The next second, Blackbeard clenched his fist and, with one punch, sent Ace flying.
Ace spat out a mouthful of blood, and a grave look appeared in his eyes.
The next second, Blackbeard grabbed Ace and tied him up.
Then Blackbeard proceeded to lay into Ace with a flurry of punches.
Blood kept pouring from Ace's mouth. If his body weren't so tough, he would have been beaten to death by now.
Blackbeard walked up to Ace, a mocking look in his eyes.
"Since the captain of the Straw Hat crew is your little brother, then I'll use your body to trade for your brother's life."
"After all, one of you has to lose his head today, so I can rise to the top of the pirate world in the future!"
Hearing this, Ace took the chance and kicked Blackbeard right in the crotch.
Blackbeard yelped in pain, clamped his legs together, hopped three times on the ground, then collapsed stiffly. His Darkness Fruit power was undone.
Ace backed off, then pushed off his toes and shot into the sky.
Above, a fiery red swirl appeared in the air. Then Ace shouted:
"Flame Command: Flame Pillar!"
As soon as he spoke, a pillar of fire dropped from the red swirl above, slamming straight into Blackbeard's back.
Blackbeard let out a scream. His whole body was scorched red, and a plume of smoke rose from his mouth.
He was just barely hanging on.
Seeing this, Blackbeard's crew all worriedly wanted to rush forward.
But they remembered Blackbeard's earlier orders, so they thought it over and stepped back.
Under Blackbeard's screaming, the Flame Pillar slowly died out.
But Blackbeard was barely alive, lying on the ground, struggling to catch his breath.
Ace landed slowly, panting hard.
Then he walked over to Blackbeard, grabbed his clothes, and yanked him up.
"Alright, Teach, you lose. Come back to the Whitebeard Pirates with me and wait for Pops to decide your punishment!"
"Even if Pops puts you to death, don't complain, because this is the price you pay for killing your comrades!"
As he said this, Ace lifted Blackbeard up. But at that moment, a patch of black appeared under Ace's feet.
Ace froze for a second, and the next moment, his feet got sucked into that black mass.
Then Blackbeard opened his eyes wide, glanced at Ace sideways, and punched him hard in the chest, sending Ace flying.
"Ace, this is where it ends. Even if you were my old division commander, you've gone way too far hitting me like that!"
With that, Blackbeard grabbed Ace by the throat.
Ace struggled desperately, but under the Darkness Fruit's power, he couldn't turn into his elemental form at all.
With no other option, Ace clenched his fist and smashed it into Blackbeard's nose.
Blackbeard stumbled back two steps, holding his nose, with a grim look on his face.
By the time he recovered, Ace had gathered a ball of fire in his hand.
He hurled it straight at Blackbeard, and in an instant, Blackbeard was roasted into a human torch.
Blackbeard ran around frantically, rolling on the ground.
Then Burgess came over from the sea with a bucket of water and dumped it on Blackbeard, finally putting out the flames.
Blackbeard glared at Ace with hatred.
"Ace, you've really made me angry."
"But right now, we both need a break."
With that, Blackbeard pointed toward Water Seven.
"Your little brother is over there. If the two of us really go all out, even from this distance, he should be able to see it."
"I wonder—if a little brother sees his big brother getting beaten, would he come to save him?"
As he said this, Blackbeard's heart raced, and a sly look appeared in his eyes.
"Let's call a truce for now, Ace. Once they're gone, we can have a real, all-out fight. How about that?"
Ace's gaze wavered at those words, and he looked toward Water Seven.
From here, he couldn't see anything, but he had a faint feeling that Luffy and the others were right at the edge of Water Seven.
If both of them unleashed their strongest moves, he didn't know if Luffy could see it, but with Raynor's ability, Raynor would definitely sense it.
He didn't have even a ten-out-of-ten chance of beating Blackbeard right now.
Even though in Alabasta, Raynor had been slightly better than him.
That was just a normal spar, and it only meant Raynor was a bit better in physical combat.
But in other aspects, Raynor still couldn't beat him, let alone Blackbeard.
He couldn't drag his little brother into this. No way.
With that in mind, Ace turned around and looked at Blackbeard firmly.
"Fine, I accept!"
...
"Impossible, absolutely impossible."
Facing Raynor's direct refusal, Nami's face puffed up like a steamed bun.
"How can you be so stingy? Just copy half the gold, just half!"
Hearing that, Raynor's forehead bulged with veins.
"Say it a hundred times and it still won't work. I can't copy it!"
Did this woman think he'd awakened his fruit?
Gold is such a high-density metal. Forget copying all of it—even copying a single piece is tough.
After Nami kept haggling and dropping the amount, Raynor finally agreed to copy one piece for her.
Hearing Raynor finally give in, Nami immediately picked out the biggest piece and told Raynor to copy that.
But Raynor refused on the spot.
Then he found a piece of gold weighing a hundred kilograms and started copying it.
At first, the gold's state was pretty stable, so copying it was harder.
But as the Copy Fruit slowly analyzed and merged, the gold's texture got softer and softer.
Then it split into two. At first, the gold that split off was kind of crumbly.
Later, Raynor's Copy Fruit got more and more stable, and the gold became more solid and more complete.
Seeing this, Nami's eyes turned into greedy, gold-hungry slits.
The rest of the Straw Hats crowded around and gasped.
With this ability, wouldn't they be able to turn anything into gold while just lying around?
After copying the gold, Raynor was panting hard.
Just copying this one piece had worn him out completely.
If he had to copy all of it, it'd take half his life.
Staring at the copied gold, Nami hugged it and kissed it.
As if this piece of gold was more precious than all the others.
Nami broke into a bright smile and said:
"Alright, Raynor, grab this gold and let's go find a bank together!"
Hearing that, Raynor frowned. How could he possibly carry all that gold?
Thinking it over, he silently said to himself:
"System, summon the sea motorcycle!"
---
Read +60 advanced chapters on my patre*n
patr eon.com/GustinaKamiya