Wano was destroyed.
Though hundreds of samurai escaped, to those who survived, Wano might as well have been erased.
No one else could imagine what they had faced.
Undying foes.
Comrades who suddenly turned into enemies.
If Magnus's appearance had only made Wano's samurai realize that the outside world held terrifying titans who could face ten thousand alone,
what came after made them truly understand:
Magnus had not been joking.
Wano had really been left behind by the times.
Before the world's apex powers, a Wano that no longer had even a single great bladesman was nothing but meat on the chopping block.
Furiko stared in a daze.
She had once dreamed of leaving Wano. Yet on the day she truly left, all she wanted was for none of this to have ever happened.
"I understand."
Furiko and the others found Magnus three months after Wano fell. In that span, Magnus and the White Wolf Pirates had been busy preparing to face the World Government.
They hadn't expected the Government to have already played a card—three months earlier.
Why target Wano?
Because, as was said from the start, a nation with many elite warriors but no apex champion was a fragrant cake on the table.
Its nature was the same as Elbaf.
Only—
Elbaf still had a giant king.
Years ago, the Marines and Cipher Pol took Elbaf by surprise because Elbaf had no preparations.
Now, Elbaf was on high alert. Not even Imu could take a ready-and-waiting land of giants.
What's more, Harold had grown stronger than five years ago.
He'd lost a leg, yes—but for top fighters, injuries are inevitable; what truly defines their strength is Haki.
Battle after battle,
clashes with apex foes—
these were perfect training for Harold in his prime.
Magnus had nearly forgotten:
Harold was only a bit over a hundred—by human standards, not even thirty—and his combat strength was still in a rapid growth phase.
Once he adapted to the missing leg,
his just-reached Admiral-level power actually climbed further.
Rona could no longer beat him.
Reduced to a "combat power unit," Rona was annoyed, but as an "older" woman, even with Pure Gold halting her decline, getting stronger now required luck.
Either way,
Wano's fall had already happened.
News of eleven member nations withdrawing had indeed made the World Government feel a crisis, so they rushed to bulk up their might.
The bad news: Wano was lost.
The good news: the old man Takiichi of the Amatsuki line got out.
Wano's samurai still had some backbone.
After the Flower Capital fell, several regional lords chose to cover the retreat, helping Furiko and Takiichi—along with the old, the young, and the infirm—escape.
Among them was Oden, dragged out under the desperate protection of the retainers who served his house.
(Magnus making a face.jpg)
At first the samurai suspected Magnus had drawn this calamity to Wano—the timing looked too neat: shortly after Magnus left, the enemy crashed in.
Before Magnus arrived, outsiders hadn't set foot in Wano for over a century, let alone invaded it.
But when they learned what the wider world was like,
they fell silent.
They'd thought the White Wolf Pirates were an evil crew; they never expected to find, in the outside world's "newspapers," that the White Wolf Pirates were called the world's most heinous band.
They had repeatedly repelled invasions by the "Marines," the strongest violent arm of the world—and even assaulted the Holy Land where the Celestial Dragons lived.
Comparing reports, they realized:
the force that invaded Wano was likely the White Wolf Pirates' enemy—
the rulers of the seas:
the World Government.
Though Sukiyaki was captured and Wano occupied,
the samurai who escaped did not give up.
Because hope remained; the lord they served still had a surviving heir.
As long as Oden lived,
there was hope for restoration.
The enemy of their enemy was a friend. As much as they resented Magnus for invading Wano not long ago, against the terrifying might of the World Government, there was likely no one but Magnus who could help.
So they spent months tracking the White Wolf to Sphinx and found Magnus.
"You're asking me to help restore Wano?"
"Exactly!"
The swordsman named Kosaburo spoke with a ringing voice.
"If you aid us in restoring Wano, then Wano will become your rear line—your support—helping you stand against the World Government!"
In the months apart, some of Kosaburo's youthful sharpness had hardened into steady resolve. Even though he loved blades, he no longer stared greedily at the famed sword in Magnus's hand while speaking.
"Stop, stop."
Magnus raised a hand before he could go on.
"Settle on Sphinx for now. With your strength, you won't starve. As for restoration, don't bring it up yet. In the short term, I can't help you."
Ignoring Kosaburo's anxious face, Magnus directly sent the group away.
"Where did they all crawl out from?"
Lounging in the White Wolf's receiving hall and munching on biscuits as she watched the farce from start to finish, Rona muttered, "All IOUs. If I'm not mistaken, there are only a few hundred people from Wano left, half of them old or frail."
Restoration, in truth, would be the White Wolf Pirates fighting the World Government plus Wano alone; of these hundreds, you could count the strong samurai on two hands.
Costs and returns didn't match at all.
"At least they brought us one piece of news, didn't they?"
Had they not learned Wano had fallen, then when the White Wolf went to war with the Government, they'd be shocked to find the enemy suddenly fielded an undying legion.
"If it comes to it, we abandon the gains we've worked so hard for."
"You could bear that?"
"To gain, you must give."
Those eleven departing nations were Magnus's pure, aboveboard achievement: he strode into Mary Geoise in broad daylight, faced the Government head-on, and walked out the same way.
Magnus's current sphere:
the White Wolf Pirates, the New Navy, and Elbaf.
Common folk didn't parse fine lines between "ally" and "not." They only knew that Rona, the former Marine Admiral who'd defected, was close to Magnus, and that Harold, king of giants, had fought shoulder to shoulder with him many times.
Looked at this way,
Magnus's "side" alone could match an entire Marine force.
Facing the entire World Government would be harder—
—but in the New World, on this patch of sea, even the Government likely couldn't force Magnus to bow so easily.
That was why those member nations were willing to gamble.
Magnus's displayed strength
already did not lose to the Marines, the Government's violent arm.
As for the Five Elders and the God's Knights—
even kings who attended the Reverie might not know the truth—that they were the Government's last guarantee of rule.
So they stepped up and shoved all their chips to Magnus.
But if Magnus shrank back now,
the White Wolf's momentum would crash, and the Government's prestige would swell back to its former blazing zenith.
Yet as Magnus said:
sometimes you have to yield; if you see no path to victory, retreat may be the wiser choice.
"However, the Government is playing face-up cards—mine haven't even been dealt."
Not only did they trail in apex fighters; from mid-tier to low-tier power, their gap with the Government was wide.
But that gap could be bridged.
The Government had a hundred-plus member nations as reserve manpower, but the world was also full of strong people unwilling to kneel to it.
Years ago, when his renown and strength were lacking,
he would never have tried this.
Now, the time was ripe.
Restoring Wano was not on Magnus's mind.
Standing up for those eleven nations—
that was the priority.
Soon, a message flowed out of Sphinx and swept across the seas.
Want to know how White Wolf Magnus regained his youth?
Want to know how he became so strong?
The answer is on Sphinx!
The White Wolf Pirates possess a secret medicine that restores youth.
Show up and you'll get one!
The moment the news broke, the world boiled.
That the White Wolf had Pure Gold was no longer a secret.
They were rumored to have an entire Pure Gold anglerfish; living inside it would drastically slow aging.
That alone was enough to drive countless sick or elderly tycoons mad, but without a direct guarantee from the White Wolf, they'd hesitated.
Besides, Pure Gold only delayed cellular aging; it didn't restore youth.
There was a real gap between the two.
The ideal of immortality, to many, was eternal youth and life; remove either and the allure drops sharply.
But the White Wolf Pirates now had a medicine that could restore youth.
Add Pure Gold to that—
and wasn't that the ideal of eternal youth?
In a flash, not just the world at large, even the pirates and merchants doing business on Sphinx felt their hearts stir.
What kept them sober
was Magnus's name.
From his first voyage to standing atop the world—
Magnus's fame was hammered out in battle after battle.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred
couldn't even pass his Haki check.
Another ninety-nine out of a hundred
would be crushed to paste by a casual wide-area strike.
And the one-in-ten-thousand who remained,
who could still stand before him—
would faint on the spot, gazing at the moon from the bottom of a well.
They stood, craning their necks to the sky, like mayflies under a blue vault.
So even the fiercest pirates, upon hearing his name, reined in their restless hearts.
Magnus did not require their loyalty.
This was a transaction.
He would trade "youth" for their service.
And that youth, of course, wouldn't last forever.
"These are ten thousand doses of 'youth hormone.' One dose restores youth for one day. Combined with Pure Gold, the time can be extended indefinitely."
"The downside is—"
"Excessive use of Haki will drastically shorten the duration. At worst, it can snap back in an instant."
Here Stussy couldn't help shooting Magnus a glare.
After leaving Wano,
Stussy had been pressed into service as his laborer.
In less than half a year, she had produced ten thousand doses of the youth-hormone tonic, spending nearly every waking moment on it.
But the results were gratifying.
Only those who have aged truly understand how irresistible youth is.
Not just women—
men too.
For those who once had great strength, the hardest thing isn't the aging face, but the years shrinking the muscles forged by training—the stamina dropping from its peak, the creeping powerlessness in every fight. You never forget it, not for a lifetime.
So with a single small vial, Magnus could rally countless once-mighty fighters now weakened by age.
He had tested the potion's limits:
Haki at the "one hundred million" level did not affect it at all; at "two hundred million," the duration was cut in half; at "three hundred million," it plunged to minutes.
And that was simply while using Haki, not actively resisting the potion.
Otherwise,
any Admiral-level fighter could nullify it outright.
Even so,
these doses were enough to lure a horde of old monsters from their coffins to serve him.
Apex fighters might not come—
—but "one hundred million-level" great pirates? The New World had them by the herd.
The Seven Warlords?
The God's Knights?
I'll drown you with sheer numbers.
The Government striking Wano first instead of attacking directly had, in the end, granted the White Wolf valuable breathing room.
What they needed most now was time.
Admiring Stussy's work, Magnus, in fine spirits, turned to leave—only to realize Stussy had sidled up to him at some point.
"Captain Magnus, did you forget what you promised me?"
Her soft warmth pressed tight to his back; the girl's voice was a silky murmur.
"I've worked so hard. Can't the captain give me a little reward?"
In both figure and face, Stussy was at the peak of youth.
Wasn't that, too, a temptation all its own?
(End of Chapter)
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