, sending huge rocks tumbling down its slopes!

The mountain itself was visibly shrinking!

What made everyone's scalp tingle was that the mountain was soon leveled!

The figure immediately moved to another nearby mountain and kept pounding away!

He was using mountains as punching bags!

"Garp, that guy..." Kong nodded in satisfaction.

Garp was probably the only person in all of Marine Headquarters who could use an entire mountain as a training bag!

Garp had already reached Admiral-level strength, but Kong knew he had the potential to go even further!

"Finally, send the wanted poster across the world immediately!"

"Warn people how dangerous he is!"

"Hey, did you hear? Rono, the Most Evil Criminal, killed a Celestial Dragon!"

"What? He killed a Celestial Dragon? Did the Marines send an Admiral?"

"Of course they did! Iron Fist Garp rushed to the scene right away!"

"What? Even Iron Fist Garp went? He's the Marine everyone's been talking about lately!"

"And not just Iron Fist Garp. Kong, Buddha Sengoku, and Zephyr went too!"

"What? All those powerful fighters were there?"

"They were, but Rono still got away—and killed the Celestial Dragon!"

"My God! He killed a Celestial Dragon with all of them there? The World Government and the Marines must hate his guts!"

"Obviously! His bounty's shot up to 1.5 billion!"

"1.5 billion?! My God, isn't this only his second bounty?"

In the bars of the Sabaody Archipelago, almost everyone was discussing that day's newspaper!

They were deeply shaken by what they had read.

People talked back and forth, afraid they might have missed a detail.

And it was not just the Sabaody Archipelago. Bars across almost the entire world looked the same.

"Hahaha! I didn't expect you to pull ahead again, Rono!"

Meanwhile, in the New World of the Grand Line...

Roger stood aboard an ordinary sailboat, laughing as he held the newspaper.

Five or six people now stood behind him.

Clearly, Roger had recruited several dependable companions since parting ways with Rono.

"The Most Evil Criminal, Rono? Captain, do you know him?"

Rayleigh, Gaban, and several other crew members gathered around, curious.

First Steps with the Rocks Pirates: A Rough Welcome

"Captain, do you know the Most Evil Criminal?"

Rayleigh, Gaban, and the others crowded closer, eager to hear.

The Most Evil Criminal had been the most talked-about pirate on the seas lately.

He had even overshadowed the Rocks Pirates.

First the Heavenly Tribute, then the death of a Celestial Dragon, and then his escape from several Admiral-level fighters. Pirates everywhere followed his exploits with fascination, admiration, and envy.

Even Rayleigh and Gaban were no exception.

"Hahaha! Rono? He's no most evil criminal. He just has a grudge against the Celestial Dragons."

Roger laughed, dismissing the title the World Government had given Rono.

That was how the World Government worked. It called black white and white black.

But Roger had not expected Rono to join the Rocks Pirates!

That crew was notoriously brutal and often attacked nations and civilians.

Then again, Captain Rocks had his own quarrel with the Celestial Dragons and often went after them. Perhaps that was why Rono had joined him.

"Still, you've overtaken me again already. That stings."

Roger looked at Rono's 1.5-billion bounty and felt a surge of competitive fire.

His own bounty was only a little over 800 million. He needed to step things up.

"Whatever happens, I'm not losing to you. We'll give it everything we've got!"

"Come on, everyone! Let's take down that Devil Pirates crew with the 700-million bounty up ahead!"

Roger led his crew toward the large pirate crew in the distance.

At the same time, on Hachinosu in the New World...

It was the wealthiest island in the New World and the home base of the Rocks Pirates.

Whitebeard and Rono had landed on Hachinosu.

Their arrival immediately drew a crowd!

"Look! Isn't that Captain Whitebeard, the First Division Commander? Has he been away?"

"I was wondering why I hadn't seen Captain Whitebeard for a few days."

"Huh? There's someone with Captain Whitebeard. Who... who is that?"

"Holy shit, am I seeing things? Isn't that Rono, the Most Evil Criminal everyone's talking about?"

"He's got a 1.5-billion bounty! He killed a Celestial Dragon right in front of Kong, Garp, Sengoku, and Zephyr! What's he doing on Hachinosu?"

"It really is him! Did Captain Whitebeard disappear for the past few days to find Rono?"

"Don't tell me this guy's joining the Rocks Pirates too."

"Does that mean the Rocks Pirates have another big-name pirate?"

Members of the Rocks Pirates crowded around, keenly interested in Rono's arrival!

This was the Most Evil Criminal who had recently stolen even their crew's spotlight!

His bounty was 1.5 billion, higher than Captain Whitebeard's.

Of everyone in the Rocks Pirates, only Rocks himself had a higher bounty.

The pirates studied Rono from every angle, wanting to see whether he was as vicious as the papers claimed.

After all, the World Government's newspapers had portrayed Rono as an exceptionally vicious criminal!

Arson, murder, robbery, attacks on civilians—according to them, Rono was as brutal as any pirate alive!

Yet no matter how they looked at him, Rono did not seem like the sort of pirate who committed every evil imaginable.

Thud. Thud!

The next moment, some of the pirates in the crowd rolled their eyes back, lost consciousness, and collapsed.

Rono was releasing Conqueror's Haki.

He hated having a crowd chattering around him as if he were a monkey in a zoo, so he had decided to intimidate them a little.

Nearly half the pirates fainted. Some of those who remained conscious could barely stand.

They were all small fry, but even so, it showed how different the Rocks Pirates were from other crews.

If Rono had unleashed his Top-Tier Conqueror's Haki on another pirate crew, probably only its captain and a few key officers would have stayed on their feet.

"What powerful Conqueror's Haki! He's every bit as strong as Captain Whitebeard and Captain Shiki!"

Sure enough, as soon as Rono made his move, the pirates who had nearly been knocked over hurried back, clearing a path for him and Whitebeard.

They now had a rough measure of Rono's strength.

Judging by Conqueror's Haki alone, Rono was no weaker than First Division Commander Whitebeard or Second Division Commander Golden Lion Shiki!

It seemed the newspapers had not exaggerated everything.

"Gurarara! You really didn't hesitate to make a move." Whitebeard laughed.

"They were buzzing around me like pests. I couldn't stand the noise," Rono said.

"Some of the ones you knocked out belong to Golden Lion Shiki's division. Others are with Silver Axe, Ochoku, John, and Charlotte Linlin."

"You've barely arrived and you've already offended them all," Whitebeard warned him.

"Isn't that how the Rocks Pirates operate? Why worry about offending anyone?" Rono seemed unconcerned.

Members and officers of the Rocks Pirates often fought each other. Sometimes, those fights even ended in death.

Offending someone was routine. Sometimes a careless remark was enough to earn a grudge without your even knowing why.

Rono could not be bothered with all that. First, he would knock down the people getting on his nerves.

"Gurarara! Fair point. I was overthinking it." Whitebeard had seen what Rono could do.

So what if he offended them?

Besides, Golden Lion, Silver Axe, and Charlotte would not fall out with another officer over a few insignificant underlings.

Just then, someone approached from a short distance away.

His presence was terrifying. Rono could feel it from afar!

Rono had never encountered a presence so overwhelming.

It was stronger than Whitebeard's and his own, and stronger than Kong's, Garp's, Sengoku's, or Zephyr's!

Only when the man drew closer did Rono see him clearly.

His exaggerated, spiky red hair stood straight up, and the sea breeze whipped his red cloak around him!

Even his loose clothing was stretched taut over his muscles!

He was not especially tall, standing around two and a half meters, but his suffocatingly powerful air of authority made it impossible to underestimate him!

This was Rocks D. Zebek, the ruler of these seas!

"Hahaha! Rono, meeting you in person beats everything I've heard!"

"To tell you the truth, I've been looking forward to your arrival all these days!"

Rocks saw Rono, then the crew members lying unconscious all over the ground. Far from being displeased, he burst into hearty laughter!

He was not what Rono had imagined. Rather than cold and cruel, Rocks seemed surprisingly approachable.

If not for the terrifying air of authority radiating from him, it would have been hard to believe he captained the strongest pirate crew on the seas!

Then again, brute force alone could hardly have brought so many great pirates together.

"Go tell Shiki, Charlotte, John, Ochoku, and the others!"

"We're holding a banquet tonight to celebrate Rono joining us!"

Rocks gave the order, and the underlings hurried off to notify Shiki and the rest.

That evening, renowned officers including Shiki, Charlotte, John, and Silver Axe arrived.

For one thing, they respected Captain Rocks and had to heed his orders.

For another, they wanted to see for themselves what the Most Evil Criminal everyone had been talking about was like.