CHAPTER 72: CHAPTER 72: MONKEY D. LUFFY—WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU CAN?

Whoooosh—

To locate the Golden Lion’s base quickly, Karl had the Blue-Eyes White Dragon go full throttle.

How fast was that? Fast enough to leave a Marine fleet in the dust, just like Kizaru.

Karl expanded his electromagnetic field; the Blue-Eyes spread its wings and became lightning, blinking to the field’s edge in the very next second. After only a few dozen such jumps, they reached seven thousand meters, beneath the towering cumulonimbus.

Karl returned the Blue-Eyes to its card, used Soru, punched through the cloudbank, and entered the White Sea.

Summoning the Blue-Eyes again, man and dragon chose to scout first toward Sabaody rather than the Florian Triangle.

After all, the Red Line lay at the end of the Sabaody heading: eliminate that direction first, then watch the rear and flanks.

Merged with electric signals, Karl’s Observation Haki gave him and the Blue-Eyes a one-of-a-kind perception on the sea.

Once he mastered future sight, their Observation would rival those born with special gifts.

With radar-like Haki whose range could blanket a large island, they quickly finished sweeping the high skies above Sabaody’s bearing.

No base above that route, not even in the White-White Sea beyond ten thousand meters.

With Sabaody ruled out, they turned toward the Florian Triangle.

"...Huh?"

Their radar was vast and their speed extreme; it looked like aimless flight.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the Blue-Eyes’ blink-flight stopped.

Both of them turned instinctively and looked to ten o’clock.

Far off that way, they first sensed a mass of life, then—through the electric-signal perception—saw, with a god’s-eye view, an archipelago floating on the White Sea.

On those islands, besides the humans at work, prowled beasts whose auras swelled and waned.

"Found it. Just as I figured."

"Wraaaah..."

Karl grinned.

The Blue-Eyes answered softly.

The Golden Lion hadn’t started his East Blue annihilation plan yet, so he hadn’t dropped the archipelago from the White Sea. He was hiding above the clouds, using the cloudbanks that hindered Devil Fruit users as cover.

When he went out, he didn’t carry the islands with him; he flew in a pirate ship.

Which meant this archipelago had likely lingered in the White Sea for nearly twenty years.

Once he confirmed the base’s location, Karl rode the Blue-Eyes back down to the Blue Sea.

"Well? Did you find it?"

Seeing Karl return with a smile, Karina couldn’t wait.

"Yeah. Found it."

Karl pointed to the sky at five o’clock. "That way. Not far from the Florian Triangle’s routes—somewhere along a standard lane."

Nami checked her pocketwatch and gasped. "You and Little White took just over an hour to find what the Navy and Mary Geoise couldn’t for over a decade? That’s insane!"

"I’ll prep fruit and bring out the sarcophagus," Robin said, smiling.

"No need."

Karl stopped her. "No prep. I’ll take you up with me."

"Eh?!"

The women blinked. Nami went a little pale. "R-really? If I go, won’t I get in the way of you fighting that great pirate—"

"Relax. You won’t."

Karl ruffled her hair. "Up there, no one but that living legend can threaten us. I’m not taking you to watch from up close or to fight—just to wait on a separate island."

"Once the fruit’s powers reincarnate, I’ll need Sister Robin and Perona’s help."

"I see..."

Karina glanced at the deck beneath their feet. "Don’t we need someone to watch the ship? What if the golden bell disappears while we’re gone?"

"...After Little White drops me off, I’ll send her down to watch the ship."

Karl explained the card summons. "I’ll observe that legendary pirate with Little White first. I don’t know how strong he was at his peak, but he’s badly weakened now. There’s a ship’s helm stuck in his skull, and both legs have been replaced by swords. To me, he’s not even on par with the Navy’s top brass."

"So I can deal with him alone."

Since Karl had decided, the women didn’t argue.

They divided up the work.

Karl hauled the black stone sarcophagus from the hold; Robin’s Flower-Flower Fruit sprouted hundreds of arms to move piles of fruit into it.

Karina, Nami, and Perona packed bags with a variety of dials and coral bubbles from the sky islands.

Once everything was ready, the little dragon returned to its Blue-Eyes form and carried them aloft.

Side note: after advancing to six stars, the Blue-Eyes had grown again.

Its back could seat seven or eight comfortably; carrying five people and a sarcophagus was easy.

Karl had a hunch that if the Blue-Eyes kept leveling, its body would undergo some unbelievable change.

The bond-sharing let the dragon copy all of Karl’s abilities except weapon arts; even at a low level it could hit far above its weight.

Stars, in that sense, scarcely mattered.

But since the card system marked stars, there had to be a reason and a secret behind it.

Crossing the White Sea, they made a high-profile landing on one of the floating isles.

Ever since the rampage at Marineford and his capture by Garp and Sengoku, the mightiest sky-faring crew of the last era was history.

Now the Golden Lion had only his deputy and doctor, Dr. Indigo, a handful of small fry, and "slaves" in chains.

Even so, the name of the flying great pirate still held weight. If he returned, a single shout would draw in droves of scum.

He didn’t need an army. Alone, with the Float-Float Fruit, he remained hegemon-class.

Even by himself, he was a greater strategic threat than the Red Count, Patrick Redfield, or the Moa Moa no Mi (More-More Fruit) user, the World Destroyer Byrnndi World.

Both were strategic abilities; but while the Moa Moa needed weapons to reach peak destruction, the Float-Float turned every non-living thing into a weapon.

Back to the point—

Without a powerful following under him, the Golden Lion didn’t frighten Karl, who could fly and feared no seawater—no more than Kizaru had.

After dropping the five on a floating isle, the Blue-Eyes returned to the Blue Sea to watch the ship, awaiting Karl’s call.

"There are surveillance transponder snails everywhere. We’ve been spotted."

Karl set the black sarcophagus before the women and warned, "People will come for you. None of them are your match, but don’t get careless."

"Karina, use the Barrier-Barrier Fruit to protect Nami."

"I’ll try not to draw the battle this way. If something goes wrong, use the coral bubbles and dials to save yourselves."

He looked toward the archipelago’s center—an island once called Merveille, now STRONG WORLD—and gave the women a small smile. "Don’t worry. I’ll be watching."

"Be careful. Don’t overdo it."

For extra motivation, Karina added, "If you come back without a scratch again, there’ll be a very big reward."

Karl’s eyes flicked to Nami and Perona; the latter, thinnest-skinned, flushed scarlet.

"Deal. Wait for the good news."

He flashed a grin and an OK sign.

Whoosh—

The next instant he became lightning and blinked to the very edge of his electromagnetic field.

Less than a second later, he vanished from their sight.

Before long, men in protective suits with strange weapons converged from every direction and encircled the four women.

But with the Barrier-Barrier, Ghost-Ghost, and Flower-Flower Fruits working in tandem, they shredded the attackers like the priests of Skypiea—swift and merciless.

With coral bubbles and dials in their packs, the women would survive even if they fell from the White Sea or through a meteor storm.

That was why Karl had brought them.

The sarcophagus’s power could only reincarnate a fruit’s ability within a certain area.

Best to do it on an island.

If it were over the sea and the reborn fruit didn’t choose one of their fruits aboard the ship, he’d have no way to find it.

Who knew if there were fruits below ten thousand meters—or more islands above?

So—

The Golden Lion’s archipelago was the perfect place to strip an ability.

Lightning teleportation was more convenient and versatile than light’s.

Kizaru’s line-of-sight blink was the fastest straight-line dash, but it had flaws: it couldn’t pass through obstacles.

Karl’s lightning teleport unfolded within his own field: the stronger the user, the larger the field.

Once it was out, he could turn to current, blink freely inside it, and ignore obstacles.

Aside from range and top speed, it was little different from space-warping.

With that cheat of a power, Karl needed under a minute to reach STRONG WORLD at the archipelago’s heart—and under another minute to pass through layers of barriers and appear in a vast monitoring room.

"Jyeh-hahahaha... an intruder?"

The Golden Lion had just entered and was watching the feeds when Karl appeared out of thin air. He turned, his laugh uniquely grating. "Such a flashy, all-negating teleport... a Logia that didn’t appear for several eras finally shows itself in this one."

"Kid, you’re pretty lucky."

"Thanks for the compliment."

Karl grinned, drew his knight’s sword, and gave a knightly salute. "Senior Shiki, I’ve long admired your name. I’m Karl—here to challenge you, and to take your head."

"Jye-hahahaha... I’ve been a pirate many years. I’ve met countless upstart challengers, and suffered my share of cowardly ambushes. But a challenge this upright? First time. It almost feels strange."

Admiration flashed in Shiki’s eyes; his aura was overwhelming. "But I don’t mind it. Karl, if you’ve got the skill—come take my head."

"As you wish."

Karl swung from high to low; a pale-green flying slash streaked toward Shiki.

"Too flimsy."

Shiki sneered, raised the named blade that was his right leg, and kicked a massive slash. "Slash Wave!"

Swiish—BOOM BOOM BOOM!

The sea-splitting arc resembled Mihawk’s cut at the Moby Dick in the Paramount War.

In a blink, it shattered Karl’s childlike slash and swallowed him and the entire control room.

From outside, the camera feeds showed a colossal cut ruthlessly cleaving the building in two.

Facing a strong challenger on his own turf, Shiki didn’t hold back out of sentiment.

On the contrary, he had every intention of destroying and rebuilding—to let Karl witness the legend of a bygone era.

Compared to the junior Crocodile, Shiki was the true overlord.

Without that helm in his head, how terrifying would his Haki be?

Karl had expected an easy fight. But as his elemental body was hurled out of the ruin by the slash, and he saw Shiki rise through the gash—legless, a helm jutting from his skull, yet still awe-inspiring—his blood surged.

As expected, you can’t measure a legend by the canon’s portrayal.

Monkey D. Luffy—what makes you think you can beat this man?

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