In an instant, both sides in Alabasta seemed consumed by bloodlust. Everyone charged at the enemy like a lunatic.
The situation, which had briefly eased because of the tremors and the Thunder Angel, deteriorated at terrifying speed. It was as though someone had poured gasoline onto a dying fire.
Roaring flames threatened to consume the ancient city!
"What the hell is going on?!"
Luffy could do nothing but flee in every direction. Everyone around him had completely lost their minds. They no longer cared who anyone was and opened fire the moment they saw another living being.
Bullets poured across the battlefield. Luffy fled with his hands covering his head while the gorillas relentlessly pursued him.
At that moment, a man appeared directly ahead.
The man wore a mask and black clothing, as though dressed to attend someone's funeral. His terrifying presence was as deep as an abyss and as vast as the sea, making him resemble a vicious and dreadful demon god. Standing upon the ground, he seemed as immovable as a mountain.
In his frantic escape, Luffy failed to notice the man and crashed directly into him.
"What are you doing, clown?"
The man did not move an inch, while Luffy fell backward and clutched his forehead, shouting about how much it hurt. The man spoke in an incomparably cold voice.
Luffy was made of rubber. Even a tank rolling over him probably could not hurt him, yet simply colliding with a man had caused him pain?
Even more shocking was the man's voice. He sounded like a demon that had crawled from the depths of Hell, utterly cold and devoid of the slightest emotion.
"Hey! What's with that attitude?!" Luffy did not care about other people's identities. He merely found the man before him deeply unpleasant.
He instinctively overlooked one strange fact. Why had everyone on this ferocious battlefield suddenly stopped firing at him?
A circular domain with a radius of one hundred and fifty meters surrounded the masked man in black like an empty wasteland. No one dared set foot within it.
No one except Luffy...
The man's eyes regarded Luffy through his mask. "What a senseless creature."
Boom!
His fist struck almost instantly!
The blow resembled a meteor impact: fast, precise, and merciless!
His fist slammed directly into Luffy's abdomen and nearly punched through it. Luffy's entire body bent into the shape of a C, with the center stretching several meters backward!
Luffy's eyes widened until they nearly popped from their sockets. He had not even realized what was happening. He had no idea when the man moved or when the punch struck him!
Everything seemed to happen in a single instant.
"Let me give you some advice, you senseless creature." After delivering the punch, the man did not spare Luffy another glance. He walked forward as though Luffy were a piece of garbage and kicked him while passing, sending him flying into a distant building.
The building collapsed and buried Luffy beneath the rubble as dust billowed into the air. This time, he did not smash his way free and stand again.
His eyes rolled back as though he were on the verge of death. Blood and foam spilled together from his mouth, and his life force became exceptionally weak.
Even so, he could still hear the masked man's voice.
"When you meet someone stronger than yourself, the first thing you must learn is respect."
The masked man in black stepped past the ruins and continued onward.
"I am the Man in the Mirror, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea. Scum like you should show respect in my presence: the respect of the weak toward the strong, and fear, the fear that a pirate should feel toward me!"
His voice grew increasingly distant. By the time he finished, he had left the ruins containing Luffy far behind.
It was as though Luffy's life meant nothing to him.
The Man in the Mirror was Zephyr's other identity.
After learning about the Thunder Angel and Aatrox from Marine Headquarters, Zephyr sent his duplicate, the Man in the Mirror, to investigate.
Traveling from the North Blue to Alabasta so quickly should have been impossible. Fortunately, the Man in the Mirror happened to be in the first half of the Grand Line.
The Man in the Mirror was another version of Zephyr created using the Mirror Card, and someone Zephyr trusted absolutely. He had originally intended for the Man in the Mirror to watch over Uta, but sent him to Alubarna after hearing the news about the Thunder Angel and Aatrox.
Zephyr knew that the so-called tide of the era referred to Luffy. He had two choices: kill Luffy, or help him fulfill his dream and bring about the "tide of the era."
After careful consideration, and after Uta failed to capture Luffy, Zephyr chose the second path. He would help Luffy become the Pirate King.
Zephyr's goal was to kill every pirate, but that presented no contradiction. Once Luffy became the Pirate King, Zephyr could simply kill him too! It did not matter that Luffy was Garp's grandson or a child Zephyr had personally trained. Since Luffy had chosen the path of a pirate, he could not blame Zephyr for showing no mercy!
Zephyr had initially intended to kill Luffy if they ever crossed paths. He could then seek out Adam and have his wish granted directly.
Later, however, he reached the same conclusion as Robin. Luffy was the "protagonist" for whom Adam had waited countless years. Could someone like that truly be killed so easily?
Luffy was admittedly weak right now, but destiny did not care about a person's current strength.
Zephyr cultivated the Huangji Jingshi Scripture and possessed a deep understanding of destiny and celestial phenomena.
Given Uta's strength, she should have had a one hundred percent chance of capturing Luffy in the East Blue. In fact, she had captured him, only for an accident to occur immediately afterward.
Someone like Rob Lucci had inexplicably traveled from the New World to a remote backwater like the East Blue. Then, just as he was about to deal with Luffy and his companions, Hawkeye appeared as well!
It was as though destiny had guided several factions into the same place, preventing every one of them from attacking Luffy.
Uta tried to capture Luffy, and Rob Lucci appeared. Lucci tried to attack Luffy, and Hawkeye appeared. Hawkeye attacked Luffy and his companions, and Dragon appeared...
It was like an endless set of nesting dolls. Whenever someone tried to harm them, another faction arrived to interfere. The whole situation was deeply unnatural.
Just now, Zephyr had briefly felt the desire to kill Luffy, but his instincts warned him that if he threw that punch with enough force to kill, someone would undoubtedly stop him!
Alubarna was not as simple as it appeared. Powerful individuals were hidden within the city.
When Zephyr struck without murderous intent, however, no one intervened.
Even if someone tried to stop him, Zephyr might still defeat them and kill Luffy by force, but doing so would be far too troublesome.
His current objective was to investigate the Thunder Angel and Aatrox. He had no energy to waste on Luffy and some unknown powerhouse.
He reached the enormous collapsed chasm and frowned as he stared into its black depths.
He sensed an exceptionally oppressive presence below but could not identify it.
Standing at the edge, Zephyr hesitated over whether to descend and investigate.
No one knew what waited below. If it was an opportunity, the first person to descend would reap the greatest rewards.
But if danger waited below, the first person down would face its fiercest attack.
After considering the matter, Zephyr ultimately chose not to jump.
He turned his gaze toward the royal palace.
Perhaps...
This country's king knew something.
The Nefertari family was shrouded in mystery. They descended from one of the original Twenty Kings, but their founding monarch had rejected the offer to become a Celestial Dragon. Instead, the family had remained an ordinary royal house of a World Government member nation for centuries.
The entire world, including the other Celestial Dragons, had once considered the Nefertari family fools. Unexpectedly, they had been the true winners. If Aatrox had never appeared and the power of the Shinigami had not been required to defeat and seal him, no one might ever have discovered that this seemingly unremarkable royal family had formed a contract with the Shinigami.
Compared with forming a contract with the Shinigami and continuing to exist even after death, what value was there in becoming a so-called Celestial Dragon?
The Celestial Dragons were lunatics and clowns who considered themselves gods. The Shinigami was a true god!
Not only had this country contracted with the Shinigami and housed the entrance to Hell, but a mysterious Thunder Angel had now emerged here. Was this nation somehow unusually attractive to ancient demons and angels?
Zephyr rushed toward the palace. Upon arriving, he heard someone crying, "Your Majesty!" He frowned and instantly appeared at the highest point.
"Is Cobra dead?"
Zephyr looked at the five people before him.
He recognized two of them. One was Crocodile, a fellow Warlord of the Sea under Zephyr's current identity as the Man in the Mirror.
Another was Cobra, although he now lay on the ground after being shot by Koza. Cobra possessed little personal strength, and the single bullet had nearly taken his life.
Someone was supporting Cobra and apparently attempting emergency treatment, but it was probably already too late.
The person Zephyr did not recognize was Igaram. The other two were Nami and Robin.
After Cobra was shot, the soldiers on both sides seemed to go mad and began attacking one another. They had been forced to carry Cobra to this relatively safe position.
"The Man in the Mirror?"
The moment Crocodile saw him appear, every muscle in his body tensed and his nerves went on high alert.
Crocodile did not dare underestimate this fellow Warlord. The Man in the Mirror was unquestionably among the stronger Seven Warlords, even stronger than... Crocodile himself.
He hated to admit it, but Hawkeye, the Man in the Mirror, and Toguro, the strongest of the Seven Warlords, were on a completely different level from the other four.
Those three were the key reason the Seven Warlords could balance the combat power of Marine Headquarters and the Four Emperors.
Why had this man suddenly come here? What was his objective?
Seeing Crocodile's tense reaction, the others finally turned toward the Man in the Mirror. Their first impression was...
Mysterious.
A masked man dressed entirely in black naturally appeared mysterious.
Their second reaction was vigilance. Naturally, they would guard against a man who refused to reveal even his face.
"Is Cobra dead?" the Man in the Mirror repeated.
"What do you intend to do?" Igaram hurriedly asked.
"Never mind. I already know the answer even if you refuse to speak." Zephyr raised a hand, and Cobra flew directly into his grasp.
Zephyr's enemies were pirates. He was perfectly capable of living peacefully with anyone else.
"Your Majesty!" Igaram cried out in alarm, but Crocodile stopped him.
"Idiot. Be quiet and wait," Crocodile said softly while watching the Man in the Mirror. "Wait for... a miracle."
"Magnetic Field Rotation: Cellular Reconstruction!" Zephyr quietly shouted.
An unusual power immediately entered Cobra's body. Koza's bullet had passed through him, grazing his heart. Although it had not pierced the organ, the injury should theoretically have been fatal.
But as Zephyr's power entered Cobra, his breathing not only stabilized, but the bullet wound in his chest repaired itself completely!
This was the power of magnetic fields. Zephyr's magnetic field power had reached 240,000 horsepower. At that level, he could easily reconstruct cells. As long as someone was not already dead or suffering from an injury such as a destroyed heart, he could restore them!
His power was considered miraculous. Countless high officials and nobles across the world wanted him to heal them, but the Man in the Mirror used his strength entirely according to his whims. Authority could never coerce him.
If he wished, he would heal an ordinary beggar on the street. If he did not, he would refuse without hesitation even if the World Government ordered him to treat a Celestial Dragon.
Now this miracle had been used on Cobra.
The dying king slowly opened his eyes and saw the masked Man in the Mirror.
"Someone like you actually came to a place like this?" Before Cobra could speak, Crocodile addressed him. "It seems news of what happened here has already spread everywhere."
Crocodile had never expected Aatrox's escape to remain secret, but he had not imagined someone would arrive this quickly.
"Aren't you here too?" Zephyr replied indifferently. He set Cobra down and asked, "What do you know about that chasm... and the Thunder Angel?"
"How did Aatrox escape from the entrance to Hell?"
He stared at Alabasta's king. In truth, Cobra did not need to answer aloud. As long as his mind began considering the answers, Zephyr could use his magnetic power to read his thoughts directly!
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