The wreckage of the cottage was still smoldering when the crew of the Saber of Xebec finally reached the shore. They had seen the smoke from miles out, a black finger pointing toward the heavens, but nothing could have prepared them for the atmosphere that awaited them.
Rocks D. Xebec stood in the center of the ruins. He wasn't moving. He wasn't screaming. But the air around him was dying.
The Flare of the Beast
As his commanders—younger versions of Edward Newgate, Charlotte Linlin, and the beast-man Kaido—stepped onto the sand, they were hit by a wall of invisible force. It wasn't just Conqueror's Haki; it was a localized distortion of reality fueled by pure, unadulterated malice. The sea at the shoreline began to pull back, as if the ocean itself was afraid to touch the island. The sky turned a bruised, sickly violet, and the wood of the nearby trees groaned and snapped under the pressure of his presence.
"Captain..." Newgate started, his hand tightening on his polearm. He was a man who feared little, but the look on Rocks' back made his blood run cold.
Rocks didn't turn. His Haki leaked out in jagged, black lightning bolts that tore through the sand, creating glass-lined craters around his feet. The crew stumbled, some of the weaker members collapsing into seizures, their minds unable to process the sheer weight of the Captain's rage.
"The World Government," Rocks said. His voice was a low, guttural vibration that seemed to come from the earth itself. "They took them. They took my heart and my future to use as playthings in the Holy Land."
He finally turned. His eyes were no longer human. They were twin abysses of red light.
"We move forward. Our destination is Mary Geoise," he commanded. "Do not ask me any questions. Do not speak to me. If anyone stands in our way—Marine, Pirate, or God—they are to be erased from existence. Navigator! Pull the ship toward the Red Line. They are already dead; they just haven't faced me yet."
The crew scrambled back to the ship, the usual rowdiness of the Rocks Pirates replaced by a terrifying, suffocating silence. Even Linlin kept her mouth shut. They knew that on this day, Rocks D. Xebec had ceased to be a man seeking a throne. He had become a force of nature seeking a grave.
The Hell of the High Dragons
Two weeks passed in a blur of salt and shadows. The Saber of Xebec cut through the waves like a black blade. Rocks remained on the bow, never sleeping, never eating, staring toward the horizon with a focus that felt like a physical weight on the ship.
Meanwhile, thousands of feet above the sea, behind the white marble walls of the Mary Geoise prison, a different kind of war was being fought.
The cell was cold, smelling of damp stone and the metallic tang of blood. Eris D. Davy, her silk dress now a tattered rag, huddled in the corner of the iron-barred room. In her arms, she cradled a five-year-old Marshall D. Teach. The boy was trembling, his small body racked with sobs that he tried to suppress.
The heavy iron door groaned open. Two World Government soldiers entered, carrying the Corada—a heavy, electrified whip used to "discipline" the Celestial Dragons' new acquisitions.
"The brat won't stop whimpering," one soldier hissed, his face obscured by a cruel, steel helm. "The Saint wants them quiet before the auction. Give him a taste of the wire."
As the soldier swung the whip, Eris didn't hesitate. She threw her body over Teach, coiling around him like a shield. The Corada hissed through the air, the electrified barbs tearing into Eris's back. She let out a choked gasp, her fingers digging into the stone floor, but she didn't move.
Crack. "Mother!" Teach wailed, his small hands clutching her blood-stained bodice.
"Stay... stay under me, Teach," she whispered, her voice trembling but firm. "Don't look. Close your eyes and think of the sea. Think of your father."
The soldiers laughed, a hollow, rhythmic sound. They struck her again and again, the "fun" of the torture providing them a brief respite from their mundane guard duties. When they finally tired of the sport, they kicked the bars and left, the light of their torches fading into the darkness of the corridor.
The Birthday Laugh
Night fell over the Holy Land. The only light in the cell came from the pale moon shining through a high, narrow slit in the masonry. Eris lay on the cold floor, her breath shallow. Every movement felt like a hot iron being pressed into her skin.
Teach was crying again, but this time it was silent—the most heartbreaking kind of grief. "I hate them," he whispered. "I want to kill them all. My back hurts, Mother... but yours is bleeding."
Eris forced herself to sit up, her face pale in the moonlight. She reached out and pulled Teach into her lap, stroking his matted hair.
"Teach, look at me," she said softly.
The boy looked up, his eyes wide and dark.
"Today is your birthday," she whispered. A small, sad smile touched her lips. "I didn't forget. In the world outside, we would have had a feast. Your father had a giant cake planned... but we are here. And because we are here, I need you to do something for me. The greatest gift you can give your mother."
Teach wiped his nose with his sleeve. "What?"
"I want you to laugh," Eris said. "The Celestial Dragons... they feed on our tears. They want us to be broken. If you cry, they win. But if you laugh... you take their power away. Your father will come. I know the storm is coming for us. So, for me... laugh. Make it loud enough for the gods to hear."
Teach looked at his mother's ruined back, then at her hopeful eyes. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He thought of the way his father laughed after a victory—a booming, chaotic sound.
"Ze... zeha..." he started, his voice cracking. He forced his lungs to expand, despite the ache in his ribs. "Zehahaha! Zehahahaha!"
The sound echoed through the sterile, silent halls of the prison. It was a strange, jagged laugh, born of pain and defiance. Eris joined him, her soft giggles masking her agony. In that dark cell, the "Lineage of the Dark" found its first spark of rebellion.
The Giants' Counsel and the God Valley Decree
On the fourteenth day of the voyage, the Saber of Xebec did not dock at a Marine outpost. It docked at the jagged, towering cliffs of Elbaf.
Rocks descended the gangplank alone. Waiting for him was a giant of immense stature, his beard like a frozen waterfall—Harlod, an old friend from Rocks' younger days before he became the "Terror."
"You look like a man who has already died once, Xebec," Harlod rumbled, his voice like a landslide.
"I have no time for pleasantries, Harlod," Rocks said, his eyes scanning the horizon. "I need the truth. My scouts say the tribute ships didn't stay in Mary Geoise."
Harlod sighed, a sound that shook the trees. "You are right. The World Government is moving the 'High Value' slaves. There is a festival being prepared. The Native Investigative Festival. It is to be held on a neutral, emerald island—God Valley. They are taking the slaves there to be auctioned and then... executed as part of a 'hunting game' for the Celestial Dragons. They move them there because the security is absolute. It is the one place the Marines and the God's Knights can congregate without the world seeing their shame."
Rocks gripped his sword hilt so hard the leather wrap began to smoke. "God Valley. Give me the shortest current. I don't care about the reefs. I don't care about the sea kings."
Harlod pointed his massive axe toward the northwest. "The 'Devil's Throat' current will take you there in three days, but it is a suicide run for a ship of your size."
"Then I'll sail through the mouth of the devil himself," Rocks said, turning back toward his ship.
The Father's Lament
That night, as the Saber of Xebec plunged into the violent currents of the Devil's Throat, the crew slept in fitful bursts. But Rocks remained on the deck.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, carved wooden figurine—a ship he had been working on for months. It was meant to be Teach's fifth birthday present. He remembered the plan: the feast, the fireworks he had stolen from a Wano trade ship, the way he was going to show Teach how to hold a sword for the first time.
All of it had been burned away by the arrogance of the "Gods."
Rocks looked up at the moon, his face twisting into a mask of silent, weeping rage. He didn't shed tears; his Haki simply flared, incinerating the wooden toy in his hand until only ash remained.
"Happy birthday, Teach," he whispered into the gale. "I am coming. And when I arrive, I will not just save you. I will tear the sky down so you never have to live in the shadow of a 'God' ever again."
He began to laugh—not the defiant laugh of his son, but a silent, shaking vibration of pure malice. He imagined the faces of the Celestial Dragons as he snuffed out their "Holy Light." He imagined the throne of the world crumbling under his boots.
The chapter ends with the Saber of Xebec disappearing into a wall of black fog, the silhouette of the Red Line looming like a tombstone in the distance.
To be continued...