Chapter 402: Showdown Before the Storm: Ace’s Resolve and Ye Fan’s Fury

“No way. There’s no chance I could beat him.”

Ace stared at Ye Fan in disbelief after hearing Ye Fan declare he couldn’t defeat Blackbeard.

Blackbeard, or Teach, was one of Ace’s own crewmates. On paper, there was no way Blackbeard should have been stronger than him.

But the problem was, Ace was up against the ultimate backstabber. Blackbeard had hidden on Whitebeard’s ship for years, all for the sake of the Dark-Dark Fruit.

“Have you ever seen this wanted poster before? What do you think caused the scar on his face?”

Ace was too stubborn to listen, so after taking his seat Ye Fan simply pulled out a wanted poster.

The man on the poster was Shanks, one of the Four Emperors. Three jagged claw marks ran down his left eye.

“Why does that look so familiar?” Ace’s face twisted in confusion as he stared at the unmistakable wound.

The scars were just too distinctive. Even if he tried not to think about it, he couldn’t help but remember—weren’t those marks from Blackbeard?

Before he ever ate the Dark-Dark Fruit, Blackbeard fought with a pair of gloves. On those gloves were three sharp claws.

“Don’t tell me Blackbeard did that?” Ace ran through every possibility, but the answer was right in front of him, no matter how outrageous.

Whether Ace believed it or not, the only one who’d ever wounded Red-Haired Shanks and left a permanent scar was Blackbeard, Teach.

Ye Fan nodded, locking eyes with Ace, his gaze deep and unreadable.

He really wanted to see if Ace would keep that arrogance once he understood Blackbeard’s true strength.

But in the end, it was just disappointing.

“Even so, I’ll drag him back to the New World with my own hands.” Ace tipped his hat, just like Luffy always did, and spoke with utter seriousness.

It was a man’s promise.

Looks like some crucial events couldn’t be changed after all.

Still, that made sense. Without Blackbeard capturing Ace, the war at Marineford might never even start. If that didn’t happen, Ye Fan’s plans would fall apart.

“Just don’t regret it later.” Ye Fan had said all he could. There’s no convincing a man set on his own path.

“Aren’t you going up there?”

Watching Luffy getting pounded below, Ye Fan glanced at Ace. “Aren’t you going to step in?”

“Nope. This is your fight now. And besides, Luffy’s as tough as they come. He can take it.”

With Ace’s Observation Haki, he could sense that even though Luffy looked battered, his life force was still strong. As long as Luffy wasn’t in real danger, Ace wouldn’t interfere.

He knew how dangerous the New World was. If Luffy couldn’t handle something like this, he had no business there.

Of course, Ace was only seeing Crocodile’s superficial strength.

Pirates like Crocodile were everywhere in the New World now. Thanks to Ye Fan pulling strings in the shadows, pirates there were far stronger than in the original story.

“Well, guess it’s my turn then.”

Ace made the right call. If you want someone to grow, you can’t coddle them forever. You have to let them face the world on their own.

You lend a hand only when it matters most. That’s how people really grow up.

“Eight Extremities—Tiger Ascends the Mountain!” Ye Fan leapt down from the rooftop, landing right above Galdino, and smashed both fists, powered by immense strength, down onto his shoulders.

Crack!

In the blink of an eye, Galdino’s massive wax armor shattered.

“Gah!”

As the armor broke apart, Galdino’s body was hurled through the air, a spray of blood following him.

“Ye Fan, you finally made it!”

Chopper looked exhausted as he gazed at Ye Fan. This was the toughest battle he’d ever faced.

He was a complete mess. When he saw Ye Fan drive back the enemy, his body reverted to his small form and he collapsed, panting hard.

“You better get used to fights like this, Chopper. There’ll be plenty more ahead, so don’t slack off!”

“Got it!”

With Chopper lying on the ground, Ye Fan used his Observation Haki to search for someone who hadn’t joined the fray yet.

Sure enough, seeing Ye Fan defeat Galdino as soon as he appeared, Jem rushed out. “You! You’re unforgivable!”

“Booger—Air Cannon!”

A booger, barely the size of a rice grain, shot at Ye Fan with frightening speed.

People in this world never really developed their Devil Fruit powers properly.

The Devil Fruit’s potential depends on the user’s own imagination.

With the Bomb-Bomb Fruit, you could literally turn anything you touch into explosive energy… but this idiot only made tiny things explode. It never occurred to him to make the explosions larger or affect a wider area.

What a waste of a perfectly good Devil Fruit.

If only the people back in his homeland with their advanced technology got their hands on it… Even though his country hadn’t unleashed those two colossal mushroom clouds on the world, if given the chance, they wouldn’t have hesitated.

Buzz!

Ye Fan didn’t even move. Using aether elements invisible to the naked eye, he wrapped up the projectile and flung it back.

“Nani?!”

Jem never expected his own attack to get tossed back at him using a method he couldn’t even comprehend. He scrambled out of the way in a panic.

Boom!

A massive explosion went off right where he’d been standing just moments before, blasting him sideways.

“That’s not how you use the Bomb-Bomb Fruit.”

Ye Fan darted in front of Jem, grabbed him by the collar with his left hand and, with his right, conjured a small transparent sphere filled with swirling liquid explosives.

He’d pulled water directly from the air, then used electricity to keep generating hydrogen. In that cramped, airtight little sphere, he added an intense flame. A thin, invisible barrier kept the two elements separated.

The whole process took barely the blink of an eye.

Ye Fan pressed the glowing sphere against Jem, then flung him high into the sky.

By the time Jem regained control of his body, he was already dozens of meters up.

“Detonate!”

Just as Jem tried to pull the energy-filled sphere off his chest, Ye Fan’s cold voice echoed from below.

At the exact moment Ye Fan spoke, the barrier in the sphere vanished. Flame and hydrogen met. A torrent of energy burst outward in an instant.

BOOM!!!

The explosion was so loud, it dwarfed even the sound of thunder. Shockwaves shattered hundreds of square meters of glass.

Then came the shockwave, a tsunami roaring out from ground zero, hurling everyone in its path.

Before anyone could get their footing, an incredible wave of heat swept past.

As for Jem at the epicenter—he was burned to a crisp. Long before anyone could react, he’d been reduced to charcoal.

But maybe that’s just how bizarre these anime worlds are. Even completely charred, Jem’s chest still rose and fell. He hadn’t died right away.