Nightti, the main palace of the Golden Lion.
A maid knelt beside Shiki, pouring fine sake into his cup. After Shiki drained the cup, he waved his hand, dismissing everyone else.
Alucard sat directly on the tatami mat, his right leg stretched out, his left bent with his left hand resting on his left knee. He mocked, "I thought you’d throw another tantrum and charge into Marineford."
Shiki knew Alucard was mocking his three-year-old blunder of rampaging through Headquarters and getting captured.
"Jihahahaha!" Shiki let out two loud laughs, a sharp glint in his eyes. "Red isn’t worth it at all; he’s no longer fit to stand at the top."
"Incompetent fools. Pirates who’ve lost their fighting spirit aren’t pirates anymore, whether it’s Red or Whitebeard." Alucard drained the bronze cup of sake. Occasionally drinking sothing other than red wine wasn’t bad.
"You don’t think highly of that Whitebeard fellow! Is it because... you’ve never beaten him twice?" Since Alucard had just mocked him, Shiki returned the jab.
"Hmph, putting his personal strength aside, the Whitebeard Pirates are too centered around Whitebeard. Once they lose Whitebeard, they’re completely finished." Alucard’s disdain wasn’t for Whitebeard himself, but for the Whitebeard Pirates.
This might sound a bit convoluted and incomprehensible to average pirates, but for a pirate like Shiki, a mont of thought was enough to grasp Alucard’s aning.
"The Whitebeard Pirates’ unity is truly unprecedented; I admit I’m inferior in that regard. Only Roger’s pirate crew could compare." Shiki frankly admitted his inferiority to Whitebeard and Roger when it ca to "unity."
"Hmph, but the first mates of the two crews, Rayleigh and Marco, aren’t on the sa level."
If Rayleigh were to erge, he could easily be considered a "legend." It’s hard to imagine soone like him, even in his youth, willingly submitting to another, even if that person was the Pirate King. As for Marco... he didn’t even register.
"Indeed, without Whitebeard, the Whitebeard Pirates would collapse. But as long as Whitebeard is still around, the Whitebeard Pirates are indestructible," Shiki offered a relatively fair assessnt.
"However, he recruited ’sons,’ not ’crewmates.’ They’re all a generation younger than Whitebeard," Shiki recalled.
Indeed, many of Roger’s pirate crew were his contemporaries, so even older than Roger. But in the Whitebeard Pirates, apart from Whitebeard, the oldest mber was still over a decade younger than him. That’s why Shiki said he took in "sons" rather than "crewmates." This was also part of the reason why they were slightly inferior to Roger’s Pirate Crew and the Golden Lion Pirate Fleet.
Alucard stood up and walked towards the door. Seeing this, Shiki asked, "Where are you going?"
"My fight with you ends here. I’m leaving." Alucard was originally a lone wolf; staying on Shiki’s ship for several months was already quite unusual.
Shiki lowered his head slightly, saying coldly, "I plan to go to ’Paradise’ first. Those fledgling fanboys need to learn the true terror of a great pirate, and they’ll serve as practice for my training."
"Paradise" referred to the first half of the Grand Line. Alucard had coined the term during a conversation, and Shiki had adopted it after hearing it.
Alucard paused, but didn’t turn around. Instead, with his back to Shiki, he said, "If you told you were going into retirent for a few years, I’d look down on you instead."
"Jihaha..." Shiki chuckled strangely.
Alucard walked to the lion’s head at the very front of the Golden Lion, now two thousand ters high above the sea. Suddenly, Alucard took a step forward and vanished directly into the clouds.
"Woah... he jumped from two thousand ters high..." Dr. Indigo shoved his entire fist into his mouth, having witnessed Alucard leaping off the ship through the cara monitor in the laboratory.
"Quiet! Accelerate the research imdiately!" Suddenly, Shiki’s furious roar ca through the broadcast, terrifying the scientists in the lab. Inside the nutrient tanks in the room, infected animal torsos and bodies were lined up.
"Can this be done this way?" Dr. Indigo scratched his head, looking at the specins and pondering.
Shiki then gave an order to his helmsman: "Head to Paradise... Oh no, the first half of the Grand Line. I want those fanboys to understand what a true great pirate is first."
anwhile, after Alucard jumped from the Golden Lion, he transford into thousands of bats about five hundred ters from the ground, landing on a scorching desolate island.
It should have been getting cooler at night, but it was stifling hot here. However, in a strange place like the New World, it wasn’t unusual for it to snow in sumr, let alone variations in temperature.
"Hm?"
Just as Alucard landed on the island, several people holding oil lamps and weapons suddenly erged from a nearby grove of dead trees.
In the deep of night, even with oil lamps, it was difficult to clearly see Alucard’s face, but they could tell his attire was different from theirs; he definitely wasn’t one of them.
"Hey, intruder." The leading man held an oil lamp in his left hand and a long flintlock pistol in his right. "This island is claid by our Kromvis Pirates! Any other pirates who wish to co here..."
Bang!!
Before he could finish, a flash of fire erupted in the dark night. The other four patroln recoiled two steps in fear. In the darkness, they saw a pair of round, red eyes staring intently at them, eerie and terrifying.
"Are territories being contested so quickly in the New World now? But this isn’t a place for third-rate pirates like you!" Alucard fired several shots in rapid succession, instantly sending the n to the afterlife.
However, due to Alucard’s handgun’s naturally imnse firepower and the lack of a silencer, the other pirates on the island were quickly alerted. In less than five minutes, Alucard was surrounded by layers of them.
"Are you all here?" Alucard reached into his coat with his left hand, pulling out his black pistol, Jackal, and laughed maniacally, "Then let the ga begin!"
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