Grand Line, Paradise, Calm Belt.
A large battleship, its bow shaped like a black wolf's head, sailed across the serene, ripple-free sea. The Chris Pirates flag fluttered from its mast.
"This is amazing. I heard only the Marines know how to navigate the Calm Belt safely. I didn't expect His Majesty the King to know as well," a scrawny man in a brown tunic stood by the ship's rail, curiously observing the motionless sea.
"Indeed. The Calm Belt is a nest for Sea Kings. Without special methods, entering here casually almost guarantees a complete demise," the flat-haired big man next to him excitedly gazed at the sea.
"What do you know! If you weren't so weak, why bother with all this effort?" At this moment, a shirtless man draped in a black overcoat walked over, scornfully glancing at the two. Then, with an envious tone, he continued, "You should know that those great pirates of the New World, especially those monsters possessing Conqueror's Haki, which one of them can't cross the Calm Belt alone? Under the deterrence of Conqueror's Haki, those Sea Kings are scared witless. Even one or two foolish beasts would only meet their demise."
"Conqueror's Haki!" The scrawny man and the flat-haired big man's eyes widened. They asked curiously, "Second Mate, they say people with Conqueror's Haki are born kings. You were also at the Palace War back then. Someone as powerful as His Majesty the King must have it, right?"
"That's a must!" The man called Second Mate proudly adjusted his black overcoat, gesturing wildly as he gushed, "I tell you, back then, His Majesty the King, with just a single glance, made tens of thousands of soldiers, knights, and officers of all ranks who refused to surrender faint on the spot! It was absolutely overflowing with Haki!"
Listening to the Second Mate, the two men's expressions became excited, their minds lost in reverie, wishing they could return to that time to witness such a magnificent scene firsthand.
Roar~
Suddenly, a strange, unsettling roar echoed from afar, interrupting the Second Mate's words. It seemed to come from a great distance.
Rumble!
A rumbling sound, like distant thunder, carried over. The calm sea rippled and shimmered as if a stone had been thrown into it.
"Is that a Sea King's roar?"
"Why do I feel so uneasy?"
"No way, a single roar makes us uneasy? Does that mean if it gets close, we'd all be scared out of our wits?"
"..."
The unexplained roar startled all the crew and sailors on board. Feeling uneasy, they swarmed onto the deck, hundreds of people gathering, gazing at the undulating sea, trying to find the source of the roar.
"Hey, hey! Could it be... we've found our target?"
Suddenly, a shirtless sailor speculated. Immediately, the previously noisy deck fell silent. They looked at each other, speechless.
A few seconds later, a blond man in a brown captain's coat waved his arms, stomping his feet and shouting, "Turn around! Turn around! Head towards that roar! Move it! Faster! A little faster!"
...
One nautical mile away.
A red and green ship, towed forward by two massive "sea snakes," sailed across the ocean.
The ship had two huge masts adorned with red sails. The front red sail bore a skull emblem shaped like the sun encased by nine snakes, while the rear red sail featured the large black kanji for "Kuja."
This was the pirate ship of the Kuja Pirates from Amazon Lily.
"That roar... a single cry makes you uneasy... Is it the legendary 'Calamodus'? And that direction... the direction of the forbidden island. Is that ship seeking death?" On the bow deck, a woman with a long pink snake coiled around her arm and a quiver of arrows on her back gazed in surprise at the large battleship in the distance flying the Chris Pirates flag.
"Such a large ship, it must have a lot of supplies. But since it's flying the Chris Pirates flag, we can't touch it. And they're going to their deaths. What a waste of all those supplies," a corpulent woman with a frilly orange tube top covering her chest lamented.
"Do men always like to court death? Should we tell them to take a smaller boat to their demise and leave the big ship and its supplies to us? Leihihihi..." A orange-haired woman covered her mouth and laughed, fantasizing.
"I'm telling you, you're laughing too perversely," a smoking woman, wearing only a long-sleeved vest covering her breasts, holding a rocket launcher, commented dryly.
"I say, Ran, the Chris Pirates have been stirring up trouble in the Calm Belt for half a year, seemingly searching for something. Could it be the forbidden island?" The woman with the frilly orange tube top turned and asked.
"That... is very possible." Ran, with the pink snake coiled around her arm and a quiver of arrows on her back, pondered.
Indeed, it was possible.
For the past half year, she had seen at least seven or eight warships flying the Chris Pirates flag in the Calm Belt.
"Rindo, should we report this to Empress Boa Hancock?" The orange-haired woman looked towards the palace-like deck structure on the ship.
"Daisy, I think we should say something," Rindo, smoking, nodded.
"Then I'll go report it," Ran glanced once more at the distant black wolf-headed battleship, then turned and left the bow.
...
New World, Bovanja Island, East Coast, on an Ancient Castle.
Boom!
Rumble~
"Argh~"
"Damn it!"
"Block these metal things!"
"What kind of monsters are these?"
A large group of soldiers wearing black uniforms with the '66' emblem were scattered across the coast and within the ancient forts. However, their situation was dire. Hundreds of soldiers lay dead on the beach or within the castle, dismembered and bleeding, with severed limbs scattered everywhere.
The cause of this scene was over a hundred steel monsters, or rather, robots or mechanical monsters.
They had metallic steel skeletons, covered in metal armor, some even with exposed wires. There were humanoid types, beast types, humanoid robots with four arms wielding large blades, beast-type mechanical monsters with sharp teeth and claws, and mechanical spiders with eight legs and small turrets on their backs.
These metallic steel monsters were almost impervious to blades and bullets, easily killing the soldiers. However, their drawback was that these robots and mechanical monsters were too rudimentary, with internal damage occurring more frequently than battle damage.
"Mechanic Vade! Are you truly betraying the Germa Kingdom?!"
A very young boy, startled and enraged, stood among more than a dozen soldiers, shouting at the top of the ancient fort.
This boy's hair covered his right eye, his left eyebrow was curled, he wore sunglasses and a white silk scarf, and was cloaked in a red cape with a '1' emblem. He wore a combat suit with the '66' emblem, along with specialized white gloves and a belt.
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