At that moment, Ace, who had been knocked unconscious for the second time, slowly woke up.
"Damn it! You bastard! You..."
As soon as Ace woke up, he remembered being knocked out again. Grief welled up in him, and he started swearing.
But halfway through his tirade, he suddenly noticed how quiet it was around him.
The furious sounds of battle had filled the whole area just moments ago. Why had they suddenly vanished? Was it already over? Who had won? Had Pops lost? Had he already been thrown into prison?
For a moment, thoughts kept flashing through Ace's mind.
But when he struggled to lift his head and look around, he realized he seemed to still be at the same docks. Pops and the others were still there, too, and Jozu's head was still being pressed into the ground. So why had they suddenly stopped fighting and started looking his way? They were looking at him, right?
Just then, Ace suddenly noticed someone else beside him. He nervously raised his head to see who it was and found that the man wasn't wearing a mask. That put Ace at ease. Come to think of it, this guy was pretty handsome.
Unexpectedly, the man spoke in a teasing tone. "Young man, were you talking to me?"
Well, Ace had no particular reaction to that, but Whitebeard panicked first. After witnessing Su Yu's performance just now, he was still feeling apprehensive. Su Yu clearly meant to make a move...
"Mr. Su Yu, Ace..."
Before Whitebeard could finish, Ace spoke first.
"Ah, I'm terribly sorry for troubling you. A hateful masked man knocked me out earlier, and I thought he was still beside me, so I blurted that out in the heat of the moment. Please forgive me."
It had to be