Compared to ten years ago, there were indeed far fewer people who understood just how terrifying Nereus was.
Although the number of pirates on the seas had continued to rise, if you asked those who had gone out to sea long ago for their opinion, they would instead feel that the current era was more like a paradise.
There were certainly quite a few powerful figures on the seas nowadays, but compared to the true monsters of the past, they still fell a little short.
Now Rocks was dead, Harald had surrendered and was working off the books, while Nereus had half-retired and begun quietly accumulating even greater power.
With these three gone, more people had begun to be seen as the peak of the world.
And yet, these very individuals at the peak happen to know the three better than anyone.
Compared to the dead Rocks and Harald whose whereabouts were unknown, Nereus was even more dangerous, especially since he had caused quite a few major upheavals over the past few years.
As a former member of the Rocks Pirates, Wang Zhi knew better than most exactly how terrifying Nereus was.
How had the Rocks Pirates been formed?
The process behind the crew’s formation was not some group of young people gathering together to chase dreams. It was more like a gang temporarily united by benefits and violence.
Rocks didn’t recruit his men by relying on benevolence or reputation—he did it through Davy Games.
And these Davy Games were nothing like the flashy games created by Foxy the Silver Fox in the original timeline. If Rocks had seen that kind of Davy Games, he would only have thought it was children playing house.
The Davy Games handled by Rocks were brutal contests filled with bloodshed and violence. Many of the early members who joined Rocks had been beaten into submission.
Only after his reputation grew did more people begin flocking to him voluntarily.
Wang Zhi knew how powerful Rocks had been. In front of Rocks, he had possessed absolutely no ability to resist.
And Nereus and Rocks had never truly determined a victor between them. Wang Zhi only knew that every clash between those two monsters would last several days.
Most importantly, Nereus himself was a Fish-Man. The sea was his true home ground.
The main reason Wang Zhi had been able to control Fullalead Island was because the other monsters simply did not care about it.
Perhaps the island reminded those people of the era once ruled by Rocks. For an ambitious man like the Golden Lion, that was not a piece of history worth speaking about, nor would he imprison his ambitions on a single island.
His target was the entire world.
As for someone like Whitebeard, what he pursued had never been territory in the first place, so naturally he would not remain on Fullalead Island either.
Precisely because everyone else had their own ambitions and left one after another, Wang Zhi had been able to pick up the leftovers and effortlessly occupy Fullalead Island, using the reputation of Pirate Guru to establish considerable influence in the New World.
Among the many pirates, Wang Zhi could not be considered weak. Otherwise, he would never have survived so long in the original timeline. The New World did not care about seniority.
If one had only seniority but no strength, they would merely become stepping stones for rookies seeking fame.
But compared to the truly top-tier monsters, Wang Zhi still fell short. Whether it was the era before Roger became King or the era of the Emperors of the Sea, Wang Zhi’s name had never been placed among them.
Before Red Hair rose to fame, no one counted Wang Zhi among those figures. As a result, the only occasion where Wang Zhi had ever really been mentioned was through Sengoku’s words. He could be considered someone who was above average but below the very top.
Though he lacked the prestige of an Emperor of the Sea, he also had not ended up like Silver Axe and John, reduced to corpses by the tides of the era.
Originally, Wang Zhi had been quite satisfied with his current situation. Yet a bunch of people he had never even met had completely shattered his peaceful life.
“Nereus… I don’t know those b*stards. They acted on their own… If I said that, do you think he’d believe me?”
Wang Zhi looked toward the people beside him. These were all men who had followed him for over ten years. Though they had never gone to God Valley, they were old hands on the island and all knew how terrifying Nereus was.
Hearing Wang Zhi’s question, they looked at one another, not knowing what to say.
None of them felt that Wang Zhi’s reaction was shameful. After all, the other party was Nereus. The fact that Wang Zhi could still calmly think of countermeasures already made him impressive enough.
“Boss, he might believe it. To put it bluntly, that Nereus… probably knows full well that you wouldn’t dare… ahem… wouldn’t be willing to provoke him.”
One of them used relatively tactful wording to state a cruel truth, and under these circumstances, Wang Zhi did not care about that sort of thing.
“Quit standing around! Think of a solution! Let me remind you, that ba*tard Nereus loves collective punishment! Don’t forget the sea-blocking order back then!
‘Might believe it’ isn’t enough. If he thinks we were behind this, none of you will escape either.”
The bloody truth was laid out before them. Without a top-tier powerhouse capable of holding Nereus back, the entirety of Fullalead Island didn’t seem like it would be enough to stand against Nereus alone.
“How about… we kill that group before Nereus makes his move?”
“And what about our reputation then? Those people loudly set out under the boss’s banner. If we do that, who would dare join us in the future?”
Pirates needed a certain level of reputation to survive on the seas. A boss who casually sold out his underlings usually did not last long.
“But they aren’t our people! They used the boss’s name without permission. The boss cleaning house is only natural!”
“We know they have nothing to do with us, but those b*stards set sail from Fullalead while shouting about making the boss into the true ‘Guru.’ What will outsiders think?
Those idiots have already been gone for half a day. Are you confident you can wipe out all seventeen pirate crews without leaving a single survivor?!”
Watching his subordinates argue, Wang Zhi said nothing. He felt they all had valid points, yet all of them were lacking something. None of them were perfect solutions.
In a sense, Wang Zhi’s thinking was correct. When this kind of disaster landed on your head, there simply was no perfect answer.
His strength was not even enough to qualify him to negotiate with Nereus. Once someone handed Nereus a reason to mobilize, everything afterward depended entirely on Nereus’s mood.
“Captain Wang Zhi, I think we should notify Nereus before that group makes a move and tell him this has nothing to do with us. Afterward, we can send compensation…
As for those lunatics, there’s no way they can defeat Nereus. Dead men can’t come looking for you.”
Discussing compensation before the battle had even started was certainly humiliating, but it also seemed unavoidable.
From the very beginning, Wang Zhi had never cared about the fate of those idiots. All he thought about how to save himself from Nereus’s side. Among all the mediocre plans, Wang Zhi ultimately chose the last one.
It was essentially the same as his original idea. After thinking it over repeatedly, Wang Zhi still felt this was the most suitable option.
However, the bad news apparently did not stop there.
“Lord Wang Zhi! Let me see Lord Wang Zhi! I have important information!!”
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