Time flew, and in the blink of an eye, more than a month had passed.
During this month, Link had been on Amazon Lily, consolidating his strength.
Meanwhile, the New World was exceptionally lively.
Teach, one of the two Children of Destiny and a Pirate Emperor at the pinnacle of the seas, had always been suppressed by Link, but his ambition never faded.
After becoming a Pirate Emperor, he continuously hunted Devil Fruit users, granting powerful and rare fruits to his subordinates or recruiting winners who had made a name for themselves in the pirate games.
The Blackbeard Pirates had grown to have over a dozen divisions and a scale of tens of thousands of men, completely surpassing the Whitebeard Pirates.
If it weren't for the Impaler Pirates having Link, the "World's Strongest Man of the New Era," and its top-tier female Devil Fruit users who could stand against two super-powerful individuals without being outmatched, the Blackbeard Pirates would truly be the world's strongest pirate crew.
But Teach didn't mind being the eternal number two, because he simply didn't care about such things.
After expanding his fleet to the maximum, Teach began to set his sights on the Road Poneglyphs.
His ambition was to become the Pirate King, and even to conquer the world.
To become the Pirate King, one must find the final island, Raftel.
Having been by Whitebeard's side for so many years and now an existence at the pinnacle of the seas, Teach of course knew of the Road Poneglyphs.
While Teach was biding his time, the luck of the Child of Destiny all converged on Luffy.
Just as in the original story, the Straw Hat Pirates took an unconventional path. They did not land on the starting island of the New World but were swept away by a sea current. After narrowly surviving, they arrived at the island of ice and fire, Punk Hazard.
There, the Straw Hat Pirates met Momonosuke and Kin'emon, who had traveled from the past, and defeated Caesar, who was researching gigantification and artificial Devil Fruits.
When this news reached Doflamingo, it immediately sent him into a rage, and he even went to Punk Hazard personally.
Although Link had stopped the production of artificial Devil Fruits after occupying Wano Country, selling only weapons, Doflamingo was still in the artificial Devil Fruit business. His client had simply changed from Kaido to other forces, such as the World Government, its member nations, and certain pirates.
Artificial Devil Fruits remained one of Doflamingo's most profitable ventures.
The Straw Hat Pirates' defeat of Caesar and the destruction of the research facility on Punk Hazard had cut off Doflamingo's source of wealth.
Failing to deliver goods to his clients on time would not only cost Doflamingo a huge sum of money but also damage his reputation in the underworld.
The Straw Hat Pirates had just entered the New World and had already offended a major figure backed by the World's Strongest Man, a man with influence in both legitimate and criminal circles.
Upon seeing Caesar's miserable state and the severely damaged research lab on Punk Hazard, Doflamingo immediately placed a bounty on the Straw Hat Pirates in the underworld.
This news quickly spread throughout the New World.
Doflamingo had no idea how much trouble this impulsive act would ultimately cause.
Monkey D. Dragon, whose base had been destroyed and weapons stolen by Teach, forcing him to relocate his headquarters, immediately sent his most capable subordinate to help Luffy—the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army and Luffy and Ace's sworn brother, Sabo.
Before setting out, Sabo contacted someone else.
It was Portgas D. Ace, who had disappeared with Marco and the others after the Whitebeard Pirates' defeat. He was actually hiding on Whitebeard's home island of Sphinx, quietly training while protecting his captain's homeland.
That's right, Sabo had regained his memory.
He had watched the live broadcast of the Summit War and learned everything.
The reason Ace and the others were able to survive after being defeated by Teach was also because Sabo had taken action.
He had brought Morley, who had eaten the Push-Push Fruit and was the first to quietly escape from Impel Down, to secretly rescue Ace and the others.
Upon learning that Luffy was being targeted by Doflamingo, Ace didn't hesitate to join Sabo to support him.
After many years, the three sworn brothers from Foosha Village were about to reunite.
After defeating Caesar, the Straw Hat crew began to help Momonosuke find his scattered companions, including Kurozumi Kanjuro, who was an undercover agent by Kozuki Oden's side, and Raizo, who might or might not be on Zou.
As luck would have it, Kanjuro's current location was on Doflamingo's new territory, one of the archipelagos ruled by the Impaler Pirates.
Seeing that Doflamingo had been so sensible as to hand over the sovereignty of the Dressrosa Kingdom, Link, who felt he was a useful tool, directly gave the management rights of the archipelago to the business-savvy Doflamingo.
Doflamingo did not disappoint Link. He not only managed the archipelago impeccably but also integrated the pirates whose hearts he had taken into the various groups of the Donquixote Family, turning them into a formidable weapon for generating profit and expanding the influence of the Impaler Pirates.
Those non-affiliated nations, after benefiting from the generous Doflamingo and gaining protection from pirates and the Marines, also willingly served him.
The sea area where the archipelago was located became one of the most famous in the New World.
Losing Kaido as a backer did not diminish Doflamingo's power; instead, he rose even further, becoming the strongest king of the underworld and an existence in the New World second only to the Pirate Emperors.
But with the arrival of the Straw Hat Pirates, along with Sabo and Ace, Doflamingo was about to be severely humbled.
Doflamingo, who had only ever suffered setbacks at the hands of Kaido and Link since gaining power, was defeated by a rookie.
The strongest subordinate force under the Impaler Pirates became a stepping stone for the three sworn brothers.
In this battle, Luffy, using Gear Fourth to defeat Doflamingo, once again made a name for himself throughout the world, and his bounty soared to 800 million Beri.
But he was not the main protagonist of this incident.
The true protagonist was none other than the son of the Pirate King... "Fire Fist" Portgas D. Ace.
In this battle, Ace, who fought alongside Sabo against a Donquixote Family that was much larger than in the original story, not only showed that the power of his Flame-Flame Fruit was stronger than two years ago but also demonstrated the supreme Haki inherited from the Pirate King.
This genius, who, like Link, had mastered Armament Haki in a single day, obtained his ticket to the realm of the super-powerful at the age of twenty-two, displaying an otherworldly level of Conqueror's Haki Coating!
With a single punch, he brought the Whitebeard Pirates, who had become a thing of the past, back into the eyes of the world.
The man, bare-chested with the mark of the Whitebeard Pirates tattooed on his back, saw his bounty skyrocket from 550,000,000 Beri to 1,555,000,000 Beri.
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