Chapter 113: Chapter 113 The Fifth Emperor of the Sea
No matter how furious Kaido was,
Karl’s trip abroad had returned brimming with gains.
He not only spirited away Tama in Wano,
he also spirited away Yamato on Onigashima.
The former is a rules-type ability user with terrifying potential,
the latter is one of the very few on the seas who has mastered Conqueror’s coating while also wielding a Mythical Zoan, a power that ranks at Emperor’s right-hand level even in the New World.
In other words, Karl basically found himself a first mate.
Add in Blue-Eyes White Dragon,
and Karl’s crew finally had its trio of pillars including the captain.
While Kaido swallowed a loss and Karl returned laden with spoils,
there was someone else who harvested plenty.
That man was the one who chases the password to fortune every year, Big News Morgans.
Ever since he tasted the sweetness of News Coo bringing him fresh material from Gran Tesoro,
Morgans had stationed eyes in the waters outside Gran Tesoro.
Dozens of news birds took shifts over those seas.
Once they spotted Karl or anyone from Karl’s crew setting out,
they would tail them, and if a fight broke out, they would circle high above to hunt chances to collect intel.
This time was no exception.
Daily life held no interest for the news birds,
but the apocalyptic noise of a clash with Kaido was taken in at a glance.
Lively as they are and likely drilled by Morgans on what Conqueror’s Haki looks like,
the birds kept to high sky well outside the range a Haki burst could cover and photographed the duel on Onigashima.
So,
by the time Karl had left Wano with Yamato and Tama,
said his farewells to Tenguyama Hitetsu,
and was on the way back to Gran Tesoro,
the birds had carried the film to the World Economy News Paper’s mobile headquarters.
"With that kind of strength, those kinds of techniques,
as expected of Karl—he never lets me down."
Staring at those outrageous images, especially Raigō at the end and the shots of Kaido covered in wounds,
Morgans trembled with the same ecstasy he’d felt two months earlier during the Buster Call. "I knew it. He wouldn’t stand the quiet for long before challenging the true summit."
"I just didn’t think it would be this soon."
"Is that his full power already? As expected of the upstart I pegged, no,
the new superstar of the seas."
"A might that fights an Emperor of the Sea to a draw—how could news like this not reach the whole world?"
"Overtime, overtime. Scrap tomorrow’s prepared front page. Unless the fleet admiral is pregnant or a member of the Gorosei drops dead, nothing will stop this article I’m writing myself from taking the banner headline that shocks the world."
Morgans has always had nerve to spare, enough to be called audacious to the extreme.
As the underworld’s king who has practically monopolized the newspaper trade,
he’ll give Mary Geoise and Marine Headquarters a little face where it serves business,
but out on the seas he’s made enemies by the boatload.
For some big scoops he won’t even give those two major clients face,
running stories on sensitive subjects that make both grind their teeth, and the former even planted CP agents to infiltrate his operation.
Knowing full well how hated he is,
Morgans never fixes the News’ headquarters in one place,
turning it into a mobile base he can relocate at any moment.
In Karl’s eyes, Morgans isn’t detestable,
because he has brought Karl a surge of renown and helped him plant his feet in the New World fast.
But Morgans has a flaw.
He loves to blow things up with hype, using spectacle to yank the world’s eyes and juice sales.
Like in the original tale when he manufactured buzz by printing that Sabo was dead, not caring if he offended the Revolutionary Army.
Now, equally unafraid of offending a reigning Emperor,
he crafted a hook that would shake the world and put Karl on the Beasts Pirates’ hit list.
Before dawn the next day,
even before Karl got back to Gran Tesoro,
countless news birds strapped on fresh-printed papers and winged off to every corner of the world.
Issue after issue went to the pirates and civilians on early duty.
When today’s headline splashed across their eyes,
a tidal wave erupted that by midmorning had swept across the globe.
"The World’s Strongest Creature Suffers His Eighth Defeat. The Fifth Emperor of the Sea Has Appeared."
Today’s front page of the World Economy News Paper took up a full quarter of the four-page spread.
First, the story proper.
Morgans fully unleashed his pen, casting Karl as the challenger who threw down the gauntlet to one of the four sovereigns at the summit of the New World.
As for the reason for the challenge, he didn’t mention it at all.
That entry point actually wasn’t a lie.
Karl’s goal really was to challenge Kaido.
Next came an account of a clash at the level of a sea sovereign.
Alongside the text,
Morgans pasted the photos the news birds had risked their necks to shoot.
As he described a battle of "sea sovereigns,"
he ran the shot of Conqueror’s coating tearing the heavens and the photo of Karl’s Thunder Spear mushrooming the sky.
Then he elevated the fight into a mythic duel,
pasting the image of Karl versus the azure dragon and that vast golden halo whose residual shockwaves almost took out the birds.
Finally, with phrases like world-rending and Fifth Emperor of the Sea,
he enthroned Karl on a pedestal.
Along the side were Raigō, the sky-piercing sea current,
and a photo of Kaido covered in wounds.
As this issue sold out across the world,
the storm Karl had never quite calmed since Gran Tesoro reopened surged once more over the globe.
Sea Circle Calendar 1517. People had thought the first half of the Grand Line belonged to the twin stars of the East Blue for a year.
But when Karl became a god-slayer,
then slipped whole from a siege led by Marine admirals,
many decided the first half of the year belonged to the Dragon Knight Karl, with Fire Fist Portgas D. Ace turned into the biggest loser and side character.
When the Buster Call was smashed and Karl’s crew lifted Gran Tesoro into the sky to prove themselves on the strongest sea of the New World,
the world realized they had underestimated the Dragon Knight.
S.C. 1517—whether the Four Seas or the Grand Line, front half or back—belonged to the Dragon Knight Karl,
the year the legend of a rising star took shape.
So,
with today’s paper in every port,
S.C. 1517 was cemented at last as the Dragon Knight’s year, Karl’s year.
As for Fire Fist Ace,
who should have been the darling of the year,
no one knew to which corner of memory he had been forgotten.
<><><><><><>
Read Advanced Chapters on : Every 150 PS = Bonus Chapter!
~ Push the Story forward with your [Power Stones]