Chapter 523: The Spear Of Longinus, Ace Returns
"Mr. Roy?"
Ryuunosuke watched Roy fall silent and called out to him in a low voice.
"…My apologies, Captain Ryuunosuke."
Roy finally came back to himself and gave a wry smile.
"I was distracted for a moment when it was my turn to speak."
"But now I am very curious. How does someone as young as you know all of this?"
"Did you start investigating these things back when you were still a child?"
He really could not hold the question back any longer.
Strictly speaking, it had nothing to do with their current plan, but it had been gnawing at him.
"It was not exactly childhood."
Ryuunosuke smiled.
"Where I come from, stories like this existed as legends."
"And by the way, I am not entirely from the East Blue."
He spoke casually, as if he had just mentioned what he had eaten yesterday.
In truth, he had indeed been born in the East Blue.
But he had been born carrying memories from his previous life.
So he had not lied.
Roy, however, was even more shocked by that simple answer.
Because of how unusual Ryuunosuke was, they had carried out thorough investigations on him.
And the results of those investigations had been baffling.
Until the age of twenty one, Ryuunosuke had never left Foosha Village in the East Blue.
His life during that time had been utterly ordinary.
He had worked normal jobs, lived an unremarkable life.
Sometimes he got dragged into trouble with Luffy and his friends, but that was just youthful mischief.
To put it bluntly, he had looked like a background extra in someone else's story.
Then Ryuunosuke went to sea.
What followed was something no one could have predicted.
Monsters that seemed to appear out of nowhere boarded his ship one after another.
A small, shabby little boat had grown into an eternal vessel that could cross any sea.
All of that had happened in a little over five years.
Even in a dream, someone with a weak heart would not dare imagine that kind of rise.
"The Spear of Longinus is currently on Morbig Island."
Roy finally answered, his tone returning to seriousness.
"That place should be quite familiar to Captain Ryuunosuke by now."
"Morbig..."
"The kingdom of giants."
Ryuunosuke narrowed his eyes.
"So the precious Adam tree protected by the giants is the Adam you mean, the one who stands opposite Lilith?"
He could not help voicing his doubt.
From everything he had pieced together, as the Son and Daughter of God, Adam and Lilith should have been free moving beings.
Able to walk, speak and meddle in the world.
Yet Adam was a tree.
A tree whose branches had, according to previous information, been used by shipwrights all over the world as top tier shipbuilding material.
The thought that the limbs of a god had been sawed apart into planks and keels was something even Ryuunosuke struggled to wrap his head around.
"Yes."
Roy nodded.
"But right now, whether it is Lilith or Adam, they cannot move freely."
"Due to certain special reasons, they are both in a dormant state."
"Their current forms are only what the world can endure."
"Their true forms are something no living being would ever want to face directly."
Roy stopped there, as if he had remembered something terrifying.
"Hibernating, then."
Ryuunosuke exhaled slowly.
"So, should we head for the Spear of Longinus right now?"
Based on everything he knew, and Roy's own objectives, Roy should not have been standing here holding a conversation with him.
He should have gone to seize the Spear of Longinus first, then come to negotiate with the Dragon Hunter Pirates.
The order of things felt completely reversed.
"I cannot obtain the Spear of Longinus."
Roy shook his head.
"Because that weapon is Adam's power."
"And I carry Lilith's power within me."
"So…"
He did not finish the sentence, but Ryuunosuke understood.
As Adam's weapon, the spear would never acknowledge someone tainted by Lilith.
Which was why Roy had sought him out.
He wanted Ryuunosuke to take the Spear of Longinus, then join forces with him to strike at Lilith.
"I see."
"Then after things are settled here, we head for the land of giants."
Ryuunosuke nodded and made the decision without hesitation.
Only then did Roy truly relax.
If he had tried to hide this information any longer, even he knew no one would accept it.
Meanwhile, the battle between Atostana and Moria had entered a terrifying stage.
By the time Ryuunosuke and Roy had started their conversation, the two of them had already retreated a considerable distance from the main battlefield.
Even so, they could still feel the aftershocks from here.
Within the range of those attacks, even Ryuunosuke would have to brace himself and defend seriously.
One lapse in attention and he could be dragged into the storm.
"So this is the power of the leader of the Evictors."
Ryuunosuke watched the sea split and twist under each swing of the Heavenly Cloud Flowing Fire Blade.
"Roy, do you think you could defeat Atostana?"
He glanced sideways at him.
Each cut from Atostana's sword looked as if it could cleave heaven and earth apart.
And yet Moria, empowered by Adam's shadow, withstood that force again and again.
Even Ryuunosuke could not help sighing at the sight.
Adam was ridiculous.
Just a shadow was enough to raise a man like Moria to such a level.
"I cannot defeat him."
Roy answered calmly.
"But I can drag him into death with me."
Life and death sounded like nothing more than a statement of fact in his mouth.
"So you also have your own trump card."
Ryuunosuke chuckled.
"I won't ask about that."
"Want something to eat?"
He reached into his coat and pulled out a bag of sunflower seeds.
Roy's mouth twitched.
A moment ago they had been discussing gods, curses and the end of the world.
Now this man had seamlessly shifted into snack time.
The speed of the change left him speechless.
…
On the Moby Dick, the air was tense.
"Pops, should we leave this place?"
Marco looked up at the sky where distant lights clashed.
"If we get caught up in that battle..."
Once, he had believed without question that their father was the strongest man in the world.
But now there was Ryuunosuke.
There were Guardians and Evictors.
One giant after another had stepped out of the shadows of history.
Marco finally understood that the world was far wider than he had imagined.
Blind arrogance was nothing but the road to destruction.
"No."
Whitebeard stared ahead and shook his massive head.
"Wait for Ace to come out."
He had already taken his great blade in hand and walked to the prow of the ship.
If that storm of power ever rolled this way, he would stand at the front and stop it himself.
Even if it shattered his body, he would at least protect the sons behind him.
Marco opened his mouth, wanting to argue, but swallowed the words.
Knowing his father's character, he would not back down.
"Pops, I am back."
A familiar voice floated over from behind him.
Whitebeard's eyes lit up.
"Ace… you…"
He turned at once, joy overflowing.
He had countless questions lined up.
He wanted to ask what Ace had seen on Laugh Tale, how he felt, what he thought about the current situation.
Then he froze.
Ace's face had not changed much.
But the aura flowing off him was completely different from the Ace he knew.
"What is it, Pops?"
Ace scratched his head, confused by Whitebeard's stare.
As he spoke, that unfamiliar aura slowly faded, like a tide rolling back.
"It is nothing."
Whitebeard forced a laugh, then quickly gave him a brief explanation of the battle raging in front of them.
"Ace, what do you think?"
"Should we leave this place now, or…"
He asked for Ace's opinion.
After all, the man in front of him was the one who would one day inherit the name of Whitebeard.
He had already begun to consciously temper him as a captain.
"Hmm?"
Ace listened quietly, then turned his gaze toward the distant battlefield.
"That is… Moria?"
His brows drew together.
The name was familiar, but the presence he felt from that figure was not.
Was the monster trading blows with Atostana really the same Gecko Moria he remembered?
The intensity of that clash was on a completely different level from the Shichibukai who had once lost to Doflamingo.
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