Michael knew his direct subordinates well enough.
Even Hancock and her two sisters, Hawk Eyes, and Crocodile couldn't really be considered part of the "evil camp."
Besides, he was watching over them himself—how could he allow them to plunder a bunch of unlucky souls who had already been driven from their homeland?
To be honest, the Shandians really were poor...
Poor to the point of rattling empty.
The only reason they managed to live at all was because this forest was so resource-rich, and their numbers were already small to begin with.
If someone like Luffy or Ace were thrown in here, they'd probably eat the entire forest bare within a month.
Once the Shandian chief fully understood what Michael intended to do, he let go of everything.
Go to Skypiea?
Then go!
Take the people along?
Everyone, follow! Forget your belongings—go light and set off for the new homeland!
And so, a few hours later, Michael looked at the more than two hundred Shandians aboard the Seraphim, then turned and gave Gan Fall a look of contempt.
"Not that I mean to sound harsh... but your so-called God's Kingdom has tens of thousands of people, right? And you've been fighting these few hundred all this time? The worst part is—you've never even won!?"
"I advocate for peace. Peace," Gan Fall said awkwardly, his face betraying embarrassment. "And I have never directly interfered in the conflict between the Skypieans and the Shandians..."
As soon as he finished, he mounted his bird, the one that had eaten the Horse-Horse Fruit and transformed into a Pegasus, and left.
Michael chuckled—so thin-skinned.
That was just the kind of person this so-called "God of Skypiea" was.
Rather than calling him weak, it was more accurate to say he was far too softhearted.
Too softhearted, and so the war between the two races had dragged on for decades.
With his strength, wiping out the current Shandians would have been no trouble at all.
But compared to the original Enel...
Yes, this kind of leader was far better.
Michael gave Issho a nod, and the Seraphim set off once again.
...
"Holy crap! The legendary City of Gold actually exists!?"
With the Seraphim and Issho, they didn't need to go through all those tedious procedures. Instead of climbing the great beanstalk to the upper ruins, they reached Shandora—the fabled golden city—by flight.
Issho simply carried them.
With his Devil Fruit powers and his terrifyingly vast Observation Haki, ferrying a whole battleship through the air was child's play.
Now the Seraphim floated in the sky above, gazing down upon the golden city. After a sweep of his senses, Issho nodded to Michael.
His meaning was clear—
The size of this island was manageable.
"Since that's the case, let's begin."
Everyone turned their puzzled eyes toward Michael, only to see that he remained motionless, while Issho stepped forward instead.
"Michael, are we really sending this island back to where it came from?"
"Hah? What's the point of sending it back? The people of Jaya weren't exactly good folk," Michael curled his lip. "And we can't just drop it back into the ocean either—it would be discovered in no time. After all, our Navy's patrol range is still very wide."
"Then where do you plan to send it?" Issho asked patiently. "If not the sea... then it must be somewhere on land?"
"Correct." Michael grinned. "Alabasta's vast inland territory is mostly desert... If we hide this golden city there, where neither the Navy nor pirates can reach, wouldn't that be perfect?"
"That really is a fine place..." Crocodile's eyes lit up. "And in Alabasta, I can use my Devil Fruit to erase all traces of Shandora completely."
Elsewhere, the Sand-Sand Fruit might not rank at the top among Logias.
But in Alabasta, it was absolutely unmatched—tier zero.
Apart from plot armor, there was nothing to fear.
"Then it's settled—let's take this legendary golden city and bury it deep in Alabasta's desert!"
As soon as Issho finished speaking, he braced his hands against the Seraphim's railing.
" Even with my Devil Fruit and Haki at full power, moving an entire island is... exhausting."
"Tch. Issho, you're barely in your thirties and you're already saying that?"
"You think everyone's a monster like you?"
Issho shook his head. Because of Michael's existence, the people around him had a warped sense of what was possible.
Did they really think moving a whole island with the Gravity Fruit was easy?
This was a disaster-class ability, on par with the Quake-Quake and Float-Float Fruits!
Seeing Issho's helpless expression, Michael laughed and cast more than a dozen Rejuvenation spells on him.
Then he turned back to the Shandians and said softly:
"Say goodbye to the sky island."
"We're about to return to the world ten thousand meters below."
...
"What!? CP0's assassination mission... failed!?"
"That's right. We haven't found the bodies of Guernica, Maha, Joseph, or Gismonda, but according to reports, Michael has already been spotted in Alabasta."
"Damn it!"
The Five Elders all wore expressions of fury.
It wasn't that they valued CP0 agents so dearly, but that their deaths had yielded nothing—no value at all. That was what enraged them.
A tool's only purpose is to accomplish its mission.
Fail, and the tool is worthless.
Compared to Michael himself, they were more incensed at CP0's incompetence.
But after a moment of calm, Saint Ethanbaron V. Nasjuro was the first to shake his head.
"You know the strength of Guernica and the others. Sending them to hunt an Admiral might have been too much, but against a newly promoted Vice Admiral—how could they have failed?"
"Either Michael had allies with him..."
"Or this man has been hiding his true strength all along."
The other four nodded grimly.
Up until now, their intelligence painted Michael as nothing more than an ordinary Marine officer. Some even thought his rapid promotion, faster than those Vice Admirals codenamed, was thanks to family ties with Sengoku.
But now, they would have to change that line of thinking.
Focusing their intelligence networks on Michael, they quickly found contradictions.
Could an average Marine officer survive being chased by Rayleigh?
Could he really take out four veteran CP0 agents?
The truth was, they had barely even paid him any attention before.
But comparing all of Michael's known appearances...
"Wait. That mysterious unit that's never had its designation reported..."
"Could it be this bastard is the one leading it?"
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