"Mama, it really is gold dust."
On the Brothel's balcony, Stella excitedly reached out to catch the gold dust, her face full of pleasant surprise.
"Stella, don't touch it."
The madam pulled Stella back, looking at the continuously falling golden rain, her face heavy as she instinctively glanced behind her.
"Mama, what should we do now?"
The Geisha, who rarely spoke, opened her mouth this time. Looking at the golden rain, her delicate face, instead of being excited, turned a little pale.
The street was already chaotic, with conflicts and fights breaking out everywhere because of the gold dust. Both pirates and thugs had gone mad; in their eyes, there was only gold dust.
Very few on the entire island remained clear-headed.
Golden rain, how beautiful! But it concealed murderous intent.
"Listen to the Golden Emperor. Don't contact the outside, and don't leave this building."
The madam calmly lit a lady's cigarette, taking a drag as if to exhale all the anxiety and worry in her heart.
"Mama, if we quietly notify him, the Golden Emperor won't find out, right?"
Stella stared blankly at the golden rain. She really wanted to grab something to catch it, but Mama wouldn't let her. Because of this, she pouted, a little annoyed.
"Foolish."
The madam looked at Stella with a slight headache, then sighed, "I should have known earlier, but I held onto a sliver of hope. This time, I almost implicated all of you."
The madam was, after all, in charge of this Red-Light District, so she had some knowledge. If her guess was correct, the Golden Emperor could detect their small movements because of his Observation Haki.
Their current actions were probably all under the Golden Emperor's surveillance. She only hoped they would all survive in the end!
"Yes, Mama!"
"Everyone, go back and rest!"
"Let's go, listen to Mama!"
A Geisha pulled Stella, who was reluctantly looking outside, and closed the door, her own eyes also showing some reluctance.
That was gold dust! Who knew how many people would get rich tonight?
The night passed without incident. As the sky gradually brightened, a new day arrived.
But the morning, which should have been quiet, was now extremely noisy.
"Damn it, where's my gold dust?!"
"Who stole the gold dust I collected last night?!"
"Damn it, how could this happen?"
"Was the golden rain that fell from the sky last night just a dream?"
Many pirates and thugs who woke up were dumbfounded. The gold dust they had painstakingly collected for half the night had vanished.
"Some idiots."
The pirates who had remained clear-headed last night looked at the bustling and chaotic street, instinctively glancing in the direction of the Brothel, their eyes full of apprehension.
In the latter half of the night, all the gold dust collected in pockets and boxes had uncontrollably flown into the sky and disappeared.
Everyone's efforts had been in vain.
No matter how well it was hidden, and no matter how the pirates tried to hold onto the gold dust, in the end, they were all lifted into the sky with it and forced to let go.
As crazy as they were last night, that's how desperate they were now!
"What exactly does the Golden Emperor want to do?"
Many clear-headed pirates couldn't understand. If the golden rain hadn't disappeared in the end, they wouldn't have been able to definitively link the gold dust to the Golden Emperor.
But with the gold dust ascending into the sky, they were sure.
But why would the Golden Emperor do something like this? Was he not afraid of offending all the pirates and thugs on the island?
After all, this seemed like a deliberate provocation, attracting hatred!
Meanwhile, several thousand meters in the sky, countless specks of gold dust re-merged to form the Goddess of the Sky. However, the Goddess of the Sky was not 60 meters tall now; she had shrunk slightly.
But even so, she was still enormous.
Her golden phoenix eyes opened, gazing at the distant sea horizon. Scattered pirate ships appeared from all directions, and it was believed that with time, there would be more and more.
And their destination was all Poster Island.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
In the next instant, the Goddess of the Sky exploded, transforming into hundreds and thousands of golden warriors. Some were baby-sized, others child-sized, scattered like pieces on a chessboard, standing in the high sky like an army awaiting orders. (Imagine the golden fragments of shaka's armor reforming)
After a few breaths, centered on Poster Island, all the golden warriors, like celestial maidens scattering flowers, shot out with a whooshing sound, finally hovering in the high sky, waiting.
If one were to measure carefully, they would find that these tiny golden warriors, scattered in all directions, were only hovering in the sky above the sea within a hundred meters radius of Poster Island.
Clearly, this distance was the limit!
"Captain, Poster Island has arrived."
"The Golden Emperor is still on the island, right?"
"Haha, it seems our Rat Pirate Crew is the first to arrive."
"As long as we capture the Golden Emperor, we'll become the strongest Pirate Crew on the Grand Line."
At this moment, on the deck of a pirate ship flying a skull flag, a group of fierce-looking pirates looked at Poster Island's port, where there were only a sparse number of pirate ships.
But just as the pirate ship entered the hundred-meter range, the baby golden warrior, which had been waiting in the high sky, silently exploded into gold dust, falling towards the pirate ship as if alive.
They were still sixty meters from the port.
"Is it raining?"
"What is this?"
All the pirates looked up. Under the sunlight, a golden drizzle was falling from the sky.
"C-Captain, this looks like gold dust!"
A pirate rubbed the gold dust in his hand, trembling, his eyes widening.
"What the hell? I haven't heard that the sea around Poster Island gets gold dust rain!"
"This is simply golden rain."
"Captain, we're rich!"
All the pirates' eyes turned red. Looking at the golden rain falling from the sky, they began to catch it with all sorts of things.
"That's not right! Why is the golden rain only falling above us?!"
A pirate looked puzzled, because the golden rain was only falling directly above them, while outside the pirate ship, it was still sunny with nothing falling.
"What's so strange about that? The Grand Line's weather is inherently capricious, and it's even more variable in the New World."
"We're rich, we're rich!"
Everyone was mesmerized by the gold dust; who had time to think about anything else?
But what happened next made all the pirates go from ecstatic to furious.
"My gold!"
"What's going on?!"
"Damn it, you won't get away!"
The golden rain fell for about a minute, but after a minute, all the gold dust collected by the pirates flew into the sky and disappeared.
No matter how they tried to hold onto it, they couldn't, and it happened without any warning! It didn't even give the pirates time to react.
All the pirates looked up at the clear blue sky, all of them raging.
The surprise came too fast, and left too fast. That psychological gap was truly unbearable for most people.
At this moment, several thousand meters in the sky, all the gold dust merged into one again, transforming back into a golden warrior, only smaller.
Because all the lost gold dust had already entered the pirates' bodies.
The situation faced by the Rat Pirate Crew was not unique, because every pirate ship or other vessel attempting to land on Poster Island had undergone the baptism of the golden rain.
However, not all pirates had been baptized by the golden rain. There were always some who slipped through the net.
And these few who slipped through were invariably highly vigilant individuals.
But even so, most of their surrounding companions did not escape.
Of course, in the end, joy turned to sorrow!
Many pirates couldn't bear the disappointment and almost passed out.
But in the end, they still cursed and grumbled as they disembarked onto Poster Island.
Thus, more and more pirates landed, and the first thing they asked about was whether the Golden Emperor had left or not.
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"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction." - Erich Fromm