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In the dead of night, just before dawn.
The calm sea lapped at the shore. Several small boats rode the tide onto the beach, and a dozen or so pirates scrambled out, heading inland.
In the distance, the allied pirate fleet waited, their ships clustered together, each crew wary of the others, all waiting for news from their scouts.
On the deck of the Bezan Black, Kuro sat in a chair, his slicked-back hair and glasses giving him a scholarly air. He wore a long coat, the epaulets adorned with a black cat skull.
He had already been planning his retirement.
But the lure of Woonan's gold was too strong.
One last score, and he could use the gold to buy a noble title in some kingdom and live an even better life. Why bother with trying to steal some rich girl's inheritance?
And even if he failed, he still had his backup plan.
Besides, the entire East Blue Marine force was currently in a frenzy, hunting down the Spade Pirates. Their attention was diverted from the Conomi Islands. It was the perfect opportunity.
With his strategic mind, the probability of success was high.
And was the treasure real?
Captain Nezumi was a man Kuro could trust. And he had delivered the information with his dying breath.
Kuro wasn't the only one thinking this way. Every pirate who had come here had their own agenda. If it weren't for the threat of the Krieg Pirates, none of them would be working together.
After a short while, some of the scouts returned.
"Well?" everyone gathered around, anxious. "What's the situation on the island? Is Arlong's crew still there?"
The news of the Arlong Pirates' demise hadn't fully spread. For the sake of profit, someone had deliberately intercepted the information and was misleading the other pirates. And, as always, the story had become distorted as it passed from person to person.
"Look!" the scout said excitedly, holding up a piece of gold.
"Where did you find that?"
"In the village. And at Arlong Park."
"What?"
"When we went ashore, the village and the park were completely deserted. Looked like they'd left in a hurry. But there was still some gold scattered around. And deep cart tracks, leading into the mountains. My guess is that the boat that escaped before came back and warned them. Arlong's crew and the villagers all fled together. But they can't have gotten far, not with all that gold."
"Are you sure it's the treasure?"
"It has to be. Just the gold that was left behind must have been over a hundred pounds. Can you imagine how much the real treasure is?"
A hundred pounds?!
The pirates were stunned. They all swallowed hard, their eyes gleaming with avarice.
If that's what they'd left behind... how much had they taken with them?
"Quick! To the island! After them!"
"Let's go, let's go! We have to get the treasure before the Krieg Pirates get here!"
"Woonan's treasure is mine!"
The news from the scouts revitalized the exhausted pirates. They swarmed toward the island like a pack of wolves.
Gin, disguised as an ordinary pirate, was among them.
He quietly dropped a small barrel overboard. It contained a special spice that would allow Don Krieg to track them.
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The island of Cocoyasi Village was not small. The village itself, along with Gosa Village, had once been a thriving community. But Gosa Village had been destroyed shortly after Arlong's arrival. The island had orchards, fertile fields, and a mountain spring. It was completely self-sufficient—which was why Arlong had chosen it.
The pirates charged onto the island, following the cart tracks. They soon found that the tracks split off in different directions. They decided to each take a path and trust to luck.
Kuro led his men, including Jango and the Meowban Brothers, up the path into the mountains.
As the sun began to rise, a golden light glinted through the trees.
"That's..."
"Gold!"
"It's gold!"
Cries of excitement filled the air. In a clearing, several overturned carts lay on the ground, and a massive pile of gold bricks was scattered around them, forming a small mountain.
Kuro pushed his glasses up with the heel of his hand. In the reflection of the lenses, he saw a figure standing behind the pile of gold.
"I've been waiting for you," Yonji of Germa 66 said with a smirk. With a wave of his hand, a line of rifles appeared from the trees, and the air erupted with gunfire.
The sound of gunfire echoed across the island.
The other pirate crews had all run into ambushes.
"Dammit! Who are they?!"
"We've been had! This isn't gold! It's gilded copper!"
Gin ran for his life. "I have to get this information to Captain Krieg!"
But he didn't get far. A series of arms sprouted from his body, twisting him around and slamming him to the ground. He struggled, but his joints were twisted and broken. Robin's training had not been in vain.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A sonic beam shot from Eldoraggo's mouth, shattering the giant trees and plowing a furrow in the ground.
But to his shock, the man across from him stood in the path of the blast, completely unharmed.
"My turn," Jin said.
With a single Finger Pistol, he shot a hole through Eldoraggo's forehead, then opened a Munch-Munch space and swallowed him, teleporting him to the demonic carrier.
"One down," he said, and vanished, heading for the next Devil Fruit user.
It was a complete rout. No one could withstand a single Finger Pistol from him.
The gap in their power was just too great. It was a series of instant kills.
The only reason Jin had gone to the trouble of luring them onto the island was because he was worried they would scatter if he attacked them at sea.
And besides, there was still a bigger fish to catch. He couldn't afford to scare them off.
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Outside the island, the massive fleet of the Krieg Pirates approached.
"Gunfire?" Don Krieg laughed. "So it's begun. The fight for the golden treasure. It's useless. I, Don Krieg, will be the final victor."
Just as he was reveling in his own ambition, a strange music began to drift across the sea.
The BGM kicked in—The Sword Society Overture.
"What's that?"
"Look! Behind us!"
"Is that a cloud? It looks more like a sandstorm!"
"Don't be ridiculous! How can there be a sandstorm at sea?"
The demonic carrier appeared behind the fleet, shrouded in a massive cloud of roiling, yellow dust.
It was a Logia-type Earth Fruit.
A sky full of yellow earth.
Even the demonic carrier was swallowed by the cloud as it charged toward the spread-out fleet at a speed of over forty knots.
It grew closer and closer, the dust storm like a stampede of a thousand horses, completely obscuring the surface of the sea.
The dust storm slammed into the fleet. In an instant, the pirates were blinded, the dust clinging to their clothes, their hair, the decks of their ships, seeping into every crack and crevice.
From a distance, the entire Krieg fleet was enveloped in the yellow cloud, which slowly began to twist and churn.
In the space of a few breaths, the dust storm receded, coalescing back around the demonic carrier like the rings of a planet.
And the massive Krieg fleet... was gone.
Not even a splinter of wood was left behind.
They had been swallowed by the demonic carrier.
Inside, with the power of the Castle-Castle Fruit, Ai had separated them into different levels, where they were now being hunted down by the soldiers of Germa 66.
Kuma, who had been idle, smashed Pearl's iron shields with one paw swipe and shattered Krieg's golden armor with another.
There was no challenge at all.
With the annihilation of the Krieg Pirates, the battle on the island was drawing to a close. The entire operation had taken less than an hour.
Having witnessed this absolute slaughter, Nami and Carina were so stunned they could barely breathe.
"So... so strong..."
"Is this the terror of the Grand Line?"
"The pirate alliance of the East Blue... they didn't stand a chance."
It wasn't just them. Genzo and the other villagers were terrified. So these guys were the real monsters?
For the first time, they had a visceral, unforgettable understanding of their king's power. A sense of awe, bordering on terror, bloomed in their hearts. It was the natural submission of the weak to the strong.
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