As the Red Force sailed away from the coast of Arderay, Shanks and his crew began discussing his conversation with Alucard.
"Alucard said that?"
Benn Beckman held a cigarette between his index and middle fingers. After Shanks finished recounting the story, he narrowed his eyes. All the Red Hair Pirates focused their attention on their strategist and vice-captain.
"He actually has a point. No, he's completely right," Benn Beckman said slowly. "Neither the Marines nor the Yonko would sit around and wait for a fifth Pirate Emperor to appear. Besides, most of the New World's territories are already divided up."
"The Marine G-1 and G-5 branches control the first half of the New World. Big Mom controls the middle. Alucard and Kaido have divided the middle and latter halves, while Whitebeard holds the final island, Laugh Tale, and the latter half of the New World."
Beckman continued to smoke as he spoke. "In other words, the territory is basically all claimed by these powers. If you want to claim the title of Pirate Emperor, a fifth emperor can't just appear. You have to take one of the four down."
After Beckman finished, many people on the ship, including the injured with bandages wrapped around them, spoke up and offered suggestions on which Yonko they should target.
"How about Big Mom? She seems terrifying, but she's so cruel to her subordinates. I'm sure a lot of people are unhappy with her. She must be the easiest one to take down, right?"
As soon as someone suggested attacking Big Mom, others immediately voiced their opposition. "No way! After what happened with Jack, there's no way Kaido will let us off the hook. If we go after Big Mom, Kaido will attack us, and we'll have to face two Yonko. I think it's best to go after Kaido."
"Hey! I agree with that. We've already offended Kaido. He's going to come after us sooner or later, anyway, so we might as well make him our target!"
As they discussed, the Red Hair Pirates split into two factions: one that thought they should fight Big Mom, and another that thought they should fight Kaido.
Lucky Roux, who was chewing on a piece of ham as usual, noticed that Shanks, who was usually the most talkative, was silent. He looked around with an unusually serious expression.
"Captain, what's wrong?" Lucky Roux asked curiously.
Shanks walked to the side of the ship and stared out at the sea. Seeing Shanks' rare solemnity, the rest of the crew followed him to the railing.
Shanks was staring intently at the surface of the sea around the ship. They could still see Alucard's base, Arderay, in the distance, only three or four nautical miles away.
"Do you guys feel like… the stuff around the ship is getting thicker and thicker?" Shanks asked in a low voice.
Everyone looked closely at the sea. After observing for about two minutes, they all saw that Shanks was right. The shadows in the sea seemed to be getting deeper.
"Sea Kings?" the navigator asked. They had seen these things a lot in their years of sailing, but they were about to witness something they had never seen before.
Shanks' eyes suddenly narrowed, and he shouted, "Be careful!" ROOOAR!
Just as Shanks shouted, a giant sea lizard with reddish-yellow skin burst out of the sea. Seeing this, Yasopp raised his rifle with his still-bandaged hand, a grin on his sausage-like lips. "Just a Sea King." As a member of the Red Hair Pirates, they were used to this and felt no tension.
"That's not a Sea King; it's a Deep Sea King," the navigator said, observing closely. There was a difference between a Sea King and a Deep Sea King. In terms of lethality, they were slightly weaker than a Sea King but were still not to be underestimated.
"It's not over!" Shanks shouted another warning. ROAR!
HUUFF!
One after another, countless Deep Sea Kings burst out of the sea: massive fathead fish, two- legged creatures with the bodies of fish, and long-necked beasts that looked like mutated giraffes. There were too many to count.
"Hey! We didn't accidentally enter the Calm Belt, did we?"
Yasopp, who had been calm just a moment ago, was now panicking a little after seeing the giant beasts that almost blotted out the sky.
"This is so strange. These are all different species. Why are they gathering together?" The Red Hair Pirates' navigator was also confused. Deep Sea Kings were even more solitary than Sea Kings. They only gathered in a group if they were the same species. He had never seen so many different species gathered together in his decades of sailing.
"That's… Alucard Pirates' Wolf," Benn Beckman suddenly said, noticing Wolf swimming on the surface of the distant sea. The distance was already great enough that even with Wolf's size, he was barely a speck.
"That's definitely a trick from that bastard Alucard!" Shanks said angrily. "Captain, how do you know?" Lucky Roux asked curiously.
"Because he has so many dirty tricks!"
Shanks leapt into the air in a rage, unsheathing his sword and slicing off the head of one of the Deep Sea Kings.
"ROOAAR!"
The other Deep Sea Kings roared in anger and began attacking Shanks.
"Captain!" A few crew members shouted in worry. Just then, the ship shuddered violently, and everyone lost their footing and fell to the deck.
Benn Beckman grabbed the railing to keep himself from falling and quickly grabbed the other side as he looked over the ship's edge. "Those things are attacking the bottom of the ship!"
"They're that smart?" Lucky Roux's jaw dropped in astonishment. While they had been attacked by Sea Kings before, they had never seen Deep Sea Kings with the intelligence to "split their forces."
"I don't get it, either," Benn Beckman, the Red Hair Pirates' strategist, said, completely bewildered. But for now, he had to put these questions aside. He shouted to the other crew members, "Turn the ship around! We have to avoid those beasts attacking the hull! If the bottom of the ship is damaged, we're done for!"