Sengoku grabbed the receiver.
"I am Sengoku."
On the other end of the line came the sound of whistling wind, along with some sort of repressed, heavy breathing.
"Fleet Admiral, this is Smoker."
Smoker's voice sounded unusually hoarse, as if he had just swallowed a handful of red-hot charcoal.
"Smoker? Aren't you on your way to Loguetown?" Sengoku asked in a deep voice. "What happened?"
"I am in the waters near Iron Fang Island in the North Blue."
Sengoku felt a headache coming on as soon as he heard this. Iron Fang Island was the territory of the Donquixote Family, and as Shichibukai, the Marines had no right to go there to enforce justice.
Everyone was causing him so much worry.
Thinking that this stubborn kid Smoker intended to cause trouble for the Donquixote Family, Sengoku prepared to offer some advice.
"Calm down, Smoker."
Sengoku's voice came through the den den mushi, carrying an unquestionable authority.
"I know you can't stand those pirates. But you need to understand, the World Government established the Shichibukai to balance the Four Emperors of the New World. It is a necessary evil. Even if they overstep their bounds in their own territory, as long as they don't shake the foundations of the World, the Marines must maintain restraint."
"It's not that, Fleet Admiral, it's Iron..."
Smoker was interrupted halfway through his sentence.
"Don't give me that."
"Zephyr spent quite a bit of effort to get you transferred to that key position in Loguetown. That is the throat of the Grand Line. Placing you there was in the hope that you would settle down and guard the gateway to the East Blue, not for you to make enemies everywhere and cause trouble for Headquarters."
Sengoku sighed, his tone softening slightly, like an elder lecturing a disobedient junior.
"Don't let Zephyr's painstaking efforts go to waste, Smoker. You are not yet qualified to challenge the rules of this World."
Sengoku sat behind his large desk, pinching a piece of senbei and putting it into his mouth.
"Smoker? Answer me!"
"Fleet Admiral..."
Smoker's voice was terrifyingly low, as if his throat were stuffed with sand.
"Iron Fang Island has fallen!"
"Fallen?"
Sengoku's hand holding the senbei froze in mid-air.
The air in the office seemed to freeze for a moment.
What kind of place was Iron Fang Island?
It was a famous den of vice in the North Blue, with a permanent population of over fifty thousand, and elite forces of the Donquixote Family stationed there.
How could it just disappear like that?
"Smoker, this kind of joke isn't funny at all."
There was silence on the other end of the den den mushi for two seconds.
Immediately following was a roar suppressed to the extreme.
"Old man! Do you think I have the leisure time to joke with you!"
Smoker's voice cracked from the roar, and accompanied by the whistling of the sea wind, it sounded particularly shrill.
"There are no living people left on Iron Fang Island!"
"They are all eating people! The living are being eaten, and the dead are coming back to life! It's hell! A real hell!"
Sengoku stood up abruptly, his chair screeching against the floor.
Vice Admiral Tsuru, who was beside him, set down her teacup, a sharp glint erupting in her cloudy eyes.
She walked quickly to the desk and signaled for Sengoku to turn on the speakerphone.
"Smoker, this is Tsuru."
The old woman's voice was steady and calm, like a sedative transmitted through the phone line.
"Take a deep breath and tell me exactly what you saw. Do not use emotional language; I want the facts."
The sound of a lighter igniting a cigarette came from the other end; that was Smoker forcibly suppressing his trembling hands.
A few seconds later, that hoarse voice sounded again, only this time it carried a deathly coldness.
"Ten minutes ago, we were about to dock for supplies."
"The dock was covered in blood, along with severed limbs and arms. We were attacked, and the attackers were... corpses."
"Corpses?" Vice Admiral Tsuru frowned deeply.
"They were civilians and pirates who had been bitten to death."
Smoker took a deep drag of his cigarette, his lungs burning with pain.
"They have no sense of pain, they are immensely strong, and they can still move even after their hearts are pierced. Only by destroying their heads can you stop them."
"The most terrifying part is the contagiousness."
Speaking of this, Smoker's voice was trembling.
"Three of my subordinates were bitten on the ship. Less than five minutes... just five minutes!"
"They started running a high fever, their skin rotted, and then... they turned into those monsters and lunged at their comrades."
Sengoku's pupils constricted violently.
This rate of transmission was simply unheard of!
"Are you saying that as long as one is bitten, they will turn into one of them?" Vice Admiral Tsuru grasped the key point.
"That's right. No matter how strong they were in life, once they draw blood, they are doomed."
Smoker looked at the bloodstains on the deck that hadn't dried yet and said through gritted teeth.
"I personally executed those three recruits. Just a moment ago."
The office was deathly silent.
Sengoku and Tsuru exchanged glances, both seeing the horror in each other's eyes.
If it were some kind of Devil Fruit ability, it would be fine; as long as the ability user was defeated, it could be undone.
But if it was a virus...
If it were some kind of super virus that could spread through bodily fluids, or even through the air...
"What about the situation on the island?" Sengoku asked in a deep voice.
"Visually, the entire island is infected. When I evacuated, there were tens of thousands of those monsters gathered on the dock."
Smoker looked back at the island in the distance, which was billowing black smoke.
"Also... I saw an executive of the Donquixote Family."
"Doflamingo's men?" Sengoku's eyes turned cold.
Smoker sneered, his tone full of sarcasm.
"Those two pirates who are usually so arrogant were scared like two stray dogs. They didn't even dare to fight back against my interception, only caring about fleeing that island."
"Even an executive of the Shichibukai can't handle it..."
Vice Admiral Tsuru's fingers tapped lightly on the desk, her brain working at high speed.
"Smoker, listen."
Sengoku's voice became unprecedentedly serious.
"You only have one mission now."
"Blockade! Blockade that sea area tightly!"
"Absolutely do not let any ship, any person, or even a bird fly out of Iron Fang Island!"
"If this thing spreads to the Four Blues, the World is finished!"
"I will immediately dispatch the nearest branch to support you!"
"Fifteen thousand... twenty thousand... twenty-eight thousand..."
Bai Yu watched the surging numbers, his mouth grinning from ear to ear.
This wave, he made a fortune!
Fear, as expected, is the best harvester.
The fear of the unknown can double this profit even more.
Bai Yu finished eating the apple in a few bites and casually tossed the core into the crowd of corpses below.
"System, check current astonishment value balance."
[Host's current astonishment value balance: 42,500 points.]
"Over forty thousand points..."
Bai Yu rubbed his chin, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes beneath the mask.
Enough for a few high-level draws.