Chapter 209

Although it was waved away by Garp, Garp stood frozen in place as if struck heavily.

Both grandsons threw punches at him without the slightest hesitation......

Was he really right?

Or......

Was he wrong?

"Luffy!!" Ace cried out in alarm.

Luffy, who had just rescued Ace, didn't even have time to say another word to him before he went limp in his arms, his face aging at an exaggerated speed, and within a few breaths he had become a frail, ancient-looking old man.

This was a clear sign of severely overdrawn life force!

At this moment,

Garp's heart twisted in agony!

To save Ace, Luffy really had given absolutely everything......

"Ah!!!"

Ace could not accept this outcome. An invisible aura swept out from within him, shaking Garp so violently that he was forced back several steps.

Conqueror's Haki!

This made Sengoku's face look even uglier!

Ace being rescued......

Was already a foregone conclusion.

The more potential Ace showed now, the more the Marines and World Government felt like a fishbone stuck in their throat.

Miserable!

"Whoosh—"

Sima Di raised his hand and sent out a ray of holy light, which landed precisely on Luffy. The latter visibly returned to a youthful state on the spot.

Only then did Ace snap out of his berserk state, glare viciously at Garp, and leap off the execution platform with Luffy on his back to rejoin the Straw Hat crew.

But......

A sudden change occurred!!!.

76. Teach Takes the Stage! Shanks's Face-Fruit!

Just as Ace leaped down with Luffy, an unexpected change suddenly occurred!

A ball of black flame flew out from the shadows. Ace only had time to shift his body to shield Luffy, but his own left leg took a direct hit.

Ace tried to use his elementalization to assimilate the black flame, only to discover that the black flame was actually burning fiercely on top of his own flames and showed signs of spreading!

Ace recognized this flame...

Without hesitation,

He directly abandoned that portion of flame, blasting it into the ground, and the pants on his leg vanished.

"Marshall??? D??? T????

"Zehahahaha—" came the familiar great laugh.

Teach walked out with a large group of men, among them several figures still wearing prison uniforms.

This was......

"Damn it! Blackbeard, you were absent without leave—did you go to Impel Down?" Sengoku said furiously.

"Zehahahaha—" Teach laughed loudly: "Sengoku, you don't really think that after lurking under Dad for decades, I'd be content to just become one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, do you? I was merely using that identity to go to Impel Down and pick out more crewmates!"

As his words fell,

Blackbeard looked toward Sima Di, undisguised longing in his eyes.

"Demon Nemesis, isn't this grand battlefield spectacular enough? It was all orchestrated by me! So, how about it—have you fulfilled our agreement from back then? Come be my crewmate!"

Sima Di: "......"

The Summit War was clearly your plan to begin with, so why are you dragging me into it?

Crocus also managed to break free from the four Vice Admirals at this moment, rushing toward Luffy in a frantic hurry.

"Quick! Let me see!"

Chopper also squeezed over to the side, nervously checking Luffy's condition.

"Phew—" Crocus let out a breath of relief: "Good, it's just an excessive overdraft of life force. Fortunately, that kid Di healed him in time and pulled his life back from the brink."

Only then did the crowd finally relax.

As long as he's fine, that's good.

"I'll take Luffy back first." Chopper transformed into a reindeer, carried Luffy, and ran toward the Going Merry.

"Hey! Demon Nemesis, what's your answer?" Teach pressed: "Believe me, the Blackbeard Pirates will definitely become the new Emperor crew! If you refuse, I can only take your demon......"

"Teach!!!"

Whitebeard roared furiously. For the first time, the Tremor-Tremor Fruit went all-out, blasting three Admirals flying. The white sphere gathered on his bisento grew absurdly larger than his own body, and from thousands of meters away he brought it down with a vicious slash!

"Crack—crack—crack—"

The space and ground before the blade all shattered. Every Marine in the way was torn apart, and the attack swept up everything in its path, reaching Teach in the blink of an eye. The irresistible force distorted Teach's features as he activated "Dark Hole" trying to nullify the attack. He gritted his teeth, but still couldn't withstand this furious strike.

"Crack—"

his Dark-Dark Fruit ability was shattered by the quake, and the slash's remaining momentum cut into him completely, sweeping him as he was blasted into the ground of Marineford. The shockwave split the entire Marineford cleanly in two.

This was the power of the World's Strongest Man, Whitebeard!

【Ding! Congratulations on signing in to the famous scene "The Split Marineford!" and obtaining the sign-in reward "Edward??? Newgate????

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Edward's name is obscured by garbled characters in this text.

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Another wave of sword techniques flooded his mind, and Lord Sima couldn't help but smack his lips.

The scene was very shocking, but as for this reward...

Even if it were swapped for Bai Hu Zi's physique, he would still be happy.

Sword techniques...

He already had way too many of these things, he really didn't need any more, hey!

However...

【Ding! Congratulations on signing in at the famous scene "Bai Hu Zi Slaughters the Unfilial Son Blackbeard with His Sword!" and obtaining the sign-in reward "Blackbeard's Devil Fruit Compatibility Formula"!】

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"Blackbeard's Devil Fruit Compatibility Agent": Blackbeard accidentally discovered a prehistoric ruin in his hometown, from which he obtained a Devil Fruit compatibility agent that allows a person to possess the abilities of up to three Devil Fruits simultaneously without triggering rejection and self-detonation!;

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【Reward has been stored in the System Space!】

Oh?

Devil Fruit compatibility agent?

There's such a thing too?

I had always assumed Teach could possess new Devil Fruit abilities because he was a once-in-a-generation talent, had multiple hearts or something like that...

But it turns out it was actually because of this Devil Fruit compatibility agent?

Now that's interesting!

And there's no limit like the previous life's speculation that "they can't be from the same system of Devil Fruits"—Teach probably didn't choose a Logia Devil Fruit because he simply didn't think much of it, right?

Under a sweep of his spiritual force,

Teach, this guy, actually didn't die under Bai Hu Zi's terrifying strike?

He was lying in the depths of the ground, clinging to life, his twisted body slowly repairing itself, but the pain made him groan sharply and incessantly.

That was the ability granted to him by the Dark-Dark Fruit—absorbing some of the damage at the cost of double the pain.

In a certain sense, it's far more BUG-like than elementalization.

Let's look at Sakazuki,

He took a furious death-blow from Bai Hu Zi and just lay dead on the ground.

Teach here took a furious strike from Bai Hu Zi at his Peak Period, and could still slowly recover on his own—regaining combat ability was only a matter of time.

As for Teach's Blackbeard Pirates crew members, they showed absolutely no intention of rescuing him, and even kept their distance to watch from afar.

Looking as if they might scatter their goods on the spot at any moment.