374
As Groot and Aisa left, Luffy was left alone with the transponder snail. The young man looked around. Even with Observation Haki, no one was there. Still, to make sure, Luffy jumped into the air using Geppo to get to his destination.
About a minute later he was sitting on one of the high branches of the Giant Jack. Giant Jack was the giant beanstalk that was in the center of Upper Yard. Going through the center of the city of Shandora, it towered over all of Skypiea.
"Shishishi… this has the perfect view." Luffy grinned, sitting in one of the branches of the giant tree. From up here he could see the whole island and even more. Even the tree of the old Groot could be seen from here, and all of it looked small. "I should bring Nami along here sometimes, she would love the view."
He enjoyed the view for a few seconds, before he started setting the Black Transponder snail up for an encrypted call. After getting that done, he waited.
"Moshi moshi, Big News Morgans here!" Morgans said, grinning from the other side with the video function activated.
"Yo, how's it been?"
"Oh-ho, certainly fine." Morgan said with a raspy voice. The bird-man seemed to be in a good mood. "Just today, I was able to get some confirming news on the next warlord meeting."
Luffy blinked before raising an eyebrow, "Oh, really? But I didn't get any call from Sengoku?"
"You should get it by tonight," Morgans said, "I just wanted to inform you first… The meeting was called on short notice, it is an urgent meeting after all."
Luffy hummed. "Urgent as in? Wait, did something happen?"
Morgans frowned from the other side, "Eh, you don't know? It's because of what happened with Mihawk."
Luffy blinked, "What happened?"
"I thought you already knew?" Morgans said, a small grin on his face, "But then again, not everyone is as informed as me." Of course, the bird-man preened liked a peacock at his own statement.
Luffy deadpanned, "Yeah, sure. But seriously, what happened with Mihawk?"
"Well, nothing happened yet. But from my birds, Mihawk was last seen confronting Shanks for the yearly duel." Morgan said.
"Really? Is the battle over? Who won?" Luffy asked with an eager smile on his face.
"The battle did end. But as to who is the winner, well it most probably is a tie. Even if someone did win, with both of them having so many battles against each other. I don't think just having one win will count for any of them." Morgans said. "So I will just stick them as a tie. Though I might have to write for Mihawk winning the duel, to keep up public appearances."
Luffy just nodded. Something similar happened when Ace had battled against Jinbe before going after Whitebeard. They had battled for ten whole days and Ace had won the fight, before getting his butt kicked by Whitebeard. Even with the training from Rayleigh, he wasn't strong enough to win against the strongest man.
Of course, Morgans had spun it off as Jinbe winning as even though the Warlords might be pirates, they were World Government affiliated, so they had to keep the feats of the Warlords in a good light. In some way, Luffy was taking advantage of that to build up his own reputation.
As for Mihawk and Shanks, both were on pretty good terms. And Shanks didn't mind as long as his opponents didn't cross certain boundaries. So yeah. There was no clear-cut title holder for the World's Strongest Swordsman.
"They went pretty wild on one of the islands in the New World. My birds that were on that island couldn't stand that fight and had to leave the island. Good thing that the island was a deserted one, I don't think it's in any shape to sustain any life anymore." Morgans said with a bit of a grim expression, "Heck, the power from both swordsmen were enough to shake a couple of nearby islands as well. Monsters, I tell you."
"Shishishi… well, personal strength is everything in this world." Luffy said, "But anyway… You wouldn't be telling me this if you didn't have any information on them."
Morgans leaned in for a smile, "Smart one, aren't ya." He said leaning back with a smug grin, "I might not know who had won. But I kind of anticipated something like this happening … and even though it's kind of hard to get close-up shots of their battle. My men were able to collect some footage from a high enough vantage point before they were pushed back… so you willing to buy it?"
For others, it might as well be nothing, but for Luffy it could be an important motivating asset. 'Just seeing two Yonko level fighters duke it out should be enough to light up some fire under Zoro and Kuina. Even Sabo and I can benefit from it,' Luffy thought as on the outside he made a thoughtful gesture, "How much money are we talking? And also how long is the video? You wouldn't mind showing me a preview of the product, would you?"
Morgans seemed to get comfortable in his seat as he took out a small mobile-like device that had a symbol of Germa Kingdom on it. It seemed Morgans really was on good terms with Judge, but Luffy didn't care.
Judge might be a sick bastard, but his inventions were quite helpful, as unlike Vegapunk he was willing to sell it for public use.
Morgans held the device in hand as he played a video. A video of Mihawk and Shanks clashing.
The blur of speed along with the ground getting destroyed in each clash wasn't something you could mimic with special effects.
It was the real deal. Luffy's only question was how Morgans managed to capture such a high-speed battle. Or who the cameraman was? Saitama? But he wasn't questioning it, as he was fully focusing on the video. With there being so many devil fruits, he could see some pirates or even civilians doing freelance or full-time work for Morgans.
"This is some high-quality stuff, if I do say so myself… I was only able to get it on video, cause I kept tabs on Mihawk." Morgans said, his chest puffed up a bit, "I knew like every year he was itching for a good battle and the war with the Beast Pirates would take a few more months. So I kept tabs on him…"
Morgans rambled on, but Luffy was much more focused on the fight. Both of them haven't even gotten fully serious yet. But they were still terraforming the island with their clashes… the sky clouds parted, mountains got destroyed as they both went against each other. All the while they had challenging smiles on thier faces. Monsters indeed.