In the New World, on the sea at the edge of the Calm Belt, the night was black as ink.
The Sword of Xebec, a ship converted from an enormous raft, rose and fell gently with the waves.
Its wooden frame occasionally gave a low creak, unusually distinct in these silent waters where even the Sea Kings slept.
The deck lacked the noise and chaos of an ordinary pirate ship.
Six figures were scattered along the rails, in the mast's shadow, or beside stacks of supply crates, each occupying a corner.
They formed a delicate balance, wary of one another yet forced to coexist.
Blackbeard, Marshall D. Teach, sat beneath the mainmast on a heavy wooden barrel brought over for the occasion, his massive body almost entirely engulfing it.
He held a brand-new bounty poster, his rough fingers rubbing its edges as his gaze locked on the figure at its center.
A boy with snow-white hair and eyebrows, cheerful white steam rising around him, and a smile so radiant it was almost uncanny.
[Monkey D. Luffy, bounty: 3 billion Beli, dead or alive.]
"Zehahahaha..." Blackbeard's mouth spread into his signature gap-toothed grin, his laughter sounding especially greedy on the silent deck.
He raised the bounty poster and waved it at the "Champion of the Colosseum," Jesus Burgess, who was exercising nearby with an enormous stone dumbbell.
"Hey! Burgess! What do you think of Straw Hat Boy's Devil Fruit...?" Blackbeard's eyes gleamed in the dim light.
"Looks like it's one hell of a mythical Zoan, too!
Aside from Chou Chou and her nine-tailed fox, we don't have a second mythical Zoan user aboard, do we? Hmm?"
Hearing his captain's words, Burgess lowered the dumbbell, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and laughed in his gruff voice. "Ahahaha! Captain!"
"That's