Chapter 334: Chapter 334: Rayleigh: Old Friends!

Chapter 334: Rayleigh: Old Friends!

While the battle on Fish-Man Island raged on.

Red Line, sea area outside the elevator.

Aboard a Government warship traveling the ’High-Speed Route’ reserved for World Government vessels, the crew was hard at work.

"Control the sails, control them well, we’ve deviated from the route again!"

"What on earth is going on? How could such huge waves appear on the High-Speed Route?"

"Is it a seaquake? I haven’t heard of any seaquakes in this area recently?"

Massive waves over ten meters high appeared on a stretch of sea specifically chosen for its calm and stability.

All the crew members were naturally very puzzled.

However, fortunately, they were after all well-trained elites of the World Government. Although panicked at this moment, they kept their heads.

Barring any further surprises, they would return to Mary Geoise with their two prisoners — later than scheduled, but intact.

But...

An accident quickly occurred.

"Hey, look over there, what is that?"

A crew member discovered an anomaly.

In the distant wind and waves, something was faintly visible — a tiny black object, like a leaf, threading through the gaps between the surging waves.

But everyone knew—that couldn’t be a leaf.

"It’s a ship!"

"This size, is it a fishing boat?"

"Did it get blown off course because of the abnormal weather nearby?"

The crew members frowned tightly.

"Should we sink it?"

This was almost their first reaction—as employees of the World Government, this could be considered a very standard behavioral pattern.

"In this kind of weather and distance, artillery shells probably won’t be very useful... Hey—you there, stop taking pictures, isn’t that the latest model that just came out? Look at that ship!"

A crew member said this to another person beside him.

He was the member responsible for taking pictures of the captured criminals and sending them back to Mary Geoise to make wanted posters.

"Latest model it may be, but it added automatic timed shots and photo transmission to Mary Geoise — it’s not a telescope..."

The crew member responsible for taking pictures muttered, but still obediently raised the camera hanging around his neck and looked towards that ship.

Subsequently, his eyes abruptly widened.

Because at this time, through the camera lens, he could clearly see—that thing cutting through the wind and waves from afar was indeed a small boat.

To be precise — it wasn’t even a fishing boat. Calling it a raft would be generous.

But amidst these violent tremors coming from beneath the sea surface, that crude boat actually hadn’t sunk.

On the contrary, although the crew member could see a long-nosed man among the passengers on that small boat crying and apparently screaming for help.

The helmsman’s skills were extraordinary — following the trajectory of the undulating waves, that ship was actually speeding towards them.

More crucially, the crew member saw the flag of that ship.

Even though it was just a crude boat, even though that flag was equally crude, almost like a child’s hasty scrawl.

But it could still be seen—that was a... skull wearing a straw hat!

"It’s pirates!"

"Enemy attack! It’s an enemy attack!"

The crew member let out panicked shouts.

The entire Government warship immediately fell into panic.

But the next moment...

"So noisy!"

A low roar came, and then a sword directly cleaved the crew member holding the camera in two.

Blood flowed everywhere, and the camera on the crew member’s chest fell to the ground, rolling along into a gap in the deck. The lens faced the deck and clicked — some button had been triggered.

But clearly—under the current circumstances, no one noticed this.

Everyone looked in disbelief at that slain crew member, and then looked somewhat fearfully at the several ’Divine Servants’ walking out from the deck’s resting room.

"Hmph, that guy Shamrock is truly useless... actually causing such a huge commotion, and even calling us to lead troops to Fish-Man Island to help."

"Young people are just like that, swearing they can handle it alone, then getting stalled."

"However, this might also be an opportunity—an army of the Giant race actually appeared. If we can eliminate them, that Lord might also..."

"Stop talking about that, let’s finish off these bugs who don’t know their place first... someone actually dared to come hijack our ship, laughable."

The Divine Servants, who were once God’s Knights, stepped out with sneers. Regarding the fact that they had just slain one of their own crew members, this group clearly didn’t care in the slightest.

Similarly, they didn’t care about those pirates who were clearly coming for this warship and highly likely wanted to hijack the ’Knight of the Sea’ and the ’Surgeon of Death’ either—just some mere bugs, not worthy of them standing in strict formation.

Until the next moment...

"I truly didn’t expect you guys would be on this ship—it seems this old man didn’t come to the wrong place."

"However... it really is the same as always, the style in which you scumbags do things."

The voice cut through the waves, entering the ears of the God’s Knights.

The expressions of the Divine Servants stiffened visibly.

They looked at that ship with unbelievable gazes, and then predictably saw the man sitting at the bow, holding a sword.

"That guy is..."

The Divine Servants recognized the other party.

After the ’God Valley’ incident, an entire generation of God’s Knights was exterminated by ’Star Lord’, with only ’Saint Garling’ and ’Saint Junzi’ surviving.

And they were exactly the ones who became the new batch of God’s Knights as replacements after that—so strictly speaking, they could actually be considered Shamrock’s ’seniors’.

But the reason why they weren’t valued within the God’s Knights, and even far inferior to a junior like Shamrock, lay in the fact that... after becoming God’s Knights, they suffered a string of failures.

Under orders, they attacked the Roger Pirates more than once, attempting to retrieve Saint Garling’s child, but failed every single time.

So they all recognized the person before them, and had fought against the other party more than once.

"’Dark King’ Rayleigh!?"

The expressions of the Divine Servants instantly stiffened.

At the same time...

"Rayleigh, you know those guys?"

Luffy looked at Rayleigh with a curious face.

"Mm, you could say they are old opponents from the past."

"Are they strong?"

"In terms of strength, they aren’t very strong, but their vitality is troublesome."

Rayleigh judged like this—this was also the Roger Pirates’ unified judgment regarding the God’s Knights.

Speaking solely of the strength of the God’s Knights, the other party possessed quite top-tier fruit abilities, but whether it was Haki or intellect, they could only be described as mediocre.

At least in front of a top-tier powerhouse like Rayleigh, they were completely no match.

When the Roger Pirates faced the God’s Knights back then, they thrashed them soundly every time—the only problem was the God’s Knights’ immortal bodies, which resulted in the Roger Pirates having no way to completely kill them. They could only use Conqueror’s Coating to beat them to the point where they couldn’t get back up, and then flee.

However, this was also what puzzled Rayleigh right now.

According to his past experience, the other party should have long since relied on their immortal bodies to charge over at this time. Why are they still hanging back without taking action today?

"Is it because of what happened at the bottom of the sea?"

Rayleigh naturally couldn’t know that this group of God’s Knights had already been downgraded to ’Divine Servants’ and lost their complete immortal bodies, so right now he could only guess secretly in his heart.

Yes.

As the world’s most top-tier tri-color Haki user, Rayleigh could perceive—these giant waves on the sea surface weren’t natural.

While on the ship, he had already learned through Shakky’s intelligence that the location of the giant waves was not just this sea area, but almost all nearby sea areas had similar swells appearing simultaneously.

Coupled with the sensing of Rayleigh’s Observation Haki, he instinctively realized.

This anomaly on the sea surface should originate from beneath — in the deep sea, something was highly likely happening, and the source was highly likely the ’Fish-Man Island’ that had been the focus recently.

It was exactly because of the anomaly beneath the sea surface that ultimately formed these overwhelming giant waves through the butterfly effect.

"However, this is just right."

Thinking of this, Rayleigh looked down at Luffy: "Luffy, come aboard with me — to deal with these guys, we must use the ’Conqueror’s Coating’ I mentioned before. You won’t master it overnight, but watching closely will do you good."

"The others are responsible for taking care of the guarding crew members and finding the place where Trafalgar Law and Jinbe are locked up."

Hearing Rayleigh’s arrangements, the rest of the Straw Hat crew nodded with serious expressions one by one—this was also the tactic they had discussed and agreed upon before setting out.

Only Luffy frowned, clutching his chest.

"What’s wrong? Luffy?"

Rayleigh looked at Luffy somewhat puzzledly.

"No, it’s nothing."

Luffy shook his head with a blank look on his face.

But in his heart, he muttered ’here it comes again’.

In fact, ever since they were in Alabasta, he’d felt something strange in his body.

Back in Alabasta, he heard a kind of abnormal ’drumbeat’ that only he could hear.

Subsequently, he discovered that his body would occasionally show some anomalies—as if some new, unfamiliar power was welling up from deep within his chest.

Even sometimes, he felt his heart seemed to want to beat along with those drumbeats. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

However, Chopper gave the members of the Straw Hat crew physical checkups at regular intervals, but never found any problems. And since leaving Alabasta, the feeling had gradually faded.

So Luffy never thought much about it.

But now, he clearly had that similar feeling again—although it wasn’t very strong yet, he could be certain.

Somewhere beneath the sea surface, that ’drumbeat’ was faintly sounding again.

But clearly, even Luffy knew now was not the time to talk about these things.

"Let’s set out, Rayleigh!"

He looked at Rayleigh and said this.

"...Mm."

After confirming that Luffy’s body really didn’t seem to have any major problems, Rayleigh slowly nodded—he didn’t overthink it either. In his view, perhaps the injuries Luffy sustained when facing Roy earlier hadn’t completely healed yet.

"Let’s set out."

At the same time, the deep sea outside Fish-Man Island.

"Primordial World · Eternal Kalpa!"

Loki’s half-dragon form — pitch-black scales covering his body — was still as massive as a mountain range, even without full Beast Transformation.

He swung Lightning, wrapped in starlight, in his hand, throwing a hammer strike.

Before the hammer arrived, the freezing air, lightning, and fierce wind had already surged out ahead of the blow, as if to shatter the entire deep sea!

And facing this strike that shook the deep sea, Shamrock’s expression remained cold as frost.

He swung Seven Sins in his hand, and a pitch-black slash swung out again, directly colliding with Loki’s hammer.

And while the blade and the hammer body collided, accompanied by the three-voiced howl from the blade, the three-headed Hellhound roared out again, lunging to bite Loki.

At the same time, a massive squirrel head also poked out from the iron hammer, letting out a ’squeak’ sound and sweeping its giant tail towards the three-headed hound.

Rumble!

Massive tremors swept in all directions again. The rock layers on the seabed shattered and disintegrated in large swathes like soft tofu. Such commotion even made the trunk of the Sunlight Tree Eve in the distance sway violently.

If one looked closely, they would discover.

Centered on the battle between Shamrock and Loki—the topography of the entire nearby deep-sea area had completely changed.

The original coral reefs and sea forests nearby had long vanished without a trace, replaced by vast, fathomless canyons bleeding magma, and undersea mountain ranges forcibly sculpted by raw power.

And clearly.

It was exactly their battle that caused the giant waves on the surface above.

And right now...

Crack!

Crack!

The two bodies, disparate in size, were continuously in a stalemate and trembling.

Until a certain moment...

BOOM!

Like two cannonballs, they flew apart in opposite directions.

VMMM!

Shamrock forcefully stabilized his figure in mid-air—the armor on his body had clear scorch marks and frost cracks at this moment, but they were already repaired in a split second.

Still completely unscathed, he frowned tightly, looking at Loki in the distance.

Loki’s massive half-dragon form tumbled and crashed into an undersea mountain range. The mountain collapsed with a loud boom under that massive power, burying him within it.

But just a moment later...

Rumble!

The squirrel’s giant tail blew away the massive rocks and the ruins of the mountain range, and Loki poked his head out.

"Pfft!"

He spat out the blood in his mouth, rubbed his head, and shook it.

"Heh... it’s been a long time since I felt this much pain. Although I was also beaten up like this by that guy Uma when my body was occupied by Teach earlier, it’s not the same as fighting with my own body after all."

He muttered in a low voice like this.

But then, the fighting intent in his eyes grew even hotter as he raised his head to look at Shamrock: "You bastard... although you are a running dog of the ’Abyss’, you’re genuinely strong!"

While speaking, he stretched his body and stood up again.

"...You too."

Seeing this, Shamrock’s eyes grew colder still.

(End of Chapter)

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