Next Bonus, 100!!
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Marineford!
"The One Piece..."
"IS REAL!"
Facing the combined forces of the Marines and the pirate armada, and broadcast live to the entire world, Whitebeard delivered his final, dying declaration.
Exhausted beyond measure by a relentless series of brutal duels, the old man finally felt the icy grip of death closing in.
But he was not afraid.
His life had been a legend.
And in his final moments...
His voice, amplified by the broadcast Den Den Mushi, thundered across Marineford and echoed into every corner of the globe.
The One Piece??
What did he just say??
Did he just confirm the One Piece??
The battlefield fell into a stunned, absolute silence.
Everyone was struggling to process the sheer weight of Whitebeard's words.
Sengoku, blood dripping from his chin, his face a mask of horror, roared, "WHITEBEARD, YOU BASTARD...!"
The fallout was entirely predictable.
It would be a perfect mirror of what happened twenty years ago.
The words Roger spoke on the execution platform had ignited an era.
Whitebeard's dying breath would whip that storm into an unprecedented frenzy, driving countless new, ambitious dreamers out to sea.
Fame, fortune... everything you could ever desire is waiting right there!
The One Piece!
Whoever found it would be crowned the new Pirate King!
In the Great Pirate Era, this was a universally accepted truth.
And yet...
To this day, no one had found it!
Not even the Four Emperors!
So, the inevitable question had begun to spread like a cancer: did the One Piece actually exist?
Doubt had taken root.
But now...
With his dying breath, Whitebeard had taken that fading legend and cemented it as absolute reality!
The One Piece is real!
That single confirmation was enough to incite a worldwide riot among the millions of pirates dreaming of hitting the ultimate jackpot.
The coordinated assault by Jin and the Revolutionary Army was already poised to unleash a massive global storm.
But Whitebeard throwing this final match into the powder keg...
The entire era was about to violently derail, plunging the world into a chaotic vortex with an entirely unpredictable trajectory.
No one would be spared.
Everyone would be swept up in the current.
"He's dead??"
Teach, coughing up blood, let out a manic, booming laugh. "Zehahahaha!"
He scrambled toward Whitebeard, desperate to extract the Tremor-Tremor Fruit before the old man's body grew cold.
Whitebeard's vision was already fading to black.
He stared up at the sky.
He thought back on his life.
It was a life worthy of the title 'Legend.'
Even his final curtain call hadn't taken place in some sterile hospital bed, but here, on the grandest battlefield in the world.
For a living legend like him...
It was the most perfect ending he could have asked for.
He slowly closed his eyes.
The death of Ace had nearly broken his spirit, but witnessing Luffy's desperate, unwavering resolve had rekindled a spark of hope.
Ace's will lived on within Luffy. That was enough!
All men must eventually die!
Only their will, their ideals, are immortal!
My journey ends here!
Whitebeard stood tall on the shattered battlefield, closed his eyes, and breathed his last.
"He's dead!"
The Marines erupted in jubilant cheers.
"Whitebeard is dead??"
"He died... he died standing up!"
"POPS!"
Cries of shock and agonized wails echoed across the pirate lines.
Even in death, Whitebeard's body refused to fall. He stood there, towering and majestic, like a mountain holding up the sky.
Half his face was gone. His body was a ruin. Yet he maintained a posture of absolute, unyielding defiance. A true 'Monster' to the very end!
He commanded absolute awe!
Even his most bitter enemies couldn't help but be deeply moved by his sheer, indomitable spirit, feeling a profound sense of respect.
"He led his armada in a full-frontal assault on Marine Headquarters!"
"He fought all three Marine Admirals simultaneously!"
"He dueled Fleet Admiral Sengoku to a standstill!"
"And left him critically wounded..."
"He endured relentless attacks from countless Marine officers and survived a brutal ambush by the Blackbeard Pirates..."
"His combat record today is simply unimaginable!"
"The Strongest Man in the World... Whitebeard earned that title a hundred times over!"
"But even legends must eventually take their bow."
—————————
Hannabal Arena.
Eustass Kid watched the live broadcast, unable to suppress a sigh of awe.
Killer nodded grimly beside him.
His mask completely hid his face, making his expression unreadable, but the slight tremor in his voice betrayed his deep emotional turmoil.
"Looking at the outcome of this war... Whitebeard lost on both the strategic and tactical fronts."
"Ace is dead!"
"And now he's dead too!"
"The Marines secured a total victory over the Whitebeard Pirates... though the price they paid is looking increasingly catastrophic."
Kid shook his head.
"Did Whitebeard really lose? From a personal standpoint, he won exactly what he wanted. He just paid for it with his life."
"To bow out on a stage like that, in a manner like that... it's the ultimate dream for any true warrior!"
"And more importantly..."
"Did you hear him, Killer??"
"Our dream... the One Piece... it really exists!"
A fierce, burning ambition ignited in Kid's eyes.
Killer knew exactly what his captain meant.
He looked back at the screen, his gaze complex.
They hadn't just set sail to save their childhood friend; they had set their sights on the throne of the Pirate King from the very beginning.
They had encountered countless people along the way.
Some shared their dream of finding the One Piece. They were rivals, yes, but they never mocked each other's ambitions.
But the vast majority...
Treated the One Piece as a fairy tale, a child's lie.
And they had openly mocked them for believing in it.
On their journey so far...
Kid had lost count of how many times he had lost his temper.
He had slaughtered countless fools who dared to laugh at him.
And yet, a lingering knot of frustration had always remained tightly coiled in his chest.
Because...
Violence could destroy the physical body of a skeptic, but it couldn't definitively prove that Kid was right.
Perhaps...
Kid's frequent, explosive losses of control were a symptom of his own subconscious insecurity. Perhaps his belief in the One Piece wasn't as absolute as he wanted to think it was.
That insecurity was what drove him to lash out.
Luffy and Teach, on the other hand, had taken the beatings in Mock Town without raising a hand in retaliation.
Because their faith was absolute.
But now...
The Strongest Man in the World had publicly, undeniably confirmed it.
"The One Piece... is real!"
"We weren't the fools! They were!"
Kid's voice hardened with absolute conviction.
The air around him seemed to grow hot with anticipation.
It wasn't just the Kid Pirates.
Every pirate currently taking refuge on Hannabal drew a sharp breath. In an instant, the entire arena erupted into an absolute frenzy!
"Did you hear that??"
"The One Piece is real!"
"The Strongest Man in the World, the only man to ever rival Roger, confirmed it with his dying breath!"
It wasn't just Hannabal.
Sabaody Archipelago, the Four Blues, the New World...
Millions of people watching the live feeds or listening to the radio broadcasts were shaken to their core.
Some were too slow-witted to immediately grasp the implications.
Others, who harbored a deep-seated hatred for pirates, simply cursed his name. Good riddance! Even in death, he won't let the world know peace!
"He played me..."
"This time..."
"It's an absolute, unmitigated defeat."
A wave of crushing, suffocating exhaustion washed over Sengoku.
He stumbled, finally collapsing heavily onto the ruined ground.
He violently coughed up another pool of blood.
Whitebeard had dealt him a catastrophic blow—not just physically, but psychologically.
It could easily be argued that Whitebeard's final, dying words had inflicted far more damage on Sengoku's grand design than the blade thrust through his chest ever could.
He had meticulously planned for every conceivable variable, but he had never imagined that Whitebeard, in his final moments, would make the exact same choice Roger had made!
Using his own death as the catalyst to violently detonate the entire era!
Combine that with the opportunistic maneuvering of an ambitious wildcard like Jin and the coordinated assault by the Revolutionary Army...
Even though Whitebeard had died at the hands of the Marines, he had successfully plunged the world into an era of unprecedented, apocalyptic turmoil.
The situation facing the Marines and the World Government hadn't improved by a single fraction of a percent. In fact, it had become exponentially more dire.
This was rapidly shaping up to be the most severe existential crisis the World Government had faced since its inception!
This outcome was the absolute antithesis of the war's original objective.
Whitebeard had lost!
But Sengoku... had also suffered a total defeat!
It was a lose-lose scenario of epic proportions.
The psychological devastation, for a man who prided himself on being the "Resourceful General," was absolute. It was said that the sheer stress turned his hair completely white in an instant.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku!"
The Marines cried out in panic, watching their leader fall.
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