Time flew by; in the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.
In those six months, the New World was as lively as ever.
Led by Eustass Kid, the Supernovae all made quite a splash in the New World.
Kid challenged Red-Haired Shanks and lost, having one arm cut off, but since he didn't die, his bounty skyrocketed by 500 million berries.
Other rookies who lost chose the shame of leaving the New World, but Kid not only stayed—he awakened Conqueror's Haki. With potential like that, he became a top-class upstart.
Lately he even formed a Supernova alliance, and fellow Worst Generation members Basil Hawkins and Scratchmen Apoo joined in.
With Kid Pirates member Killer included, that alliance now boasted four Worst Generation captains—potentially extraordinary.
If they don't burn out midway, a few more years and that alliance will likely become a major new-era pirate force in the New World.
Aside from Kid's group, the other Supernovae were very active too.
For example, Capone Bege married into the Charlotte Family, and the Fire Tank Pirates became an affiliate crew of the Big Mom Pirates.
X Drake, formerly a Lead Performer of the Beasts Pirates but stripped of his heart and expelled from Wano to oversee territory for the Piercing Duke Pirates, also made waves in the New World, with his bounty soaring.
Only the one who first made headlines—Urouge, who defeated Charlotte Snack—gradually faded from view.
Jewelry Bonney, who ate the Paramecia-type Age-Age Fruit and looks twenty-four but is actually only twelve, likewise made no waves.
And then there were the two who shone brightest two years ago but vanished after the Paramount War: Straw Hat Luffy, Monkey D. Luffy, and Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro.
As the strongest of seas, the New World spawns incidents big and small every so often.
There were two biggest events in these six months.
First, not long after Sea Circle Calendar 1522 kicked off, the World's Strongest Creature was slain by the Strongest Man in history—and the Beasts Pirates were left with only a scant few survivors.
Second, after Pirate Empress Boa Hancock's Amazon Lily and the Kuja Pirates, yet another Warlord of the Sea became a subordinate force to Link: one of the rulers of the underworld, the former king of Dressrosa, the Heavenly Yaksha Donquixote Doflamingo and the Donquixote Family.
Curiously, when Hancock's Amazon Lily and the Kuja Pirates came under Link, the World Government immediately stripped her of her Warlord title.
But Doflamingo was not removed.
Across the Four Seas and the first half of the Grand Line—and even in parts of the New World—many weaker factions had no idea why.
Only first-rate powers knew how important Doflamingo was to the World Government and the New World.
As an underworld broker who went from being backed by Kaido to being backed by Link, Doflamingo's influence didn't shrink with the loss of Dressrosa—if anything, it spiked again.
With Queen swearing allegiance, the Piercing Duke Pirates took over the Beasts Pirates' arms business, continuing to mass-produce cold weapons and firearms.
Those weapons still left Wano to be sold by Doflamingo to all sides—even to the World Government.
With those connections, even after he threw in with a Yonko, the Government couldn't bring itself to revoke his Warlord status.
Of course, few knew that beyond those connections, it was also his former Celestial Dragon lineage and knowledge of the National Treasure that kept his title intact.
The World Government also used Doflamingo and X Drake to secretly keep tabs on the Piercing Duke Pirates.
Now that Link was the Strongest Man in history, he had become a great scourge in the Government's eyes.
Were it not for that crew having a Float-Float Fruit user and not bearing the Will of D., and were it not for the Mother Flame recently obtained, the Government would have already pinpointed Amazon Lily and carried out a true "Judgment of God" upon it.
But Link's power—and the threat posed by the Piercing Duke Pirates—made them shelve the idea.
Without absolute certainty, they wouldn't dare enrage the Strongest Man.
The Piercing Duke Pirates turning to business and not further expanding their territory also let the Government breathe easier.
It meant Link was content with his current standing, wouldn't seek Laugh Tale, and lacked ambition to conquer the world.
In that case, his threat level was actually lower than Monkey D. Dragon's.
So long as he didn't undergo the Perennial Youth Operation, the Five Elders were happy to wait out old age—and then, as with Whitebeard, erase this new era's uncrowned king.
Or simply outlast him; a bit of time is nothing to them.
And so the seas returned to the balance of Four Emperors, Marines, and Warlords.
But aside from Link, no one knew that the countdown had begun the moment this so-called balance formed.
One day, in the first half of the Grand Line—Paradise, which is like an amusement park compared to the New World—
At the Sabaody Archipelago, a sailing ship quietly docked at one of the islands' piers.
A group of young people who had been gone for two years stepped ashore again with confident smiles, returning to this archipelago known as the "Island of Failure" and the "Island of Second Departure."
At their head was a boy in a straw hat, a scar on his face.
The mastermind who had his crew rescue the Pirate King's son—after the Paramount War, his bounty rose to 450 million berries… Straw Hat Monkey D. Luffy.
After the war, realizing his own weakness, Luffy had sought Rayleigh's tutelage; after two grueling years, the Straw Hat Pirates finally set sail again.
News of this quickly reached Marineford, now converted into the G-1 Branch after HQ's relocation.
Sentomaru, commanding the Pacifistas in Paradise and the Four Seas, immediately marched with them to hunt down the Straw Hats and block their path to the New World.
In searching for the Straw Hats, a farce unfolded.
A fake Straw Hat crew appeared on the Sabaody Archipelago—by coincidence arriving at the same time as the real ones—buying the Straw Hats precious time to get their coating done.
On the day the coating finished, the Straw Hats showcased overwhelming strength, one-shotting the Pacifistas that once swatted Supernovae like brats, and left Sabaody in style.
Soon, the news spread the world over.
Because he had saved the Pirate King's son, because the captain was the sworn brother of that son, and because Morgans reported his grandfather as the Marine Hero and his father as the Revolutionary Dragon, Straw Hat Luffy—second only to Link and Teach among the Worst Generation—once again stepped into the world's spotlight.
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