BOOM!
Hearing the distant thunder of artillery from behind him, Ace's body tensed sharply.
His Observation Haki locked onto the incoming shells, and he quickly adjusted the direction of his small boat, barely avoiding the falling cannonballs.
They were hard to hit him with directly, but if a shell exploded in the sea nearby, the blast and rising waves would still be enough to flip his little boat over.
After fleeing without a moment's rest for several days, even Ace was starting to feel exhausted.
But when the towering dark shadow on the sea ahead became clearer and clearer, his spirit suddenly surged.
He had arrived.
Reverse Mountain!
The entrance to the Grand Line!
Ace only had a sea chart, so he had been worried about taking the wrong route.
Fortunately, this time luck had landed on his side.
...
On the warship behind him, Smoker stared grimly at the small boat ahead.
Someone who could row at that speed and keep going for so long was definitely not ordinary.
"Can we stop him before he enters the channel up Reverse Mountain?" Smoker turned and asked.
"Captain, that'll be difficult. He's rowing even faster than before," the adjutant said immediately after estimating the distance and the speed of both sides.
The main problem was that Ace had already created a gap earlier.
The warship was just a little too late to catch up in time.
Smoker frowned.
As the commanding officer of a Marine base, he could not leave the waters under his jurisdiction without permission.
Loguetown was located near the entrance from the East Blue to the Grand Line, so its position was naturally important.
Give up?
The thought crossed Smoker's mind, but he quickly shook his head.
"Keep pursuing him."
After leaving that order behind, Smoker's lower body turned into a mass of smoke.
He floated into the air, controlling the cloud of smoke as he chased after the small boat ahead.
Ace was also calculating the distance between himself and the warship, thinking he could enter Reverse Mountain before it got close enough.
Then he turned his head and saw a figure with a lower body made of smoke flying toward him, far faster than the warship.
A Devil Fruit user!
The moment he saw Smoker, Ace immediately recognized that the person coming after him was a Devil Fruit user.
His hands suddenly burst with strength, and the oars he gripped spun like windmill blades, moving so fast they left afterimages.
The speed of the little boat increased sharply, almost gliding across the surface of the sea.
"He noticed me?"
Seeing that, Smoker sneered.
His smoky lower body turned back into legs, and then he rapidly kicked off the air.
His speed rose explosively.
Naturally, Smoker had a solid grasp of the Rokushiki.
Like most Logia users, he had invested a great deal of effort into his Devil Fruit ability, making his other skills seem somewhat weaker in comparison.
But he had still been an elite trainee from the Marine training camp.
He had mastered what he needed to master.
The speed of Geppo was naturally faster than moving with his Devil Fruit ability.
A moment later, Smoker arrived above the small boat.
Looking down at the boy below, who looked seventeen at most, a trace of doubt flashed through Smoker's eyes.
Was this guy really a pirate?
Whether he was or not, Smoker would capture him first and figure it out afterward.
"White Snake!"
Smoker's arm turned into smoke and stretched downward, reaching the space above Ace's head in the blink of an eye.
Without the slightest hesitation, Ace swung the oar on his left side hard against the sea.
A large sheet of seawater exploded upward, spreading toward the rear.
Smoker's expression tightened, and he drew back his smoke to avoid the seawater.
He knew very well that Devil Fruit users were restrained by the sea.
Smoker immediately realized that the young man below knew the weakness of Devil Fruit users.
After forcing Smoker's attack back once, Ace did not stop at all.
He knew very clearly that knowing a Devil Fruit user's weakness did not mean much.
At most, it could briefly force the other party to retreat.
Once Smoker managed to hold him in place, Ace would probably have no way out.
But he had already come up with a way to escape.
And so, such a strange scene appeared on the sea.
A figure trailing white smoke repeatedly swooped down from the air, while the person on the small boat below responded each time by throwing up huge sprays of seawater to block him.
The two went back and forth like that, and the speed of the small boat gradually slowed.
On the two ships following behind the warship, Kuina raised her eyes and looked into the distance.
She could vaguely make out what was happening ahead of the Marine vessel.
"He's actually a Devil Fruit user. Maybe even a Logia."
Compared to the special and varied nature of Paramecia abilities, Zoan and Logia abilities were easier to identify.
Smoker's body turning into white mist was quite recognizable.
After all, Kuina knew that Cyrus could turn his body into flames.
"An ability like Cyrus's?"
When Zoro heard that, he immediately stretched his neck to look.
Although Zoro had not eaten a Devil Fruit himself, Kuina and Cyrus were both ability users, so he had deliberately learned some things about Devil Fruit users before.
After all, while ability users were rare on the sea, many of the strongest people out there were indeed Devil Fruit users.
If he wanted to deal with those kinds of people, he had to understand them first.
"They're both Logia, but the difference is still huge."
Hearing Zoro's words, Kuina nodded, then shook her head.
Judging from the level this man was showing, Cyrus had been far stronger than him even back when he first left Shimotsuki Village.
And this Marine still could not take down the person on that little boat.
Kuina and Zoro had fought Ace before.
Although they had failed to capture him, after that exchange, it was clear Ace could not defeat the two of them.
Of course, Kuina did not think too deeply about how different things were at sea compared to on land.
In truth, Smoker was also feeling rather speechless right now.
The young man on the boat below had only one trick.
The moment he sensed Smoker attacking, he used seawater to defend himself.
And Smoker truly did not dare touch seawater.
Losing strength was one thing, but if he lost strength and fell into the ocean, that would be a serious problem.
As an ability user, he had tested it after eating his Devil Fruit.
When an ability user fell into seawater, losing strength was only one part of it.
The key was that once submerged, the body became unbelievably heavy, as though buoyancy itself had completely disappeared.
And Smoker had already sensed what the person on the small boat was planning.
He raised his head and looked at the Reverse Mountain channel now close at hand, then lowered his gaze back to the person on the boat.
"Try following me if you've got the guts!"
By coincidence, just as Smoker looked down, Ace also turned his head and looked up at him in midair, then flashed him a huge grin.
Smoker's face darkened.
Just as he had thought, the figure on the boat flipped over and dropped straight into the sea, disappearing from view.
Even after entering the water, the person did not swim on the surface. Instead, he dove directly beneath it.
Floating in midair, Smoker frowned as he looked at the now-calm surface of the sea and the small boat gradually slowing down.
The little boat was still being carried by the current toward Reverse Mountain's waterway.
"Cunning brat."
Smoker forced those words out through gritted teeth, then turned to look at the warship rapidly approaching from behind.
Once the warship came closer, Smoker descended from the air and landed at the bow.
The Marines on the ship had clearly seen everything that had just happened, so naturally, no one asked for an explanation.
Only the adjutant asked whether they should continue the pursuit.
"No need."
Smoker waved his hand directly.
Even with a ship, entering the Grand Line was dangerous.
Even Paradise was the same, and this brat had abandoned his boat.
Even if he successfully crossed Reverse Mountain, if he could not find a suitable place to land, there was no way he could survive at sea.
Smoker knew that some powerful people could survive for a very long time on the ocean through their sheer physique.
But that kid, whether he was truly a pirate or not, was definitely not that kind of powerhouse.
Of course, that was only one possibility.
Just as Smoker was thinking this, two ships sailed past the warship.
Smoker turned his head and saw, on the leading ship, the little girl whose face looked very similar to one of the Marines under his command.
The smile on that face looked like mockery no matter how he looked at it.
Mocking him for talking big earlier.
But the person really had escaped.
"Return to port."
After taking a deep breath, Smoker gave the order directly.
The warship slowly turned around and began heading back.
...
Meanwhile, Kuina, Zoro, and the others on their two ships were entering the Grand Line.
Everyone stared at Reverse Mountain with faces full of longing.
Perhaps all of them were looking forward to what kind of adventure awaited them next.
As for Ace—
Using the current, he swam against the flow up Reverse Mountain's channel.
Only when he reached halfway up the mountain did he break the surface and gulp in air.
He had indeed shaken off the warship and that ability user.
But how he was going to survive next was also a thorny problem.
Of course, all of those worries disappeared after he crossed Reverse Mountain and followed the current down the other side.
Because at the entrance to the Grand Line, a gigantic whale had opened its mouth wide, welcoming everything that came down from Reverse Mountain!