The remaining members of the Golden Lion Pirates left, taking Jigen with them as they moved away from the center.
Even when they left, they still didn't know who they had fought before. They only knew the man was a very strong ninja.
Half of their crew had been captured, and the Grail Stone they worked so hard to find was also taken away.
In short, it was a crushing defeat.
"The good news is, Dark and the others aren't in danger, and their life force is even increasing. But I can't lock down their location."
"And the boss is in bad shape."
At the Golden Lion Pirates' hideout, a big man carrying a huge axe walked to the campfire. All the other officers were there too.
After such a strange fight, everyone looked battered, but there was no sign of despair.
"Your fruit power can't help the boss?"
That question came from Taichi the Golden Beetle, one of the crew's officers.
The big man with the axe was the crew's doctor, Yama the Reaper, real name Guban. His ability was to control and absorb life energy. Of course, he also knew basic medical skills.
Before becoming a pirate, Guban was already a top doctor in the black market.
"The power inside the boss has gone beyond the limits of a devil fruit. And that wound… that's even worse."
Guban said this while looking at Jigen's wound. It showed no signs of healing, but the rest of his body seemed fine.
"How long before the boss wakes up?"
The voice belonged to a woman. There weren't many women in the crew, but the ones who were there were never weak.
Rattlesnake Shizuka, one of the Golden Lion Pirates' officers. A ruthless woman with skill and ambition.
Brains, tactics, courage, strength… In the New World, a big-name pirate needs them all.
"Waking up will be very hard.
"In fact, normally the boss would already be dead. But for some reason, his body is still holding on.
It's even absorbing life energy from outside. Honestly, he probably won't wake up anytime soon."
Guban's face was grim. This condition was beyond what he understood. Not even the power of a devil fruit could do something like this.
"In that case, the rest is on us.
The Golden Lion may have fallen, but the Golden Lion Pirates are still here. And we officers… we're not weak."
The one speaking was a tall, chubby man with a round build—Gild Tesoro, once a big merchant.
After surviving the chaos of the Great Pirate Era, this guy had turned into a major pirate. His ability was pretty simple: when he activated his Devil Fruit power, he could turn solids into gold.
"If you want to dig up some info, I can try reaching out to Gato.
I haven't heard from him in a long time, but with his skills, there's hardly any news in the shinobi world that can escape him."
Gild Tesoro said with a sigh.
Back then, Gato was part of their circle too, but he was just a small-time player.
Now, he himself had become a pirate in the New World, while that little player might have grown into a big shot in the shinobi world.
"I can also try contacting Orochimaru. He should know a lot about what's going on in the shinobi world."
Hamura Ryu spoke calmly. As the vice-captain of the Dark Pirates, he had some strength and insight. At least, even after Dark left, he could still hold the crew together.
"Shizuka, what do you think?"
Kabutomushi Taiichi turned to Shizuka, waiting to hear her thoughts.
"I need to get my people back first. Since that's the case, I'll go look for some other shinobi.
Taiichi, you and Guban stay here. If you don't hear from us in three months, just leave this place."
Her meaning was clear. If there was no word from them in three months, it meant they were dead.
And dead without a sound.
Even though they had clawed their way to the top and become strong, they still had respect—and fear—for the old powers of this world.
Especially after meeting someone as strange as the Sage of Six Paths.
One man had held them back, and his chakra felt endless.
He was using basic ninjutsu, yet it was insanely hard to deal with.
Then, on top of that, he set up several barriers and unleashed all kinds of combined ninjutsu, flipping the battle completely.
That fight was a wake-up call for the entire Golden Lion Pirate Crew.
They all realized that the shinobi they faced before only looked weak. In truth, they might not have been weak at all—they just hadn't used their ninjutsu yet.
This time, their opponent dragged things out long enough to pull off some large-scale ninjutsu, and that's when things went bad for them.
Why do they think that? Because these guys were basically ninjutsu idiots.
Sure, there were shinobi pirates in the Golden Lion crew, but honestly, what real shinobi would become a pirate?
Don't let Naruto fool you—he might not understand test questions, but if you gave those same questions to the shinobi pirates in the Golden Lion Crew, they wouldn't get them either.
From their shallow understanding of ninjutsu, they figured the reason they lost to the Sage of Six Paths was because ninjutsu just worked that way.
After all, from start to finish, the Sage didn't seem to use anything too crazy.
But the truth?
The truth was that every single jutsu the Sage used was insanely complex. He even pulled out multiple Kekkei Genkai—that's beyond just ninjutsu.
And those multi-layered barrier techniques? Completely over the top. The most ridiculous part? When the barriers stacked together, their effects stacked too.
Understand that? No one in the whole shinobi world could pull that off.
The only one who could make things that complicated was the Sage of Six Paths.
Unfortunately, who was the Sage of Six Paths? These pirates didn't have a clue. The only unlucky guy who did know was stuck on a deserted island by now.
At this moment, Dark was stranded on an island full of strange plants, each one three or four times bigger than normal.
On the island, there were also many strange animals Dark had never seen before, each one larger than the last.
"The life energy here is so thick, even the New World doesn't have life energy this strong."
Dark felt the energy moving through his body. The feeling was strange, something he had never experienced before.
The life energy here was simply too strong.
Dark didn't need to do anything—just by staying here, his body was getting stronger and stronger.
The speed of his growth even surprised Dark himself.
Of course, this was also because his willpower was strong enough to naturally take in this life energy.
But what Dark couldn't understand was that his compasses seemed useless here.
He carried two compasses. One was a sailing compass, which could point to the nearest dragon vein in the New World.
The other was the Golden Lion Pirates' "life" compass, which pointed to the nearest member of the crew.
Dark sat on a big rock, staring at the two compasses in his hand.
The sailing compass spun nonstop, never once settling down. That had never happened before.
And the life compass…
It pointed straight at the sky.
Dark looked up and saw only clouds and blue sky. Nothing seemed out of place.
The only strange thing was…
"No sun?"
Dark could feel sunlight on his skin. There was no sun, but there was still sunlight, and he could feel its warmth.
"Either the compass is broken, or my brain is broken, or… the world itself is broken?"
Dark was really confused. He even wondered if he had already died. But when he jumped into the sea earlier, he sank like normal.
His Devil Fruit powers still worked, so that meant he was fine.
So the problem must be with the compass.
Dark kept following the direction of the needle, staring hard at the sky, but saw nothing.
Yet, in the direction Dark was looking, there was another group of people. Each of them also held a life compass, and theirs pointed at the sky too.
And just like Dark, all they could see were clouds and endless blue sky.
"Looks like the compass is broken."
"This place has no sun, and at night there are barely any stars."
"You think maybe we're trapped in a Genjutsu?"
"…That's possible."
Everyone nodded. As a bunch of ninjutsu meatheads, this explanation made the most sense to them.
The Genjutsu looked real, but that was exactly why it could trap them so deeply.
Both sides kept looking at the sky above their heads, not knowing that on the "other side of the sky" was actually their own comrades.
As the view widened, the blue of the sea's edge slowly blended into the sky. The sea was the sky, and the sky was the sea.
At night, they counted the stars. There were only a few dozen.
But when the view zoomed in, those stars slowly disappeared, turning into islands filled with dense dragon vein power.
This was the New World, the true New World.
A world deep beyond, on the other side of the ninja world.
When the world is this big, how can humans even tell if the sky is really the sea?
Even if the New World was a bit smaller than the ninja world, Dark and the others couldn't tell. The pull of the world kept them bound, and on the other side of the sky, even if it was seawater, it would forever remain hanging above.
The entrance to this true New World was on the Red Line—the land Shanks had always guarded.
Shanks hadn't understood it the first time either.
Back then, when he first saw this world, he was stunned. That was why he returned to the ninja world.
And now, the time had come.
Shanks, his face swollen and bruised, turned to see Rikudou Sennin standing behind him, holding a black staff.
No matter how he looked at it, Rikudou Sennin's pose just seemed strange.
But in the end, Shanks knew he was the one who caused the trouble.
"Hahaha, so it's Rikudou Sennin, long time no see."
"Yeah… it's been a long time."
Rikudou Sennin's face darkened as he clenched his teeth and replied.
"It's time we talked about what's between us, Shanks."
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