Chapter 69: Literally Seeing a Ghost
If it had been Nereus who attacked the Marine Base on Sabaody Archipelago, Kong would have found it troublesome, but he wouldn't be as overwhelmed as he was now.
Pirates attacking a Marine base was indeed a matter of extremely malicious nature. It couldn't be directly ignored like the capture of the Human Auction House.
But in the end, they still couldn't do anything about Nereus.
He was a Fish-man, a monster they couldn't even defeat on land.
According to subsequent reports, Nereus had already dived into the deep sea. were the Marines supposed to mobilize a fleet with great fanfare to catch him in the deep sea?
That was completely meaningless. They knew very well that Nereus wouldn't wait for them to land smoothly on Fish-man Island; he would launch attacks halfway through.
Fighting such a monster underwater... there was zero chance of victory.
The difficulty of fighting Nereus underwater increased geometrically.
The final result would just be the Marines expressing anger and condemnation, doing a few token things, and then letting it slide, allowing time to dilute everything.
After all, when a Marine base is attacked, it also depends on who the attacker is.
The high-end combat forces of the World Government were the private armies of the Celestial Dragons. Expecting Celestial Dragons to stick their necks out for the Marines was unrealistic.
They would only mock the Marines for their incompetence and then recruit new Marines worldwide.
Although the result looked cowardly, they could muddle through it, and it would pass eventually.
But now, the attacker had turned out to be Rocks. That made things much more complicated.
In the past year or so, initially, the Marines had briefly publicized Rocks's death to highlight their achievements.
After that, Rocks's name had been consistently downplayed, striving to bury the name in time.
It was just starting to show results, but if Rocks was still alive...
Not only would the plan fail, but the Marines' past propaganda would also become a laughingstock.
After all, it hadn't even been a year; Rocks hadn't been completely forgotten yet.
"Garp, didn't you say that guy was dead?!"
"How would I know? He should have been dead back then. Roger and I teamed up to break Rocks's Haki, and Nereus, that guy, pierced his heart.
Besides, didn't that group from the World Government confirm the body? They disposed of the corpse, and they handled the follow-up propaganda. What does it have to do with me?"
Garp carelessly repeated what happened back then, even giving a few affirmative grunts. Then, the sound of a stack of documents hitting the floor was heard.
The messenger soldier who had been standing at the door was now staring at Garp dumbfounded, as if some halo had shattered.
What about the "Hero of the Marines" fighting Rocks alone while the other pirates fled in panic?
The Marines and pirates teaming up...
And more than that, the messenger suspected he had heard something he shouldn't have. Would he just inexplicably disappear...
"You can leave. Don't blab about what just happened."
"Yes! Admiral Kong!"
Kong waved his hand seemingly unconcerned, but Garp stopped him.
"Wait. My ship is missing a scribe. Go tell Bogard and report to my ship."
"Since he said so, go report there. Again, don't speak nonsense about anything."
Seeing the messenger look at him hesitantly, Kong approved Garp's decision. This time, he personally went to close the office door and confirmed there were no other soldiers around.
"Garp, it looks like you don't trust me very much."
"Big Bro Kong, Sengoku said that a soldier once disappeared after talking about things that shouldn't be discussed. The darkness on this cliff... really doesn't make one feel at ease."
"Instead of that, you'd better watch your own mouth first to save us from more trouble. Now, immediately, right now, take your men to Sabaody Archipelago. Find out what the situation is there, understood?
And no matter what happens, lock down the information there first... Just lock it down."
Sabaody Archipelago gathered all kinds of people, including newspaper reporters from all over the world. First-hand big news could often be harvested there.
With such a big commotion, word might have already spread.
...
Before long, Garp arrived at Sabaody Archipelago on his exclusive warship.
"Seal off the scene! Don't let those reporters leave; confiscate their cameras! You guys, go search for and rescue the wounded. You guys..."
After disembarking, Garp's adjutant, Bogard, began arranging everything, commanding the Marine soldiers to handle the aftermath.
Garp himself went to the location of the destroyed base to check the traces left on the ground.
"This attack... really looks like Rocks's handiwork... Did that guy really not die?"
Even being there in person, Garp couldn't figure out the situation. Instead, Bogard made a new discovery.
It took Garp and his team quite some time to get here. Some quick-acting reporters had already sent the news out. Completely suppressing this news was no longer possible.
The Marines' current actions could only serve to show that they were indeed doing something.
However, during this process, Bogard discovered something special.
It was a photo taken by coincidence. A massive sword slash (shockwave) had just been unleashed, but in the photo, the swordsman could not be seen at all.
"Vice Admiral Garp, that reporter... insists he saw the swordsman and even drew a sketch. But in the photo... there's nothing."
The simple sketch wasn't abstract; Garp could still recognize it. That was Rocks's appearance.
But that photo...
"This is literally seeing a ghost..."
The situation at the scene had exceeded the limit of what Garp's CPU (brain) could process.
He directly instructed Bogard to report the intelligence here truthfully. He himself took a stroll around the island, beat up some pirates who wanted to cause trouble amidst the chaos, and then went back to report completion of the mission.
It wasn't that Garp hadn't thought about someone impersonating Rocks, but he and Rocks were old rivals. The traces of this attack were too similar to Rocks; it didn't look like a crude imitator at all.
Because it involved Rocks, this matter was eventually reported to Mary Geoise.
"Impossible. Manfer, Somaz, and I examined the body. That guy Rocks is definitely dead; there can be no mistake about this!
Saint Saturn, weren't you there back then too?
It must be some pirate impersonating him. The current Marines are too incompetent to even see through such a thing."
"Garling, no need to be so agitated. I'm just confirming the situation, after all, it involves 'Davy'."
"Yes, I understand, Saint Saturn..."
Males were addressed as "Saint," females as "Gu" (Palace/Lady). This was the honorific system among the Celestial Dragons, usually used by lower-ranking Celestial Dragons addressing higher-ranking ones, or as a polite address between peers.
If the status was similar, addressing each other by name was also common.
In the hierarchy of Celestial Dragons, the Five Elders were the highest existence outside of Imu. Even Garling had to show some respect.
Saturn also felt there was no issue with this matter. He didn't even continue reporting it up but directly defined the nature of the incident.
Shortly after, two pieces of news were disseminated successively.
The first was that Rocks's vengeful spirit had revived and was exacting revenge on the sea.
The second was that someone was swindling people under Rocks's name, and the Marines were intensifying efforts to identify this person.
But no matter what, the plan to erase the name "Rocks" had failed for the time being. This name, which had been silent for nearly a year, spread across the sea once again.
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