Fear.
Still fear!
A fear born from the deepest instinct of life itself, absolute and overwhelming, continued to flood through Lucian Thorn's body.
Lucian was still calling out to the system, praying for a miracle to happen! But that cold, mechanical voice shattered his last thread of hope once again.
『System Energy: 0.』
『Unable to perform time-space traversal.』
『Unable to perform any time-space summons.』
That death sentence of a message struck like a bolt of lightning, breaking apart the chains of fear that bound Lucian's mind.
Energy… zero…
Without energy, the system was useless trash!
He couldn't die here!
He had to survive—had to find a way to activate this damned system!
And the first step to surviving was to make the man in front of him see that he was no threat at all, that he was… worthless.
In an instant, Lucian's eyes changed.
He didn't answer Whitebeard's question.
Because someone who had just crawled back from the edge of death, terrified and frail, could never speak smoothly and calmly in such a situation.
His body reacted before his words.
His tense spine seemed to vanish, his knees buckled, and with a thud, Lucian collapsed to the deck.
He lowered his head, shoulders shaking violently, as though trying to cough every last breath of air from his lungs.
Choked sobs squeezed out from his throat.
"I… I don't know…"
Lucian's voice was hoarse, broken, laced with tears.
"Pirates… a bunch of vicious pirates… they wanted to kill me…"
"I ran… I kept running… then I fell down here…"
When he lifted his head, his face was covered in tears and snot, filled with purest helplessness and desperation—like a stray dog, drenched in rain, trembling in the corner of a street.
"I don't want to die… please… I just want to live…"
He didn't spin a grand tale, didn't invent some mysterious backstory.
He simply laid bare his most wretched, pathetic, and useless side before these legendary pirates.
He was gambling.
Gambling that these men, who stood at the peak of the world, would find it beneath them to crush a true ant.
The deck fell silent.
Every gaze was fixed on the boy who had suddenly appeared, then collapsed into sobbing.
Even Jozu, the one who had just tossed him onto the deck, wore a strange expression.
Whitebeard's abyss-like gaze lingered on Lucian for a full ten seconds.
That gaze pierced through flesh, straight into his soul.
Lucian felt like he'd been stripped naked and thrown into the snow, his very being laid bare.
Just as he felt he would collapse completely under the weight of that pressure, that booming, iconic laugh rang out again.
"Gurararara!"
Whitebeard roared with laughter, the sound scattering the suffocating atmosphere.
"A little brat scared out of his wits? How boring."
He withdrew his gaze, losing all interest.
"Marco."
"Yes, Pops," replied Marco the Phoenix, stepping forward.
"Keep him on the ship for now! We're short a deckhand anyway. Find him something useless to do."
Whitebeard's voice returned to its commanding weight, and with a wave of his hand, he dismissed Lucian like a fly.
"Yes."
Lucian slumped to the ground, gasping for breath, his back drenched in cold sweat.
He knew it. He had gambled right.
He was alive.
Lucian was temporarily settled.
For the next few days, no one paid him any mind. He was like a harmless ghost drifting aboard the ship. Marco casually ordered a crewman to give him a spare uniform and some cleaning tools, assigning him to scrub the rear deck.
It was an unspoken allowance—a small zone where he could move about freely under watch.
Clad in oversized crew clothes, mop in hand, Lucian began his first job aboard this legendary ship.
But soon, he sensed something wrong.
The atmosphere on the ship was unbearably heavy.
From his memory, the Whitebeard Pirates should have been the most boisterous and lively crew in the seas. The air should have been filled with booming laughter, the clash of mugs of ale, and the carefree banter of family.
But now, there was only silence.
On deck, burly pirates gathered in groups, but no one spoke. They silently polished their weapons or leaned against the railing, brows furrowed as they stared out into the endless sea.
The air was thick with tension, a mix of restlessness and unease.
Lucian kept his head down, pretending to scrub diligently, while his ears strained like a rabbit's to catch any scraps of useful information.
Passing by the cabin doors, he saw a few nurses arguing heatedly. One blonde nurse, overwhelmed, slammed a roll of bandages onto the floor.
"…It's our fault! If only we had paid more attention that day…"
"What good is saying that now! He's already…"
Their words cut off as they noticed Lucian nearby. They slammed the door shut.
Lucian's heart skipped a beat, but he kept walking.
At the bow, he spotted Jozu, the Third Division Commander. The giant of a man was pounding the railing again and again with his fists.
Not far away, Marco leaned against the mainmast, arms crossed. His usually lazy expression was now dark and clouded.
"Ace, that guy…"
The voice, heavy with restrained fury, came from a cluster of pirates nearby.
Lucian froze, feigning a slip as he leaned against a wooden crate, trying to vanish into the background.
The conversation continued.
"He's too reckless! Pops clearly ordered him not to pursue!"
"But… it was Thatch! Our Fourth Division Commander, our brother! How can we just swallow this?!"
"But the enemy is Teach! That bastard who hid his true self all these years! It's too dangerous for Ace to go alone!"
"Pops' decision was right! Risking Ace for a traitor isn't worth it!"
"The hell did you just say?! Teach is a traitor, but Thatch's death must be avenged! Ace is doing the right thing!"
The voices flared into a heated argument, only to be hushed by others.
"Keep it down! You want Pops to hear?!"
…
Lucian couldn't hear the rest.
Thatch… dead.
Teach… defected.
Ace… went after him alone.
Pops… told him not to… but he went anyway.
Each word was like an ice pick stabbing into Lucian's skull.
From his fingertips outward, his whole body turned cold.
That feeling he thought he'd shaken off—the fear—returned a hundred times stronger.
But this time, it wasn't fear of one man.
It was fear of an unstoppable tide, a destiny that could not be turned back.
This wasn't a story!
This wasn't manga on a page!
Thatch dead, Ace chasing…
This…
This was the beginning of the War of the Best!
Lucian knew better than anyone in this world what Ace's pursuit truly meant.
He wasn't chasing vengeance.
He was chasing straight into Impel Down's cells, Marineford's execution platform, into a war that would shake the entire world and dye the seas red.
And what he would bring back was not Teach's head, nor the satisfaction of revenge…
But a Vivre Card declaring his death!
Time…
There was no time left!
"Ace…"
Lucian's lips moved soundlessly, a thought that made his very soul tremble surfacing with dreadful clarity.
"Ace will die!"