It was an eventful year. Major incidents broke out one after another, fresh headlines flooded the newspapers almost daily, and every new development sent ripples across the seas.
With the Battle Pyramid's three most valuable Devil Fruits finally claimed, a new question quickly spread throughout the world.
What kind of Devil Fruits would the Nightfall Pirates offer next?
That single question became the center of countless discussions. Only truly powerful Devil Fruits could ignite people's ambitions, inspire them to grow stronger, and keep the Battle Pyramid at the center of global attention.
Some even believed the Nightfall Pirates were being foolish. Such priceless Devil Fruits could have strengthened their own forces or been bestowed upon trusted subordinates. After all, powerful Devil Fruits were among the rarest treasures on the sea, coveted by pirates, Marines, kingdoms, and every ambitious power alike.
In reality, however, the Nightfall Pirates had no intention of losing money.
Although the initial investment was enormous, the Battle Pyramid generated profits on a scale ordinary people could hardly imagine once it reached full operation.
If one million people each spent only 10,000 Berries a day inside the Battle Pyramid, the daily revenue alone would reach 10 billion Berries.
That estimate was actually rather conservative.
Many visitors spent far more than that every day, especially pirates. A single bottle of premium liquor could cost tens of thousands of Berries, and many thought nothing of spending lavishly after surviving brutal battles.
The Battle Pyramid was more than an arena.
It was an enormous commercial empire made up of countless industries, nearly all of them controlled by the Nightfall Pirates. At the same time, it served as the world's greatest showcase for their products, allowing goods produced within the Sageros sea to spread across every ocean.
Maintaining such a colossal complex required an astonishing amount of money.
Even ordinary janitors working inside the Battle Pyramid earned five or six times the monthly salary of an average laborer, making those positions highly sought after.
Most of those jobs were filled by civilians, dramatically increasing employment throughout the Sageros sea.
Including ordinary workers and the Nightfall Pirates stationed there, the Battle Pyramid employed well over 100,000 people.
Its permanent population had already reached 500,000.
The actual population, however, exceeded 1.5 million.
The additional million were not permanent residents. They lived in the rapidly expanding settlements surrounding the Battle Pyramid, commuting inside every day.
Beyond the massive commercial districts, entire residential cities had sprung up across Parage Island, housing both locals and newcomers drawn from every corner of the world.
The Battle Pyramid had become the beating heart of the Sageros sea.
Like a gigantic heart pumping blood through arteries, it connected countless industrial chains stretching across the Sageros sea before extending even farther, reaching markets throughout the entire world.
If someone asked which casino was the largest on the seas, there was only one answer.
The Battle Pyramid.
No other gambling establishment came remotely close. Every battle served as its own betting table, with wagers flowing every second of every day.
Even after deducting its enormous operating expenses, the annual profits remained astronomical.
The original estimate of merely tens of billions of Berries in yearly profit made before construction had proven laughably conservative.
The annual tax revenue of a large kingdom already exceeded tens of billions of Berries.
How could the Battle Pyramid possibly earn less?
Its yearly profits had already surpassed hundreds of billions of Berries.
Compared to that, what was the cost of a single Devil Fruit?
The number of Devil Fruits acquired by the Nightfall Pirates every year far exceeded what outsiders could even imagine.
As a result, the Nightfall Pirates' prestige rose yet again.
They had casually offered three precious Devil Fruits to the public without the slightest hesitation, demonstrating a level of confidence few organizations could match.
Redyat appeared inside the seventeenth-floor hall of the Battle Pyramid.
As the Battle Pyramid's importance continued to grow, so did the need for stronger defenses.
Most of the Nightfall Pirates' top executives were away fighting on the front lines, leaving the Pyramid's defensive strength somewhat lacking. Someone of Redyat's status had to remain behind to oversee operations.
Ares had long since grown bored with management.
Taking advantage of the great war against Kaido, he had happily dumped all responsibility onto someone else before disappearing to some remote beast island to continue training after the battle.
During Teach's preparations for the coming war, the responsibility of guarding the Battle Pyramid naturally fell to Redyat.
Now that the rewards had been distributed, the transaction was complete.
The points accumulated by the three winners had been almost entirely depleted.
Sitting comfortably on a sofa, Redyat took out a document.
It was a complete inventory of every Devil Fruit currently possessed by the Nightfall Pirates.
The list contained more than forty Devil Fruits.
That number alone demonstrated the Nightfall Pirates' astonishing reserves.
And this did not even include the Devil Fruits already distributed as Battle Pyramid rewards, nor those that had been exchanged for and consumed by Nightfall Pirates members over the years.
Among them were several truly top-tier abilities.
The Logia-type Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
The Paramecia-type Warp-Warp Fruit.
The Paramecia-type Crush-Crush Fruit.
The Paramecia-type Control-Control Fruit.
And the Paramecia-type Blood-Blood Fruit.
The Blood-Blood Fruit had only recently entered the Nightfall Pirates' collection.
It had been offered as tribute by a faction driven into crisis, hoping to earn the Nightfall Pirates' protection.
Naturally, Devil Fruits of this caliber were never revealed to the outside world.
Only Teach, Redyat, and a handful of the organization's highest-ranking members knew of their existence.
Among them, the Blood-Blood Fruit had particularly caught Shiryu's attention.
Previously, he had also shown considerable interest in the Clear-Clear Fruit possessed by one of the Gecko Pirates' executives.
However, Shiryu had not yet reached a true bottleneck in his strength.
He was in no hurry to consume a Devil Fruit, and Teach had already decided to reserve the Blood-Blood Fruit for him.
The Nightfall Pirates followed rules regarding spoils of war similar to those of the Whitebeard Pirates.
Whoever obtained the prize kept it.
As a result, members naturally acquired Devil Fruits during battles.
They could choose to eat them, exchange them with the organization for Berries, or trade them for another Devil Fruit.
After all, the abilities already possessed by the Nightfall Pirates were well documented.
The newly acquired Devil Fruits, however, were usually complete mysteries.
Not everyone possessed a Devil Fruit Encyclopedia.
The Nightfall Pirates did.
Whenever someone wanted to identify an unknown Devil Fruit, they simply needed to consult the encyclopedia.