Uchiha Puppet Master, Starting from One Piece.

"Hey, hey."

He patted the armrest of the chair: "Now is not the time to exchange and compete with our own people."

But Mihawk did not back down.

He was still looking at Artoria.

Artoria was looking at him too.

Their eyes met at the distance between the open space and the water, without any sparks or turbulence, just quietly and silently confirming each other's presence.

Then Mihawk looked away.

The invisible coolness covering the skin also dissipated.

Bai Yu didn't say anything more.

Shanks pointed to another folding chair next to him.

"Let's sit together."

"No."

"Aren't you tired of standing?"

"Not tired."

"what ever."

Shanks shrugged, a movement that lifted his entire upper body, causing his shirt collar to slip open further, revealing more of his bronze skin. He was just that kind of carefree person.

"Oh, right."

Shanks suddenly spoke, as if he had just remembered something: "Let me introduce you to someone."

He stood up from his chair.

There was absolutely no warning.

Without using his hands to hold onto the armrests, without bending over to gain leverage, without bending his knees to gather strength, he went directly from sitting in a chair to standing, without any transition in between, as if one frame of a picture was directly switched to the next.

The cloth-wrapped object resting on the armrest of the chair beside his feet swayed slightly as he stood up.

He didn't touch it.

He turned around and called out in the direction of the tent.

"Senior Jabba!"

The voice wasn't loud, but the volume and tone were no different from when he called on someone standing in front of him.

The tent flap was lifted.

An old man came out from inside.

Bai Yu's first reaction upon seeing the old man wasn't how strong he was, or who he was, but rather that this was one of the Pirate King's right-hand men, the legendary cave explorer, the supreme Jabba, the Jabba who had attended university.

This guy's hair was completely white, not gray, not wispy, but pure white, like snow, like salt, like the purest white left after being washed countless times by time. The white hair was simply tied into a low ponytail at the back of his head, without any hair gel or hair oil to hold it in place, with a few stray strands hanging down from his temples and resting above his cheekbones.

His face was covered with wrinkles.

These aren't the shallow, decorative wrinkles you see on the faces of well-maintained elderly people; they're real, like lines carved by a knife, each one recording a period of time.

From his brow to his forehead, from the corners of his eyes to his temples, from the sides of his nose to the corners of his mouth, it's hard to imagine how he captivated the giant girl, or what he encountered while exploring the cave.

But he doesn't have presbyopia.

Those were black eyes, with a faint but extremely steady light deep within the pupils, like the reflection at the bottom of a deep well, like the last star that had not yet gone out in the winter night.

His body was wrapped in a dark brown leather coat, which was extremely old-fashioned, probably thirty years ago or even earlier. The collar and hem showed signs of wear, and several patches were roughly sewn together with different colored thread.

But on him, the worn-out coat didn't make him look shabby; on the contrary, it made him look like a carefully preserved old object.

He had two axes hanging from his waist.

It's not a knife, it's an axe.

But even the axes were longer than ordinary swords.

His gait was strange when he walked over.

Not slow, but not fast either; not stumbling, but not steady either; yet knowing where to place each step.

He walked over to Shanks and stood down.

Then he looked at Bai Yu.

Those dark, gleaming eyes lingered on Bai Yu for about two seconds.

Then he laughed.

That smile created a strange contrast with his wrinkled face—when he smiled, the wrinkles didn't get even more pronounced; instead, they smoothed out a bit, like sunlight melting the hard, cold edges of ice.

"You must be the White Feather Shanks was talking about."

His voice is much younger than his appearance.

Deep, solid, with a gritty texture that's been soaked in tobacco and liquor.

"Yes."

Bai Yu said.

"good."

Jabba said.

Just two words.

But after he said those two words, the smile line at the corner of his mouth deepened, and the faint light in his eyes brightened.

Skba Jabba.

The Roger Pirates.

Deputy.

Besides Rayleigh, there's Jabba.

In all publicly available accounts, Gol D. Roger's right-hand men have always been Silvers Rayleigh and Jabba the Impermanent.

But those who truly understand the internal structure of Roger's Pirates know that Rayleigh was the right hand, while Jabba was the left.

It's not a matter of status, but a matter of division of labor.

If Rayleigh was the one who sat shoulder to shoulder with Roger in the tavern, drinking and laughing together, then Jabba was the one who stood behind Roger in battle, blocking all the attacks that came from behind for him.

After the Roger Pirates disbanded, Rayleigh went to the Sabaody Archipelago and spent many years there.

Jabba vanished completely from everyone's sight. He didn't go into seclusion or retire; he simply evaporated, like a drop of water merging into a larger one. No one knew where he went, what he did, or even whether he was still alive.

But now.

He stood before Bai Yu, having arrived in Elbaf, the land of giants, a place the World Government dared not easily approach.

"Mr. Jabba."

Shanks' voice came from the side, with an unusually respectful tone: "He is the young man I told you about."

"Ah."

Jabba said.

His gaze had not yet left Bai Yu.

"I can tell."

Shanks turned to Shiraha.

"Bai Yu, Mr. Jabba is here to help. Loki needs Mr. Jabba's help to prevent him from making mistakes."

Chapter 230 Im

Pangu City.

Among the flowers.

Im stood before the enormous wall that was painted with a world map.

His shadow stretched long in the candlelight, from his feet all the way to the ceiling, like some shapeless shadow growing from the depths of the earth. The candlelight flickered around him, blurring his outline into an amorphous edge of darkness, with only the crown with its four towering spikes occasionally flashing a cold metallic gleam in the light.

Butterflies hovered around him.

The wings of those butterflies displayed a color that did not belong to nature; it was neither blue nor purple, but a color that was closer to "non-existence."

One glance and you think it's indigo; another glance and you think it's deep blue. But by the time you try to confirm its exact color, it has already slipped away from your visual field, like a fish that you can't catch.

One of them landed on his fingertips.

He didn't go to see it.

He looked at the map on the wall.

Specifically, he was looking at a point on the map.

That point was so small that it would be completely unnoticeable if it weren't marked on a map.

But if you look around from that point, you'll see a large blank area marked as unexplored, and at the very edge of that blank area, there is a name marked in an ancient, almost lost script.

Elbaf.

A land that the world government's intelligence agencies have never truly penetrated in the past eight hundred years.

The land of giants.

That independent kingdom that refused the World Government's invitation to join, refused the Navy's entry, and refused all external interference, even the limited cooperation at the time failed to give him a glimpse into the true situation of Elbaf.

"Lord Im."

A voice came from the entrance among the flowers.

Im did not turn around.

"Have you all arrived?"

Im, still looking down at the map, didn't turn around: "Then come over here, all of you."