Uchiha Puppet Master, Starting from One Piece.

She was looking at Elbaf.

Bai Yu also looked over. From their current position, Elbaf was no longer a vague outline, but a clear, concrete entity—a place where you could point to a section and say it was a mountain, and no one would disagree.

The trees on the island are already noticeably different in size from ordinary trees. Their huge, towering canopies block out most of the sky above the island, leaving only gaps for sunlight to filter through and cast dappled shadows on the green canopies.

"What are your plans after you arrive?"

Robin's voice came from the other end of the table.

Bai Yu withdrew his gaze.

Robin held his coffee cup, the rim touching his lower lip, but he wasn't drinking.

"Let's see how things go first," Bai Yu said.

Chapter 229 Legendary Cave Explorer

The giant trees of Elbaf continued to expand in view.

From the sea, they appear as a green skyline, but as the ship draws closer, the true scale of the trees begins to emerge. Their canopies are completely hidden above the clouds, and only in the gaps where the wind disperses the clouds can one glimpse a section of dark green branch, like the ground of another world.

Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the tree canopy, forming beams of light visible to the naked eye, slanting into the sea and dividing the area the ship was entering into strips of alternating light and shadow. The ship passed through a band of light, illuminating everyone's features clearly, then sailed into a shadow, blurring everyone's outlines once again.

Bai Yu stood at the bow of the boat, the wind blowing in her face, carrying the scent of earth and leaves.

That's the smell of the land.

It's not the salty, astringent taste of land from any island, constantly washed by the sea breeze, but a heavy, damp taste, as if drawn from the depths of the earth by the roots of a giant tree, carrying a certain primal vitality.

Elbaf.

The kingdom of giants.

The area reached by the roots of the World Tree.

The ship sailed into a natural harbor formed by the roots of giant trees.

The roots extend from the base of the tree trunk, as thick as mountains, winding their way into the seabed, forming natural breakwaters at the junction of sea and land.

The exposed root sections above the water were covered with moss and ferns, and occasionally one could see huge, white bird nests embedded in the gaps in the root system, each nest as large as a medium-sized sailboat.

There is no port.

There is no dock.

There are no man-made facilities for ships to dock.

Giants do not need ports. A typical giant ship is several times the size of a naval warship. Their docks are built in deeper waters, and the buoys and mooring bollards are made to the proportions of giants.

The white feather ship was like a leaf in front of these behemoths; no giant would notice it, and no one would reserve a berth for it.

"This spot is good. We'll dock the boat just as Red-Haired and the others arrive."

Bai Yu spoke first.

With Rangiku at the helm, the boat slowly steered towards a tree root that was about two meters above the water.

The bark of the tree roots was as rough as weathered rock, covered with vertical cracks and horizontal folds. Ferns grew out of each crack, hanging down and forming a row of green tassels above the water.

Bai Yu jumped onto the tree root and tied the rope to a protruding root that was thicker than his arm.

After he tied it up, he turned around and saw two people.

About two hundred meters away in the direction the tree roots extend, there is an open space surrounded by the roots of the giant tree.

There was a makeshift campsite in the open space.

A tent, the embers of a campfire, and two folding chairs.

And two people.

The person sitting there had red hair.

The red hair stood out strikingly in the dappled sunlight filtering through the gaps in the tree canopy; it wasn't a dull reddish-brown, but a bright, almost fiery crimson.

He has three vertical scars on his face, extending from his left eyebrow to below his right cheekbone, but these three scars do not make his face look ferocious; on the contrary, they do.

He wasn't wearing a coat, just a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the muscle definition on his forearms.

The neckline of her clothes was open, revealing a small patch of sun-tanned skin above her collarbone and sternum.

He didn't look at Bai Yu.

He looked at the sky.

To be precise, he tilted his head back, looking at the clouds higher up through the gaps in the treetops, his face displaying the kind of complete, unreserved relaxation that only appears when there is absolutely no need to be on guard against anyone.

The person standing there was wearing a black turtleneck coat, with the top button fastened all the way up, completely covering their neck.

His hair was black, and his eyes were eagle-yellow, with an indistinct boundary between his iris and pupil, as if a darker, almost black ring had spread out on a yellow background.

He had a knife strapped to his back.

His gaze met Bai Yu's in mid-air.

Those eagle-like eyes were completely expressionless.

Red-haired Shanks.

One of the four people who stand at the pinnacle of the world's pirates.

And the one next to him...

"Hawkeye, you see, I told you Bai Yujun would be here soon."

Shanks spoke.

"You're so slow."

He didn't stand up, nor did he even turn his head to look at Bai Yu. He still looked up at the clouds, and the smile line at the corner of his mouth was a little deeper than before.

"We've all been waiting for you for three days."

Bai Yu remained silent.

He jumped down from the tree roots, stepped onto the ground covered with mud and fallen leaves, and walked towards the two people.

His pace was neither fast nor slow.

Mirajane followed behind him, three steps behind.

Robin walked over from the stern of the ship, holding a book in her hand. She didn't follow, but leaned against the tree roots and watched from a distance.

Rangiku also did not disembark.

She leaned against the ship's railing, one arm draped over the railing, the other holding a half-eaten piece of bread. She took a bite, chewed, and looked at it.

Artoria stood beside the mast, her hand gripping the hilt of a wooden sword.

Violet was crouching at the bow, tying another rope.

Unohana did not disembark.

She sat in the shadows inside the ship's gunwale, her back against the hull, her eyes closed.

Bai Yu stopped about five steps away from the red-haired man.

"Redhead, I'm here."

He said.

Shanks finally withdrew his gaze from the clouds, lowered his head, and looked at Bai Yu.

It was a very strange look in his eyes.

Those eyes themselves have no focus, as if they are always looking at something very far away, but when they fall on you, you feel that thing that is far away is you.

It's not that you are in his eyes, but that something deeper within you, something you yourself have never seen, is captured by his eyes and placed somewhere you have to go a very, very long way to get there.

"As expected, I wasn't late."

Shanks said.

Then he laughed.

The smile came quickly, like a lamp suddenly lit up. It started from the corner of his mouth and spread rapidly to his entire face. Even the vertical scar running across his left cheek was stretched out by the smile and became less ferocious.

"You've gained another outstanding partner; I truly envy your temperament."

Shanks said.

Bai Yu did not respond to that sentence.

He looked at Shanks, then at Hawkeye.

"Hawkeye, you got here quickly too."

He said.

Mihawk nodded slightly.

The nod was very slight, only two or three degrees; you wouldn't have noticed it if you weren't watching him closely.

But Bai Yu noticed that Hawkeye's gaze wasn't on him at all.

His gaze shifted from Bai Yu to someone further away.

Bai Yu followed his gaze.

Artoria stood beside the mast, holding a wooden sword.

She noticed that gaze.

But her expression didn't change at all.

"Not now, Artoria still has Unohana Yachiru."

Mihawk said.

"But it will be soon."

When he said this, his tone was no different from before; it was still that steady, even sound, like a knife gliding on a whetstone.

But the texture of the air changed after he said that, as if an invisible, extremely thin film of ice covered everyone's skin.

Shanks noticed this change.