In the New World, the Nightfall Pirates accelerated their wartime expansion plans.
For the next several years, their core strategy would revolve entirely around conquest, territorial control, and military growth.
The Marines had once again been driven out of the New World, leaving behind only two isolated Marine branches struggling to survive. More importantly, the Marines showed no intention of reclaiming the remaining fortresses they had lost.
At least for now, the Navy had completely abandoned the idea of focusing its strength on the New World.
Not until they recovered.
The Marine withdrawal immediately reignited conflict throughout the front half of the New World.
When the Marines previously returned to the New World, they had forcefully squeezed countless pirate crews out of their living space. Now that the Marines were gone again, large swaths of territory had suddenly become vacant.
Some islands had already been seized during the war itself.
Others were now becoming targets for fresh conquest.
Naturally, conflict was inevitable.
The Big Mom Pirates and the Beast Pirates, whose territories bordered the front portion of the New World, quickly turned their attention toward those lands.
For the Beast Pirates, expansion options were limited.
To the east lay the territory of the Nightfall Pirates.
To the north and northeast stood the territory of the Whitebeard Pirates.
That left only one direction.
West.
Toward the front half of the New World.
Trying to expand eastward would directly provoke the Nightfall Pirates, something Kaido had no interest in doing at the moment.
As a result, the Whitebeard Pirates found themselves in the most dangerous position.
Their territory occupied the middle and rear portions of the New World, surrounded by hostile forces on nearly every side.
Unlike the Nightfall Pirates, whose rear bordered the Calm Belt and whose neighboring territories only touched the Whitebeard Pirates and the Satan Pirates, the Whitebeard Pirates had enemies in every direction.
The Nightfall Pirates themselves expanded relatively cautiously.
Once their territory reached a certain point, they intentionally left unoccupied buffer zones between themselves and rival Emperors.
For example, they deliberately avoided direct territorial contact with the Beast Pirates.
That way, even if war eventually broke out, the buffer region itself could become the battlefield instead of their true core territory.
Meanwhile, the war throughout the Chaotic Sea reignited once again.
Various forces began openly competing for influence, territory, and resources.
The territories of the Chaotic Sea had already mostly been divided after years of bloodshed.
Now, what remained was redistribution.
The stronger one became, the more territory they could seize.
And any pirate crew unable to defend its holdings would inevitably lose them.
What this war truly tested was overall strength.
However, larger territories also meant heavier burdens.
The Nightfall Pirates understood this very well.
Their current expansion was only possible because many forces previously deployed for the Golden Sea War had finally returned to the New World.
Even though the Nightfall Pirates had not officially declared war on the Whitebeard Pirates yet, the pressure they exerted continued growing heavier with each passing day.
The humiliation from the previous war had not faded from the Whitebeard Pirates' memory either.
Because of this, a large number of Whitebeard Pirate forces remained stationed near borders shared with the Nightfall Pirates.
They constantly prepared for possible conflict.
At the same time, Whitebeard also needed to dispatch forces across his vast territories to patrol and maintain order.
This greatly dispersed the Whitebeard Pirates' manpower.
As a result, only a few of their true core members could remain stationed in the Chaotic Sea.
Most of the pressure still rested directly on Whitebeard himself.
Under the current circumstances, the Whitebeard Pirates and the Flying Pirates remained the two largest territorial powers in the Chaotic Sea.
But unlike before, their next priority was no longer expansion.
It was defense.
They needed to hold what they already possessed.
And the enemies surrounding them were far from weak.
Many ambitious pirate crews stared hungrily at Whitebeard's territories, hoping to carve away even a single piece.
Still, change would not happen overnight.
The Golden Sea War had only recently ended.
After such a brutal conflict, even monsters needed time to recover.
Meanwhile, the Battle Pyramid entered an unprecedented period of prosperity.
The Nightfall Pirates' victory greatly boosted their prestige across the seas, causing the Battle Pyramid to explode in popularity once again.
Combat.
Entertainment.
Gambling.
Pleasure.
The entire structure operated like a gigantic independent world.
Its population consistently hovered around one million people.
Many entered.
Very few ever truly left.
Some gradually forgot the outside world entirely.
Inside the Battle Pyramid, as long as one won battles, they earned Berries.
And the longer a winning streak continued, the larger the accumulated prize pool became.
A successful withdrawal meant taking all that money away.
But defeat meant losing everything to the victor.
The entire system possessed an addictive gambling nature that drove countless people into obsession.
Many became completely intoxicated by it.
Yet for true powerhouses, the ultimate attraction remained the rare prizes hidden at the top.
The Snow-Snow Fruit.
The Burst-Sound Fruit.
The Giant Demon Fruit.
Any one of them could sell for more than a billion Berries on the black market.
Then there were legendary treasures like the Demon Sword Seven-Star Sword and other priceless artifacts.
Naturally, such wealth attracted greedy eyes.
During the Golden Sea War, many Nightfall Pirate forces had been deployed elsewhere.
Some individuals with ulterior motives inevitably attempted to steal those treasures.
Unfortunately for them, their endings were miserable.
The treasury storing those valuables could only be opened using specially crafted keys.
The entire vault was also lined with Sea Prism Stone, specifically designed to suppress Devil Fruit users with unusual abilities.
Furthermore, the Battle Pyramid itself was guarded by List.
Every few days, List would casually perform piano or guitar pieces in the Battle Pyramid's music hall.
At first glance, he appeared harmless.
But absolutely nobody dared underestimate him.
Because the world still believed Teach remained on Pagira Island, many people were already terrified of provoking the Nightfall Pirates.
The few thieves bold enough to act quickly discovered how hopeless their situation truly was.
First, they failed against the treasury defenses.
Then they encountered List.
Most people could not resist his bizarre abilities at all and were subdued almost effortlessly.
Combined with the terrifying prestige of the Nightfall Pirates and the massive number of guards stationed throughout the Battle Pyramid, those thieves never stood a chance.
The arrival of the Giant Gatekeepers only deepened public fear toward the Nightfall Pirates.
The unlucky thieves were dealt with quickly.
Most of their corpses ended up fed to fish.
Inside the Battle Pyramid existed an enormous aquarium-like zone.
Some areas raised beautiful ornamental fish.
Others housed violent carnivorous species.
Besides regular feeding from the Nightfall Pirates, those creatures occasionally consumed human remains as well.
The Battle Pyramid generated astonishing profits every single day.
Its daily expenses were equally terrifying.
But its income vastly surpassed its costs.
Ironically, the biggest consumers within the Battle Pyramid were the fighters themselves.
And the money those fighters spent mostly originated from the Battle Pyramid's own rewards.
The Nightfall Pirates essentially distributed money to them through battles, only for that same money to return right back into Nightfall Pirate pockets.
The entire structure formed a nearly perfect economic cycle.
Beyond that, even larger profits came from gambling and outside spectators.
Ticket sales alone generated enormous wealth.
At the same time, the Nightfall Pirates officially partnered with the World Economic News to develop something entirely new.
A specialized "website" dedicated solely to the Battle Pyramid.
Combat footage.
Live broadcasts.
Images.
Discussions.
Battle records.
Everything would revolve around the Battle Pyramid.
However, the project remained incomplete.
The system itself was extremely complicated.
Unlike the Golden Sea War broadcasts, where simple forums were enough, this new project required far more advanced functionality.
Teach himself had proposed many ideas and requirements.
Reaching standards that satisfied him was not easy.
Still, the profits involved were enormous.
Naturally, Morgans accepted immediately.
As for profit distribution, the Nightfall Pirates would receive ninety percent.
The World Economic News received ten percent.
After all, the Nightfall Pirates themselves were responsible for nearly all operation and maintenance.
The World Economic News merely assisted with construction.
The ownership still belonged entirely to the Nightfall Pirates.
Even so, Morgans was thrilled.
Ten percent of such a colossal project already represented unimaginable wealth.
More importantly, it was something completely unprecedented.
A true advancement of the era itself.
According to current research estimates, however, fully achieving the desired functionality would still require another two years.
Meanwhile, another revolutionary invention appeared inside the rapidly growing World Den Den Mushi Group.
A device called a "mouse."
A tool capable of connecting directly to Den Den Mushi systems, making operation dramatically faster and more convenient.
The world itself was slowly beginning to change.
With the Marines no longer serving as a common enemy, the pirates of the New World prepared to plunge back into civil war once again.
In truth, such conflict had never truly stopped.
Now, however, the Chaotic Sea was becoming even more violent.
The return of major cadres and core combat forces gave every pirate crew renewed confidence.
As a result, the Chaotic Sea, which had briefly quieted during the Golden Sea War, rapidly descended back into chaos.
The Whitebeard Pirates wasted little time.
The Moby Dick sailed directly toward the Chaotic Sea once more.
Without Whitebeard personally present, numerous forces had immediately taken advantage of the situation.
During the Golden Sea War, many crews hesitated to act recklessly.
Now they no longer had such concerns.
Only days after the New World conflict ended, various pirate forces launched attacks throughout the Chaotic Sea.
Their primary targets were clear.
The Whitebeard Pirates.
And the Flying Pirates.
Most of the elite combat forces from both crews had previously been concentrated near Jaya Island and the front half of the New World.
That left their Chaotic Sea territories relatively vulnerable.
Unable to defend such enormous areas effectively, they quickly began losing islands.
Territory after territory fell under sudden assault.
Both crews responded immediately.
The Whitebeard Pirates dispatched Marco the Phoenix.
The Flying Pirates dispatched Rhyme the Heavenly King.
Both possessed extremely high mobility, allowing them to arrive in the Chaotic Sea quickly and stabilize the situation.
However, the Whitebeard Pirates clearly faced heavier pressure.
The Flying Pirates possessed a unique advantage.
Their core territory existed ten thousand meters above the sea.
The Sky Kingdom.
Thanks to floating cloud technology, the Flying Pirates could largely avoid ordinary maritime conflict entirely.
In many ways, they already occupied an almost invincible strategic position.
The only reason they still participated in territorial struggles throughout the Chaotic Sea was because of pirate rules themselves.
Those islands could not truly belong to them until the wars ended.
Otherwise, Shiki could simply use his powers to lift every island he desired directly into the sky.
But doing so would make him an enemy of the entire world.
Not only the Nightfall Pirates and Whitebeard Pirates, but countless other major pirate crews, the Marines, and even the World Government would unite against him.
Even Shiki could not survive that kind of pressure.
As a result, the Flying Pirates' original sea territory had become eerily empty.
Most islands there had already been relocated into the sky.
What remained were only worthless, uninhabited scraps of land.
This region gradually earned a new name.
The Dead Sea.
A silent ocean where one might drift for an entire year without encountering another soul.
Through his own abilities alone, Shiki had literally altered the map of the world.
And high above that empty sea floated the Flying Pirates' Sky Kingdom.
An endless archipelago suspended among the clouds.
However, maintaining such a kingdom created countless new problems.
Fish from the White-White Sea replaced ordinary ocean fish.
Fortunately, the cloud sea itself possessed unique marine life whose meat was even more delicious.
Still, isolation created major difficulties.
Living ten thousand meters above the world meant losing many forms of outside communication.
Over time, people inevitably became bored.
Many raw materials from the sea became difficult to obtain.
Production risks increased.
Development slowed.
Running the Sky Kingdom proved far more complicated than simply ruling an ordinary kingdom.
Because of this, Rhyme established an entire consulting think tank specifically dedicated to planning and managing the Sky Kingdom's future.
Even communication posed problems.
Ordinary news birds and reporter birds could not survive at such extreme altitudes.
Without stable outside contact, Berries would continuously flow outward through purchases and communication expenses, gradually making the Sky Kingdom poorer over time.
After all, they could not print money themselves.
The authority to manufacture Berries remained under the control of the World Government and allied nations.
And those printing facilities were not located on the Red Line.
In fact, after the Four Seas kingdoms seceded, they immediately began restricting the World Government's currency printing power.
If the World Government printed money without authorization, the resulting currency would effectively become counterfeit.
This restriction had existed since the World Government's foundation.
Even now, the Four Seas kingdoms still possessed the ability to interfere with global currency production.
After all, money could not simply be printed endlessly.
That would destabilize the entire world economy.
Otherwise, the World Government could have solved many of its problems simply by mass-producing currency despite the resulting inflation.
But if the World Government acted recklessly, the Four Seas kingdoms could directly introduce a completely new currency system.
As long as the new currency maintained a one-to-one exchange ratio with Berries and equivalent Berry reserves were destroyed, the new currency could eventually replace the Berry itself.
Though such a process would take years and inflict massive losses on all sides, it remained a terrifying possibility.
And it was exactly what the World Government feared.
Because of this, the Sky Kingdom urgently needed stable external communication routes.
The Flying Pirates ultimately selected several islands within their former territory to serve as transportation strongholds between the sea and the Sky Kingdom.
Cloud paths connecting directly to ten-thousand-meter altitudes would be established there.
These pathways would allow movement both upward and downward.
At fixed times each day, the Sky Kingdom itself would drift near those strongholds, reconnecting with the sea below and enabling trade, transportation, and communication.
Meanwhile, the Sky Kingdom itself would continue floating across the skies according to a fixed trajectory.
Like the Celestial Dragons, they would live above the world itself.
No.
Even higher than the Celestial Dragons.