The moment Saint Charloss finished speaking, several guards dressed in black suits immediately strode toward Ash's group.
Everyone present who knew Ash's identity wore expressions of eager anticipation. They were waiting for entertainment.
After all, the man standing there was no ordinary pirate.
He was one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
The spectators wanted to see how Ash would handle the situation. The two people most interested in the outcome were Saff and Perona, the direct targets of Saint Charloss's shameless declaration.
In truth, the instant Saint Charloss announced that he would take them as his wives, the last trace of fear Perona felt toward the Celestial Dragons vanished.
She had already gathered power in her palm, prepared to blast the disgusting noble's head apart with a Spirit Bomb.
However, Saff quietly stopped her.
She was curious.
She wanted to see how their young captain would handle this unexpected problem.
While the entire auction hall watched Ash, he seemed momentarily distracted.
He knew the Celestial Dragons had a history of taking women from civilians whenever they pleased. That much was common knowledge.
However, the victims in the original story had always been ordinary people.
He had not expected them to attempt something so blatant inside the auction house itself.
Anyone capable of entering this place was either nobility, a merchant backed by criminal syndicates, or a pirate.
None of them were ordinary citizens.
If the Celestial Dragons could simply seize whoever they wanted, then why bother hosting an auction at all?
They could rob people openly and skip the entire performance.
More importantly, Ash clearly remembered how the auction unfolded in the original timeline.
Back then, the Celestial Dragons had simply bid like everyone else until Monkey D. Luffy punched one of them.
They had not behaved like this.
Then again, that auction had taken place in the year 1522.
The present year was 1515.
Seven years separated those events.
Naturally, the situation could not be identical.
No one knew how many atrocities the Celestial Dragons had committed by this point in history.
Besides, the original story never included someone like him.
Ash himself was the greatest anomaly in the entire pirate world.
A butterfly effect was inevitable.
All of these thoughts flashed through Ash's mind within a single moment.
Despite the arrogance of the Celestial Dragons and the smug confidence of their bodyguards, Ash did not take them seriously.
The years between 1514 and 1518 were an unusual period for the seas.
Red-Haired Shanks had returned to the New World and was actively fighting to establish his dominance. The region had become a constant battlefield.
Because of this, the Marine Admirals were extremely busy.
The fastest among them, Kizaru, was constantly traveling between battlefields, supporting Akainu and Aokiji while also assisting the scientific division stationed on Punk Hazard.
He barely had time to return to Marineford.
Even Monkey D. Garp had been deployed to the New World under Sengoku's orders.
In other words, even if Ash beat a Celestial Dragon bloody right here and now, there was almost no chance that an Admiral would appear immediately.
So what exactly was there to fear?
Sengoku?
Kong?
The Gorosei?
Or the mysterious Knights of God?
Ash did not underestimate the authority of the Celestial Dragons.
Their status as World Nobles made them extremely powerful politically.
But everything in the world was relative.
Ash was confident that during this particular period, as long as he did not actually kill a Celestial Dragon, the situation would not escalate beyond control.
The reason was simple.
With the Admirals scattered across the seas, the highest authorities of the World Government would not move easily.
More importantly, Ash was the newest member of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
The Warlord system was currently one of the World Government's most important strategies.
Ash did not represent only himself.
He represented the entire Warlord system.
Everyone understood the real purpose of the Warlords.
They were legalized pirates used to counterbalance the great forces of the New World and indirectly restrain the power of the Marines.
Unlike Cipher Pol agents, these pirates were not obedient servants of the government.
They were independent rulers of the sea.
If the government did not offer them enough freedom and respect, why would they agree to cooperate?
Legal permission to plunder was not enough.
Pirates had never cared much about legality in the first place.
Not every pirate possessed the ambition of Donquixote Doflamingo or the manipulative schemes of Miss Bakkin.
Many powerful pirates viewed the Warlord title with suspicion or even open disdain.
Otherwise, Jinbe would not have demanded the release of imprisoned fish-man pirates in exchange for accepting the position.
The Warlord roster would have been full long ago.
Even within the Marines, many officers remained hesitant about the system.
If the government punished Ash, the newest Warlord, over a minor conflict with a Celestial Dragon, it would be equivalent to slapping its own face.
The entire Warlord strategy would collapse before it even fully began.
No major pirate would ever accept the position afterward.
In that case, the government's plan to use pirates to control other pirates would become a complete joke.
Saint Charloss had already ordered his guards forward.
When he turned back, he discovered that Ash was still ignoring him completely.
The Celestial Dragon's face twisted in rage.
Without hesitation, he raised his flintlock pistol and fired.
Bang! Bang!
Two gunshots echoed through the auction hall as he fired directly at Ash.
Ash was thinking, but he was not careless.
His Observation Haki constantly monitored everything around him.
The moment Saint Charloss raised his gun, Ash already knew exactly what the idiot intended to do.
Still, a simple flintlock pistol was nothing more than a toy to him.
He could have dodged.
There was simply no reason to bother.
The two bullets shot through the air.
Before Saint Charloss could even smile in triumph, the bullets suddenly dissolved into thin smoke half a meter away from Ash's body.
The ordinary spectators saw nothing unusual.
But the black suited guards immediately tensed.
In a flash, they surrounded their master protectively.
Ash clicked his tongue softly.
"Honestly..."
He raised his left hand and scratched his eyebrow casually.
Then he spoke in a calm voice.
"Kill every piece of trash here except those three pigs."
Saff smiled faintly and released Perona's wrist.
Youki's lips slowly spread into a feral grin.
His heart pounded with excitement.
It was not fear.
It was exhilaration.
He approved completely of Ash's decision.
More than that, he was thrilled by the chance to confront a Celestial Dragon directly.
"Descendants of gods?"
Youki laughed coldly.
"Let me show you the power of a real god."
The moment Ash finished speaking, everyone in the auction hall suddenly felt a cold chill brush across their bodies.
It felt like a silent breeze sweeping through the room.
In the next instant, Youki moved.
His coat fluttered violently as wind surged around him.
More than a dozen visible cyan wind blades burst into existence.
They tore through the nearest black suited guards instantly and continued flying toward the men protecting Saint Charloss.
The guards did not even have time to scream before their bodies were shredded apart.
Shock spread through the auction hall like wildfire.
"He actually attacked a Celestial Dragon!"
Tesoro's eyes widened in disbelief.
His heart skipped several beats.
How many times had he imagined this exact moment?
How many times had he dreamed about doing the same thing?
For years, he had longed to see someone stand up against the Celestial Dragons like this.
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