The fierce wind howled over the completely desolate ground. Swept by the visual shockwaves of the preceding battle, this area had been permanently transformed into a barren clearing.
A radiant, unbridled smile illuminated the face of every single member of the Straw Hat crew. Red Hair Shanks was the primary catalyst who had set Luffy onto his path across the sea—and the ultimate benchmark Luffy had been relentlessly searching for since the very day of his departure.
The Emperor, Red Hair Shanks.
Historically, this name had carried a mythical weight that felt completely out of their reach—the absolute pinnacle of the pirate hierarchy, a sovereign ruling over the treacherous waves of the New World.
An Emperor of the Sea.
Yet today, they stood proudly before Red Hair's perimeter, and Luffy had formally traded balanced blows with Shanks in a grand, legendary duel.
At this definitive juncture, the Straw Hat Pirates and the Red Hair Pirates stood positioned opposite one another, as Luffy and Shanks locked eyes across the short distance.
"Shanks... I am absolutely going to make it a reality. I am the man who will become the Pirate King!" Luffy declared proudly, his face radiating an absolute, iron-clad confidence.
Zoro nodded smoothly, a sharp smirk parting his lips to reveal a gleam of white teeth as his right hand rested instinctively against the familiar hilt of his sword.
It wasn't just Zoro; every single member of the Straw Hat vanguard squared their shoulders, their expressions intense and overflowing with unyielding pride. This wasn't merely a personal reunion between Luffy and Shanks; it was the formal assembly of the Straw Hat Pirates and the Red Hair Pirates.
As of this hour, the Straw Hat Pirates were officially recognized as a Yonko-caliber fleet.
Although witnessing the true depth of Shanks's raw power had delivered an immense psychological shock to their command structure, they refused to let their momentum falter when the eyes of the world were upon them. This was a formal summit between two sovereign fleets; they had to project the absolute, towering presence of an Emperor's crew.
"Splendid!" Shanks burst into a booming laugh, his expression instantly sharpening as his gaze swept across the alignment of the Straw Hat vanguard.
A thin layer of cold sweat broke out on Usopp's forehead. Although he spent his days loudly boasting about being "Captain Usopp" commanding an army of eight thousand subordinate fighters, merely standing opposite the Red Hair Pirates—even when they harbored zero hostile intent and wore warm, teasing grins—left his baseline composure pushed to the limit.
Of course, a massive internal modifier was the simple reality that the solitary figure he had yearned to face for over a decade stood right before his eyes. His unyielding determination forced his physical vessel to sustain the line.
Today, he could finally hold his head high and stand proudly before that man.
He was fully aware that his personal combat metrics hadn't reached the absolute zenith of power across this ocean, but he understood that every human vessel possessed its own structural constraints. He was an ordinary man; all he could realistically execute was to pour his entire soul into chasing his dream and forging himself into the warrior he yearned to become.
He had given his absolute all!
Because his comrades anchored his flanks, he could look upon the colossal titan that was the Red Hair Pirates without a single shred of raw cowardice. He had successfully ensured he would never let that man down.
A brave warrior of the sea. This was the ultimate, defining pursuit of his voyage.
Faced with Shanks's intense scrutiny, a heavy solemnity settled over the Straw Hat vanguard, completely unable to decipher what tactical evaluation the Emperor was executing.
Just as the structural tension reached an uncomfortable peak, Shanks suddenly erupted into a manic, belly-shaking roar of laughter.
Slapping his thigh continuously with his single hand, his mouth stretched into a massive, unbridled grin as he bellowed, "Since your vessel has successfully cleared the horizon, I can't possibly permit you to depart without a grand reception! Men, deploy the logistics—we're throwing a banquet!"
"How could any sanity navigate a historic holiday of this scale without executing a massive celebration? Bring out every single fraction of our accumulated meat and alcohol! Today, not a single soul leaves these coordinates sober!"
The Straw Hat vanguard froze in unison.
They had been compressing their lungs and maintaining an intense, high-level combat readiness for this extended timeline, only for Red Hair to casually pivot into a massive party script. Particularly Nami—she truly couldn't decipher whether her cognitive system should burst into tears of relief or hysterical laughter.
"Bwahahaha... Luffy! Drag your ass over here and let me take a look at you! Time truly moves like a fleeting shadow. Before our networks could even process the data, the little brat who used to chug fruit juice has actually grown into a towering powerhouse!" Lucky Roux roared with laughter, marching straight toward Luffy.
The core executives of the Red Hair Pirates had deciphered exactly what maneuver their Boss was executing the precise microsecond his mouth opened. Consequently, the exact fraction of a second Shanks decreed the banquet, the vanguard had already initiated high-speed logistics deployments.
Concurrently, the veteran crewmates who had logged dense memory files on Luffy's childhood psychology closed ranks around his coordinate in tandem.
"Hahaha! Luffy, it truly has been an incredibly long time. Your baseline personality hasn't altered a single fraction of a metric!"
"Exactly! Prior to clearing this harbor, I absolutely refused to buy into the theory that the reckless kid from my memories had forged himself into a supreme ruler of the New World tier. An Emperor of the Sea, damn it!"
"But looking at the active reality, my analytical models accept the outcome."
"Naturally! You have zero option but to accept it after analyzing the sheer weight of the duel Luffy just waged against the Boss. To sit upon the throne of a Yonko requires an absolute, unrefined power that has nothing to do with mere fluke luck."
"Bwahahaha... Luffy! Tonight, the food supply is limitless! Your vessel is mathematically forbidden from holding back!"
"Hey, hey, hey, Roux... you're actually volunteering to share your personal meat reserves with someone else?" one of the newer pirates questioned, his face a mask of absolute, wide-eyed disbelief.
"What manner of garbage language is slipping from your skull? Do you fail to comprehend exactly who stands before us?" Lucky Roux huffed, casting a thoroughly dismissive look at the speaker.
"Hahaha! Observe the data layout, Luffy! Even Lucky Roux, who historically refuses to let his food leave his perimeter for a single second, has cleanly waived his ownership metrics for your sake. This is a profound structural miracle!"
Luffy stared at the collective assembly of familiar, weathered faces, his mouth splitting into a proud, radiant grin. "It's been an exceptionally long time, everyone!"
"Indeed. The little brat from back then has truly come of age," one of the veterans murmured softly, a wave of complex emotion softening his eyes.
Perhaps this exact, profound reflection resonated within the core of every single soul assembled across the shoreline. The helpless boy from their memories had executed a massive vertical leap to Supplant the old legends, officially crowning himself as an Emperor of the New World.
An existential miracle of this magnitude left their internal psychology incredibly complex, yet the overarching response saturating their channels was pure, incandescent excitement. For a child they had nurtured to achieve a global pinnacle of this scale at such a young age—what alternative achievement across this boundless ocean could possibly yield a higher degree of pure joy?
"The Dragon Flag Pirates! A supreme, newly risen Yonko fleet... incorporating our current baseline coordinates, three of the world's absolute Emperor-caliber armadas are actively anchoring a unified front."
"The Navy and the World Government are likely tracking this telemetry right now, completely paralyzed with fear and unable to close their eyes. Bwahahaha..." a towering warrior of the Red Hair vanguard noted, turning his attention to address Drake's alignment.
"Hahaha! The supreme architects ruling the global regime are individuals whose worldviews cannot tolerate a single grain of sand disrupting their grid. At this exact microsecond, they are likely running frantic simulations to engineer a definitive counter-measure to neutralize our presence."
Faced with the commentary, Drake merely offered a calm, knowing smile.
As for whatever strategic panics were currently fracturing the minds of the Navy and the World Government—he possessed absolute zero interest in analyzing their psychology. Concurrently, his own short-term tactical blueprints didn't incorporate an immediate offensive strike targeted at their core.
However, should the global regime truly lose its internal stability and move to permanently sterilize the future by launching an immediate, all-out assault against his vanguard—he wouldn't mind unleashing his entire spatial arsenal to wage a catastrophic war. He would gladly utilize that opportunity to stress-test exactly what manner of hidden baseline depth and ancient heritage this global regime had accumulated over its centuries of unbridled dominance.
And the reality unfolded precisely according to his analytical deductions. The moment the intelligence detailing the high-stakes summit between Monkey D. Luffy's Straw Hats, Vale D. Drake's Dragon Flag Pirates, and Red Hair Shanks's armada saturated the global surveillance network, the highest echelons of the World Government and the Marine Headquarters devolved into a state of absolute, frantic chaos—remarkably similar to ants trapped upon a scalding hearth.
Deep within the command matrix of Marine Headquarters, a massive emergency war council had convened, gathering nearly every single flag officer and high-ranking commander anchoring the organization's structure.
Sitting at the absolute apex of the formation, Fleet Admiral Akainu's face was twisted into a mask of pure, volcanic fury.
The agenda currently dominating their strategic evaluation was divided into two critical theaters: first, the coordinated global campaigns engineered to systematically purge the Revolutionary Army and the rogue Warlords; second, the catastrophic convergence of three independent Emperors of the Sea.
Every single variable within this matrix carried an absolute threat level; a single structural blunder or tactical failure across these lines possessed sufficient mass to permanently drag the Navy and the global regime into an untouchable abyss.
Yet the panic wasn't restricted solely to the military command structure. At this exact fraction of a second, deep within a heavily fortified, hidden sanctuary buried in the heart of the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, the supreme administrators governing the absolute totality of the global regime—the Five Elders—were all dropped onto one knee, their foreheads pressed flat against the stone floor.
Looming directly above their position on a colossal, elevated dais, a phantom silhouette wrapped in a sweeping, pitch-black ceremonial robe stared down at their frames with a gaze of cold, absolute detachment.
Had Drake been permitted to cross the threshold of this chamber to run a diagnostic scan, his cognitive files would have instantly verified the entity's legendary identity.
The absolute, sovereign monarch hidden behind the empty throne of the World Government—Im!
"The Revolutionary Army... and the Legendary Four Brothers... I demand their absolute, permanent liquidation!" Im decreed, the syllables dropping into the heavy silence without a single shred of human emotion.