The Grand Line has four categories of islands—spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
Each island, in turn, also has its own set of four internal seasons.
This gives rise to a strange and uncanny phenomenon: even two islands that sit not far from one another can have completely different climates and seasons.
The island that the Blackbeard Pirates raided and took over was one whose season was the exact opposite of Whitebeard's homeland.
Whitebeard's homeland was now in pleasant weather—gentle breezes, comfortable temperatures, everything bursting with life.
What Blackbeard, Marshall D. Teach, saw instead was a land sunk deep in midwinter—heavy snow, icy winds, biting cold.
The pirates who followed him grumbled nonstop.
Why attack this place, of all islands, when they could have gone after those warm, fertile lands full of fruit and sunshine?
The men were freezing and starving. The jerky they pulled from storage was so stiff with cold it might as well have been a sword; even taking a piss outside could freeze into an icicle.
For warmth, they threw anything flammable—anything they had pillaged—into fireplaces, bonfires, stoves, and huddled together like a bunch of chicks, shivering as they passed around the same pot of rum.
Aside from the initial thrill of killing and plunder, everything else about this island left them deeply dissatisfied.
Teach, however, was extremely pleased with this raid.
After the Paramount War, his physique had undergone drastic changes.
At first, he grew a bit bulkier; then his height shot up like bamboo, until most pirates had to look up to speak to him.
This was a path many powerful individuals walk—nothing to do with race. Not everyone is a Giant, after all.
They might stand only 1.8 or 1.9 meters in their youth, but the moment they break through a certain threshold of strength, their height suddenly shoots up—to two or three meters, sometimes even over ten or twenty.
Teach had grown tall for this very reason.
Still, several of his subordinates were even taller.
These were essentially the core members of the Blackbeard Pirates.
Counting Teach, ten people sat around the round table in the brightly lit hall, a fireplace blazing nearby.
He was explaining his purpose to them.
"Ace and Marco are far too straight-laced," Teach laughed, his grin wide. "They'd never expect that after killing one of their commanders last night, we'd take this island today—right while they're busy holding the funeral and calling all remaining commanders back!"
And indeed, things went exactly as he predicted—the island fell with laughable ease, hardly any meaningful resistance at all.
Teach wore a black hat bearing the Blackbeard Pirates' symbol—the three white skulls, each empty eye socket staring in a different direction.
His chin was covered in thick black beard, tied into three sections with gold rings—he now truly looked the part of Blackbeard.
"Captain Teach, we're not asking why you launched a surprise attack now." Jesus Burgess poured rum down his throat, then slammed the empty cup onto the table with a bang. "We're asking why you chose this island."
"Champion" Burgess, even on this freezing island, kept his upper body bare to flaunt his strength.
He was one of the rare non-Devil Fruit users in the crew.
But his right arm was fitted with a heavy armored gauntlet, scarred by blades and bullets—a testament to his combat power.
Teach had promised to "hunt down a Devil Fruit" for him, but Burgess couldn't understand why they were wasting time on an island like this.
Most of the others at the table shared the same question.
"Rain" Shiryu, "Supersonic" Van Augur, "Corrupt King" Avalo Pizarro, "Demon Sheriff" Lafitte, "Crescent-Moon Hunter" Catarina Devon, "Huge Battleship" Sanjuan Wolf (if he were still alive), "Vast Barrel" Vasco Shot, "Death God" Doc Q…
And adding Donquixote Doflamingo's envoy, Diamante, nine pairs of eyes turned to Teach.
Diamante had arrived two days earlier on Doflamingo's behalf, to discuss forming a "pirate alliance."
Teach wasn't in a hurry—he invited Diamante to join the raid, letting him see for himself how the Blackbeard Pirates operated.
Diamante ended up slaughtering happily alongside them, fitting in disturbingly well.
If Sanjuan Wolf hadn't been run through and killed by the terrifying Ghost Ship during the Paramount War, there would have been eleven here.
But no one mourned him. They never mourned the dead.
They gathered for mutual benefit, for ambition—not for bonds, not for friendship, and certainly not for family.
Likewise, Teach was only their "captain" in name. They weren't sworn to die for him—they followed him because it currently benefited them.
Teach understood this well. He needed a reasonable explanation, or his "admiral-like authority" would suffer.
A thousand-mile levee collapses from an ant hole—once his prestige falls below a certain point, betrayal, or worse, would come.
He knew this ending because it had happened countless times in pirate history.
The deepest, most buried example by the World Government was that of the Rocks Pirates.
Rocks D. Xebec gathered monsters like Newgate, Kaido, Big Mom, Wang Zhi…
And in the end, during the God Valley Incident, they all abandoned him.
Gathered, they were a blazing fire. Scattered, they became stars across the sky.
Newgate, Kaido, Linlin, and Wang Zhi all later formed their own pirate crews, becoming infamous titans of the sea.
None had any intention of avenging Rocks. In fact, some events at God Valley were instigated by them.
Teach had modeled himself after Rocks—he formed the Blackbeard Pirates when the time came, and even named his ship the Xebec.
Since he was walking Xebec's old path, he had to guard carefully against Xebec's downfall.
He had no intention of being cornered one day on some island by the strongest pirate and the strongest marine of the era, abandoned by his own crew, and dying in despair.
He would not repeat Rocks' mistake.
So, after shoving a chunk of his favorite cherry pie into his mouth, Teach grinned, exposing two rows of teeth missing several pieces.
"Don't be so hasty," Teach said patiently. "I'm leading the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates, step by step, right into my trap."
"What trap?" Diamante—an outsider—was quite interested in the strategic purpose of this operation.
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