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From the moment Whitebeard could remember, he had always been fighting.
Born in a Non-Allied Kingdom Member unable to pay the Heavenly Tribute, he had witnessed nothing but poverty and the countless hardships it brought.
Life and death, bloodshed, violence...
The poor fought among themselves, while pirates roamed freely, ravaging the land...
Praying for miracles was futile. The Marine would never suddenly appear to save this Non-Allied Kingdom Member. The young Whitebeard had long understood that his only hope lay in his own fists.
'Rather than weep, fight!'
'Rather than watch helpless people cry, fight! Fight!'
At first, it was stones and sticks he picked up by the roadside...
Later, it was Guns and knives he snatched from pirates...
In his early days, he was frequently injured, often ending up with a bloody head after taking down despicable bastards.
Later, he gradually noticed that his enemies seemed to move more slowly, and the pirates' strength waned...
When he single-handedly sank a pirate ship bare-handed, he suddenly understood.
It wasn't that his enemies were growing weaker, but that he himself was becoming stronger.
He began to master the use of his fists, learning how to fight with his naturally colossal physique.
After obtaining the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, he honed his destructive power to an unrivaled levels...
Throughout his life, he had fought countless battles. With stones, clubs, blades, fists, his immense frame, and the earth-shattering power of earthquakes, he had vanquished enemies as numerous as the stars in the sky!
But equally...
These battles had left his body riddled with scars, leaving him in his twilight years, awaiting the day when his flame would finally burn out.
Though hailed as the World's Strongest Man, Whitebeard knew he was ultimately just a man with a single heart.
His body was aging rapidly, and the hidden injuries he'd accumulated in his youth were now erupting one after another.
Sometimes, as he gazed at his aged reflection in his sake cup, Whitebeard couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy for his old rival.
'Roger, that bastard, truly made a grand exit, ending his magnificent life at his most glorious peak.'
'I'll never be as carefree as him…'
'A pirate like me, who's spent his entire life doing evil... perhaps I'm destined for an inglorious end.'
'When the day comes that I can no longer wield Murakumogiri, when my limbs stiffen, and I can no longer unleash my seismic fists, will it be some upstart pirate or a newly emerging Marine who comes to claim my head?'
'By then, I hope my sons won't need the protection of this useless old man anymore!'
…
Whitebeard's pupils reflected Giorno withdrawing his right arm from his chest...
The instant the crisscrossing wounds on his chest vanished, Blue's flames burst forth with a pop.
Immediately afterward, with a resounding whoosh, massive blue flames erupted, instantly entwining every part of Whitebeard's body.
Liam retreated a few steps, weighing the Tremor-Tremor Fruit chip in his hand as he watched Whitebeard, now completely engulfed in Blue's regenerative flames.
"All right!"
A crew member in the crowd on deck pumped his fist in the air, roaring skyward in exhilaration.
"It really worked!"
The Whitebeard Pirates watched their Old Man bathed in Blue Phoenix flames, tears of overwhelming relief streaming down their faces.
"Old Man..." Marco exhaled in profound relief, tilted his head back, a smile playing on his lips, tears glistening at the corners of his eyes.
Whitebeard took a deep, whale-like breath, closed his eyes, and the surrounding sounds receded like a receding tide...
He clenched his fists, feeling the decades of battle wounds and the hidden injuries accumulated from long-term use of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit... all vanished in an instant under the regenerative flames of the Phoenix-Phoenix Fruit.
He was already sixty years old.
Yet now, an inexhaustible surge of vitality, familiar yet foreign, coursed through his limbs and bones.
It was as if he had instantly shed thirty years, returning to... the peak of his prime!
Whitebeard opened his eyes, a long-dormant glint flashing in them. He rose abruptly, his giant-scale coat billowing behind him without wind, making him seem like a mountain erupting from the earth amidst a storm.
"The Old Man's really back!"
"This is incredible..."
The crew members on deck erupted in jubilation, hugging each other, laughing and crying in equal measure.
Teach stood at the edge of the jubilant crowd, his expression betraying little joy. In truth, he paid scant attention to Whitebeard's return to his prime. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on Giorno's hand, who had retreated a few steps to stand beside Jolyne Cujoh!
That faintly glowing triangular object must be the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit!
"Gū lā lā lā lā...!!!"
Whitebeard threw back his head and roared with laughter, spreading his arms wide as they transformed into blue-flame phoenix wings. With a wingspan spanning dozens of meters, it was as if the entire White Whale ship had sprouted a pair of wings, ready to soar into the wind.
He kicked up Murakumogiri, one of the Saijō Ō Wazamono-grade swords, catching it firmly in his grip. His eyes burned with intensity as he gazed at the tranquil sea, and with a sweeping motion, he swung the great blade in a horizontal slash.
Bang!!!!
A colossal slash, visible to the naked eye, arced across the sea for over a hundred meters, striking the water with tremendous force. The impact unleashed a towering wave, dozens of meters high, that surged laterally across the surface.
Almost simultaneously, the massive wave, stretching over a hundred meters long and towering tens of meters high, was cleaved in two by a vertical slash descending from the sky. It turned out that Whitebeard, in the instant after his horizontal swing, had immediately followed up by gripping his guandao-like weapon and bringing it down in a vertical strike!
Violet-red lightning snakes danced wildly with Whitebeard's strike, creating the most violent Haki surge Liam had ever witnessed.
This single strike threatened to cleave the sky itself, along with the Sea...
The entire sea split vertically before the eyes of the crew aboard the White Whale, creating a chasm estimated to be over ten kilometers long. The sea had been bisected by the Old Man's strike! Countless sea beasts and Sea King-class corpses tumbled into the fissure, surging along with crimson waves, plummeting into the seemingly bottomless abyss...
Jozu gazed upward, muttering in a daze, "How long has it been since the Old Man fought like this?"
"A long time..." Flower Sword' Vista sighed softly, a smile tugging involuntarily at the corners of his lips. "A long time..."
The new recruits, the Fish-Man Lobster, the human Herman, and the Longleg Race member Rege, along with the younger members of the Whitebeard Pirates, stared in stunned silence at the spectacle.
Even after exhausting their imaginations, and even having anticipated some of this and mentally prepared themselves, no one could have imagined that Whitebeard, after regaining his full strength, could unleash such terrifying, destructive power with a mere Haki-imbued swing of his greatsword.
One slash had cleaved the Sea in two!
So this is the pirate who once clashed with the Pirate King Roger and defeated so many overlords across the Sea... the man known as Whitebeard, the World's Strongest Man!
"Hmph hmph hmph..."
Whitebeard stood on the deck like a mountain, his entire body radiating Haki. He raised Murakumogiri with a chuckle, "Looks like living a little longer has its perks...
"Right, Roger?"
Teach couldn't help but hold his breath, his eyes wide as he watched the colossal rift in the Sea slowly mend.
Liam muttered to himself, "As expected, even without the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, Whitebeard remains a complete monster..."
Robin was deeply shaken by the scene before her. Seizing the moment when everyone, including Whitebeard, was overwhelmed with emotion, she subtly moved her fingers and activated her Flower-Flower Fruit (Hana Hana no Mi) once more, causing a single petal to bloom on Whitebeard's pant leg... This updated her Hana Jizai technique, capturing Whitebeard at his peak.
"..." Izo, tears welling in his eyes, stared intently at Whitebeard, whose entire being radiated an aura of invincibility. He couldn't help but recall his former lord, who hadn't been heard from in years. Lord Oden, who had once rivaled Whitebeard and Roger, was equally an unparalleled man... Suddenly, Izo noticed Marco quietly approaching Giorno and the others, seemingly whispering something to them.
(End Of This Chapter)