El's actions could only be described as ruthless and decisive.
After crushing the pirate crew, he beheaded the three bounty-bearing officers right there in front of the girls. By now, the three of them were already used to this kind of scene.
Once the heads were wrapped securely in cloth, El led the trio toward the harbor, following the memory he'd just stolen from one of the pirates to find their ship.
With the necessary information already in hand, El didn't bother to hold back. He cut down the guards on watch at the dock with quick slashes to the throat.
Just like the legendary "Dragon Slayer" Ryuma, or Cavendish's other personality, any pirate who couldn't see—or keep up with—El's speed had only one possible ending when faced with his blade:
Instant death.
His draw slash, dark and sudden like black lightning, had become El's signature move for mowing down small fry.
After killing the guards, he emptied the ship's treasury, then swept up the captain's "private stash" hidden in other corners of the vessel. Only then did the four move on to their next target.
If Nami had more actual battleground experience, El would have preferred to split the work with her—letting her use flames to raid the ships of pirates who were away from the harbor.
In this era of sailing, fire was one of the strongest weapons in naval combat.
But to avoid accidents—like Nami accidentally burning down the entire ship and all its treasure—El chose to handle that part himself for now. When Nami's strength and control improved, he would gladly unleash her in battles like these.
In just one hour, El took down three pirate crews in succession, decapitated all of their captains and officers, and cleared out every treasury and private vault he could find.
He attacked in broad daylight—on main streets and inside taverns.
Naturally, his high-profile hunts spread through the town at lightning speed.
The pirates who heard the news went pale with fear.
They had just set foot on the Grand Line. Even without this, they already carried a certain fear of the unknown. Now, hearing about a bounty hunter who annihilated three West Blue crews in an hour, most of them instinctively assumed:
"So this is Grand Line bounty hunters… they're all monsters like this?!"
Almost without hesitation, pirates fled the island one after another, desperate to leave before that terrifying boy with the sword appeared in front of them.
Some pirates with lower bounties, hearing that crews stronger than theirs had been obliterated, even decided to give up on the Grand Line entirely and slink back to their home seas.
The Grand Line is a terrifying place.
That was the conclusion many of them came to after this one-sided massacre.
Once all the other pirate crews had fled, El had no interest in chasing them down.
Because the three crews he had taken out had already made him rich.
Yes—properly rich.
In East Blue, even if El hunted several pirate crews, the combined profit might not match a single one of these three Grand Line crews.
Pirates, as a breed, generally had no concept of saving money.
They loved to blow fortunes on feasts and parties almost every day.If they ran out of money, they just went out and robbed someone.If they had money, they spent it.
After all, they lived on the edge of death every day. No one knew if tomorrow would be their last. What was the point of hoarding wealth you might never get to enjoy?
If you had money and didn't spend it, you were an idiot.
On top of that, every battle they fought burned through ammunition and weapons, which also had to be replaced at high cost.
The three pirate crews El had just wiped out were all well-prepared—and exceptionally loaded.
Out of respect for how dangerous the Grand Line was said to be, each of them had gone on a large looting spree before entering this sea. That meant all three were at the richest point in their careers.
Which also meant…
The four who wiped them out, drained their treasuries, and stole all their private hoards, reaped three times the happiness.
Not even counting the bounties on the captains and officers, just the treasure and private funds alone gave El a profit of at least 700 million Belly.
Keep in mind: this is 700 million in the year 1510 of the Sea Circle Calendar.
If they cashed in all the heads as well, El estimated that this single sweep would earn them right around one billion Belly.
In just one hour, the four of them had pocketed about a billion.
This was how insanely lucrative it was to be a powerful bounty hunter in this Great Pirate Era.
Even a printing press couldn't spit out money this fast.
At the same time, the moment El entered the Grand Line, he had also stepped fully onto another stage:
The World Stage.
On this stage, a single dazzling performance could bring fame and attention on a global scale.
The Grand Line, this sea running between the two Calm Belts, is the exclusive territory of the World Economy News Paper.
Across both halves of the Grand Line, all local newspapers were essentially subordinate to it.
In this world, there were only two major forces that held the power to publish news and control public opinion:
The World Economy News Paper, which owned tens of thousands of trained News Coo.
And Mary Geoise and Navy Headquarters, who had also domesticated a large number of News Coo for official reports.
But compared to official government newspapers, people across the world overwhelmingly preferred the World Economy News Paper.
Because everyone knew:
The current president of the World Economy News Paper—One of the underground world's emperors, Morgans, known as "Big News"—Was a lunatic who dared to say and print anything.
Over the years, Morgans had offended almost every major power imaginable:Mary Geoise, Navy Headquarters, the Four Emperors, the Seven Warlords of the Sea, even the Revolutionary Army.
Every hegemonic force that could be offended—Morgans had already offended them.
And yet, no one had killed him.
The price he paid, however, was that the World Economy News Paper had no fixed home base. Its headquarters were mounted on a skyship, constantly moving from one location to another to avoid annihilation.
In the end, Mary Geoise and the Navy grew tired of fighting him.
Since they couldn't beat him, they chose to cooperate.
Official papers became less frequent. Outside of truly major events, the World Government stopped spending money breeding News Coo and printing their own news—and instead started using Morgans' network to distribute information.
From that point on, just like Doflamingo, Morgans became a man who could walk in both the light and the dark, eating from both sides.
His News Coo swooped through the skies, sharper and shrewder than ordinary seagulls, while the ground writhed with freelance reporters and paparazzi scrambling to feed themselves with the next big scoop.
In a town of over a hundred thousand, where El brazenly hunted pirates in public and wiped out three entire crews in just one hour…
In a world where there had been almost no bounty hunters with such youth and power since the start of the Great Pirate Era…
Of course the reporters hiding in the crowds were going to get excited.
They snapped photo after photo of El and the girls, wrote up everything they saw, and then gleefully faxed the materials to the nearest editorial branch.
After several rounds of screening and comparison, El's pictures, his recent deeds, and even records from East Blue that the organization dug up…
Crushed almost all other news submissions from both halves of the Grand Line—and even most stories from the rest of the world.
One editor-in-chief at the World Economy News Paper took one look and decided:
"This is good material."
And so, El's story was published on page two of the next day's issue of the World Economy News Paper.
The following morning, as those papers were scattered by News Coo across oceans and islands—
The name and face of the "Young Master Swordsman" El began to spread across the world.
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