The heaven-shattering battle between the Crimson Harvest Pirates and the Roger Pirates raged on for an entire afternoon. High above the churning sea, York and Roger engaged in a brutal, one-on-one death match that pushed both monsters to their limits.
By sunset, Roger stood on the splintered deck a dozen meters away from York, panting heavily.
Maintaining a full-body Advanced Conqueror's Haki coating was an absurd, crushing burden on his stamina. He wasn't a Zoan-type Devil Fruit user, and his baseline physical endurance hadn't reached the downright mythical, indestructible level that Kaido would possess in his later years.
However, York, floating opposite the Pirate King, wasn't in much better shape.
Maintaining a Mythical Zoan Awakening consumed just as much stamina as full-body Haki coating. Furthermore, York's Devil Fruit had only recently evolved from a Paramecia to a Zoan-type. His body was still adapting to the Lineage Factor changes, meaning the immense physical enhancements characteristic of an Awakened Zoan were still developing and couldn't provide him with limitless stamina just yet.
Although York possessed the terrifying ability to absorb life force from others to heal and recover, Roger wasn't an idiot. The Pirate King refused to just stand by and watch him recharge. Every time York extended his Holy Light tentacles toward the unconscious pirates, Roger attacked relentlessly. Even if he couldn't prevent the absorption entirely, he could constantly interrupt it.
Thus, after an entire afternoon of apocalyptic clashes, the two Supreme Kings fought to a dead stalemate, neither possessing the ability to definitively kill the other in a short amount of time.
York's other Awakened mode—the Light Sun God (Ra) form—might have possessed the raw destructive output to end it, but the battlefield was currently on top of his brand-new flagship! Aside from the issue of vaporizing his 360-meter Treasure Ship, he also had to consider the catastrophic casualties his crew would suffer from a nuclear fusion blast.
Coincidentally, the battle between Kaido and Scopper Gaban was playing out in a very similar fashion.
Currently, Kaido still had a significant gap in Haki and pure skill compared to Gaban, who was operating at his absolute prime. But relying on the Azure Dragon fruit's incredibly high HP, diamond-hard scales, and absurd self-healing abilities, Gaban simply couldn't put Kaido down for good in the short term.
In these two high-tier matchups, the top officers of both Pirate Crews were roughly evenly matched.
Apart from those two high-level battlefields, the rest of the crew clashes across the massive flagship had also devolved into a chaotic stalemate.
Of course, this didn't mean that the true combat strength of the two crews was actually equal.
The Crimson Harvest Pirates possessed the overwhelming numbers advantage, boasting nearly 5,000 active members on a single ship. But to be brutally frank, among those 5,000 people, the only true high-end combatants were York and Kaido.
The remaining core cadres—Dragon, Stussy, Shakky, Ivankov, Kuma, Ginny, and the newly recruited Supernova Magha—were all one or even several tiers lower in strength than the legendary veterans they were facing.
In contrast, the Roger Pirates were an elite, highly concentrated crew nearing its absolute peak. Except for a few absentees like Shanks, Buggy, Douglas Bullet, Crocus, and Kozuki Oden, almost all of their legendary named crew members were present on the deck.
If the Roger Pirates had truly decided to fight to the death, it would have been a massacre. Probably only the Crimson Harvest executives and interns would have survived—relying entirely on Ginny's absolute Barrier-Barrier Fruit defense—while the remaining 4,900 recruits would have been slaughtered.
The only reason the battle had ground to a draw was due to the Roger Pirates' deliberate restraint.
First, it was simply the Roger Pirates' style. When facing pirate crews with whom they shared some mutual respect or past camaraderie, they generally wouldn't fight to the death unless Roger explicitly gave the command.
The second reason was Shakky.
Although Shakky was now a married woman, the mature, confident charm of a woman in love was actually far more deadly than that of a young girl. Even though the men of the Roger Pirates knew they had absolutely no chance of winning her affection, they still couldn't help but be infatuated with her, happily allowing themselves to be knocked out by her fragrant kicks rather than drawing their swords on her.
And then there was Rayleigh.
After ruthlessly cutting down a few dozen Crimson Harvest recruits to vent the boiling anger of his heartbreak, the Dark King actively sought out Dragon. He proactively cooperated with the young revolutionary, fighting him to a flashy, destructive draw. If an unrestrained, enraged Rayleigh had decided to let loose, he alone could have wiped out the several thousand members of the Crimson Harvest in under an hour.
Roger glanced back at the chaotic, bloodless brawls on the deck out of the corner of his eye. Panting heavily, he lowered his cutlass and looked at York.
"Let's call it a day! What do you say?!" Roger shouted over the din. "It's getting dark, and it's dangerous for two massive ships to keep drifting and clashing at sea without dropping anchor!"
York let out a soft snort, feeling a little displeased that he couldn't secure a definitive win. But the pragmatic side of his brain knew that the current Crimson Harvest fleet was no match for the legends of the Oro Jackson.
Even if York had a good chance of eventually outlasting and killing Roger, if all 5,000 of his crew members died in the process, it would be a massive net loss for his empire.
So, York accepted the Pirate King's truce.
"Alright. Let's leave it at that for now," York agreed, his white hair dimming back to black. "The true victory or defeat will be decided another day."
Under the booming commands of both Captains, the fierce battle on the Crimson Harvest's deck gradually ceased.
Both sides tended to their wounded and arranged for their respective ship doctors to treat them. After a quick headcount, York's squad leaders reported a startling statistic: apart from the unlucky dozen recruits killed by Rayleigh's initial venting, not a single person from either crew had died.
Leaving aside the Roger Pirates—who were virtually untouchable by the grunts—the fact that no one died on the Crimson Harvest's side was pure evidence that the Roger Pirates had deliberately pulled their punches.
Because of this, York and the entire high command of the Crimson Harvest keenly felt the crushing disparity in strength between the two crews.
'Let shame fuel our courage,' York thought, looking at his battered recruits. 'One day, we will be the monsters holding back. We will make the world grateful that we choose not to kill them.'
Night fell over the New World.
The massive Crimson Harvest flagship and the Oro Jackson dropped anchor together off the coast of a nearby uninhabited island.
As was classic pirate tradition, mortal enemies mere hours ago were now sharing a lively, roaring bonfire banquet on the beach.
York sat at the head of the largest table, casually sipping wine with Shakky leaning affectionately against his left arm and Stussy curled up elegantly on his right.
This display drew countless envious, jealous, and hateful gazes from across the fires.
Especially from Roger and Rayleigh.
Roger sat across the fire, gnashing his teeth in pure, unfiltered jealousy. He aggressively chewed on a massive piece of bone-in meat, crunching and swallowing the bones whole while glaring at York.
Rayleigh, meanwhile, sat quietly in the shadows. He sighed repeatedly, drinking his rum in absolute, miserable silence.
It was all because he was a step too late. He had hesitated during God Valley, and sometimes, being one step late meant missing out for a lifetime.
York looked at their glum, miserable faces across the bonfire. His own depressed mood—which had arisen from realizing his crew was still vastly inferior to Roger's—instantly vanished into thin air.
'So what if my subordinates aren't as strong as yours yet?!' York smirked, pulling Shakky closer. 'I am the true winner in life!'
The strength of a crew could be trained and caught up to. But if a man misses the woman he loves, he truly misses her for a lifetime.
The night passed without further incident.
The next morning, York woke up in the luxurious, absolute privacy of the Mirror World with Shakky in his arms. The image of Roger and Rayleigh's miserable, salty faces from the night before inexplicably popped into his mind, bringing a wicked smile to his lips.
So, York rolled over and affectionately pressed down on Shakky, who was still in a sleepy daze, deciding to take his time.
It was 8:00 AM. For York, who didn't have a habit of sleeping in, this was actually incredibly late.
When he finally reappeared before Roger, Rayleigh, and the rest of the crews on the beach with a radiant Shakky on his arm, the faces of the Roger Pirates immediately darkened once again.
Clearly, as seasoned pirates, they had easily figured out the reason for York and Shakky's late rising. And that reason was absolutely heartbreaking to the Dark King.
To avoid any further emotional torment, and to keep the happy couple out of sight and out of mind, Roger abruptly proposed their departure.
York, of course, had no intention of keeping them around.
Thus, the two legendary Pirate Crews met briefly at sea, quickly had a heaven-shaking skirmish, quickly held a lively banquet, and finally, quickly parted ways.
It was as if the Roger Pirates had just been bored and deliberately made the trip solely to get their hearts broken.
After the Oro Jackson sailed over the horizon, the Crimson Harvest Pirates also weighed anchor and set sail once more.
After briefly checking on the wounded from yesterday's clash, York slipped away from the deck. He once again traversed countless miles across the sea utilizing Stussy's Mirror World network.
He stepped out of a mirror, appearing directly inside the MADS research ship, which was still secretly operating in the first half of the Grand Line.
Finding Dr. Vegapunk amidst a pile of blueprints, York got straight to the point.
"Vegapunk. Can you engineer a way to make me a light bulb that emits pure golden light?" York asked, crossing his arms. "Or, better yet, can you create a device that enhances and filters the white light I naturally emit into a blinding golden light? That would work perfectly."
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