As the Chris Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates issued mutual declarations of war, the days bled into one another. The atmosphere across the great seas grew increasingly tense, yet the New World itself fell into a state of uncanny stillness.
Whether they intended to fish in troubled waters or harbored other clandestine designs, the Red Hair Pirates, the Blackbeard Pirates, and the Beasts Pirates all chose to halt their movements. They stood on the sidelines, waiting for the sparks to fly between the Chris Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates.
With nearly every major faction freezing in place, the usual bloodshed and looting of towns ground to a near-halt, as if the entire sea were holding its breath. This eerie quiet was unprecedented, the proverbial calm before the storm.
Yet beneath this surface tranquility, the inner machinery of both empires was grinding furiously. Both sides were frantically mobilizing their vast networks of subordinate crews.
To put it into perspective, during the Summit War, the Whitebeard Pirates mobilized 1,600 core members divided into sixteen divisions, backed by forty-three subordinate crews, assembling the Grand Whitebeard Fleet into a force of over fifty thousand men.
In comparison, the Big Mom Pirates commanded thirty-four Charlotte Family ministers, led by the Sweet Commanders, alongside a massive corps of combatants, elite officers, and an endless legion of Homamies stationed throughout Totto Land. Furthermore, sub-fleets like Jinbe's Sun Pirates and Capone "Bege" Gang's Fire Tank Pirates padded their ranks. Already, over thirty subordinate pirate banners had converged on Totto Land, with more arriving by the hour.
When factoring in the sheer volume of the Homies army, Big Mom's total military strength far exceeded that of the Whitebeard Pirates at their absolute zenith.
The Big Mom Pirates made no attempt to conceal this staggering display of power. They paraded it openly before the world, imposing an immense psychological pressure onto the executives of the Chris Pirates.
However, the Chris Pirates were by no means a weak contender. Their core fleet comprised seven thousand-man divisions, supplemented by Enel's independent Skypiea Army, Zephyr's "Z" division, and the Elite Strike Team, bringing their primary headcount to well over thirty-two thousand battle-hardened troops.
Beyond human numbers, they boasted an equally colossal Animate Legion and the specialized Bio-Tech Research Division stationed on Alvis Island. This research army featured powerful "Dragonians", automated defense drones engineered by Dr. Vade, and massive, mutated apex beasts bred through a combination of biological cloning, Lineage Factor manipulation, and IQ-infused flora.
Their subordinate fleets, including Quiniel Vito's Triangle Pirates, Bright Ward's Paperman Pirates, and Gerald Enrod's White Mane Pirates, spanned thirty-six separate crews, adding tens of thousands more to their frontlines.
If pushed to a total war footing, the Clifford Kingdom could deploy a regular standing garrison of four hundred thousand troops, with the capacity to conscript far more. Under Aeridar's ironclad rule over the years, joining the vanguard of the Chris Pirates had become the ultimate dream for the kingdom's youth. Because the Chris Pirates only absorbed the absolute cream of the crop, the entire nation had developed a deeply martial culture, keeping the standing army at an elite standard of combat readiness. While they might not match the specialized tactical execution of the Marine Headquarters elites, they vastly outperformed the standard military forces of ordinary nations.
As these two titanic juggernauts displayed their terrifying might, every minor faction in the New World shivered beneath their overlapping shadows, with only the remaining Yonko remaining unfazed.
Concurrently, the impending clash of these two behemoths left the Marines on high alert. The New World branches, in particular, completely consolidated their defensive perimeters. All naval battleships were recalled to anchor within the harbors of Marine Headquarters (the former G-1 Base) and the G-5 Branch, standing by for emergency deployment. Elite Marine reinforcements from the first half of the Grand Line and the four blues were continuously ferried in to bolster the lines.
Aside from the necessary scout ships tasked with monitoring Totto Land and the Clifford Kingdom, all patrolling fleets were strictly ordered to maintain a tight fifty-nautical-mile perimeter around Marine Headquarters and G-5 waters.
In terms of leadership distribution, Admiral Ryokugyu was stationed at the Holy Land of Mariejois, Fujitora oversaw G-5, while Fleet Admiral Akainu and Admiral Kizaru personally held the line at Marine Headquarters.
Naturally, the World Government and the Marines could not afford to simply watch the Chris Pirates collapse or see the neutral zone swallowed whole, as it would drastically disrupt the fragile global balance of power. Should the Chris Pirates find themselves thoroughly overwhelmed and on the brink of annihilation, the Marines would likely intervene to salvage the situation. Until that tipping point arrived, however, Sakazuki wanted nothing more than to see the Chris Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates tear each other to pieces.
Had it not been for the direct mandate from the Gorosei and the overarching grand strategy of the military, Sakazuki wouldn't have mobilized a single ship.
Five hundred meters beneath Palace Entertainment City lay Aeridar's private vault, which had once served as the royal treasury for the ancient House of Dasco.
When Aeridar initially conquered the Clifford Kingdom years ago, he had struck a calculated bargain with Dasco Benson, securing the treasury keys and the blueprints to the internal mechanisms. Over the past decade, the vault had undergone extensive retrofitting and structural reinforcement, guarded by a massive network of animated organisms. It was mathematically impossible for anyone to infiltrate this subterranean fortress undetected.
Inside, gold bars, glittering gems, legendary blades, ancient antiquities, and Devil Fruits were piled into magnificent mountains of wealth. In this room, gold and silver were merely the cheapest assets available.
More importantly, nestled deep within the vault were several stone monoliths classified as the ultimate "taboo" by the World Government, the Poneglyphs.
"This one here is a Poneglyph I retrieved from the sky island of Jaya."
"This block was salvaged from the ruins of the Gamas Kingdom's royal treasury from eight hundred years ago. I actually had to trade blows with the descendants of the Gamas line who were sworn to protect it."
"These over here are the rubbings taken from the royal crypts of the Alabasta Kingdom and the Sea Forest of Fish-Man Island. You're already familiar with those."
"As for this Poneglyph, Mina managed to discover it deep within a primitive indigenous tribe on an uncharted island. It was once the prized collection of the 'Skeleton King' Hyster Homans from a hundred and twenty years ago."
"And the origin of this particular Poneglyph is something you'll find hard to believe. I actually fished it out of the stomach of a giant footballfish, Bonbori. The creature possesses three distinct stomachs, each so unimaginably massive that they can swallow entire islands whole."
Aeridar strolled through the cavernous vault, introducing the colorful history behind each Poneglyph with an air of relaxed pride to the woman walking beside him.
Robin gazed at the sequence of Poneglyphs, her beautiful eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated shock. Even the surrounding mountains of gold and jewels failed to draw her focus away from the monuments. While the sheer scale of wealth in the treasury was staggering, in her heart, nothing could carry the weight of these ancient stones.
Discovering even a single Poneglyph out in the wild was a monumental challenge, yet several of them were gathered here in one place. If her late sensei and the tragic scholars of Ohara were alive to see this, they would have been driven to tears of absolute joy, throwing themselves into their research without a care for the consequences.
Suddenly, Robin's eyes caught a distinct variance among the dark blue blocks. Standing out amidst the collection was a square monolith cast in a brilliant, blood-red hue, its surface similarly carved with the incomprehensible script of the Ancient Language.
Pointing a trembling finger toward the crimson stone, Robin asked, "Is that a Poneglyph as well? Why is it red?"
Aeridar grinned, his teeth flashing in the dim light. "That is a Road Poneglyph. It's a trophy of war I plundered from the Mink Tribe of Zou. If you manage to assemble the text of all four Road Poneglyphs, they will reveal the precise coordinates to the final island, Laugh Tale."
"The rubbing displayed right above it contains the contents of a second Road Poneglyph, which I secured through a strategic trade with Big Mom."
Without waiting for Robin to formulate her next question, Aeridar casually broke down the mechanics of reaching the final island.
Robin was thoroughly astonished. She had never realized that Laugh Tale was a destination requiring such meticulous keys; though it sat chronologically at the end of the Grand Line, navigating there was an absolute impossibility without the exact path charted by the red stones.
Of the four Road Poneglyphs in existence, Aeridar, Big Mom, and Kaido of the Beasts held one each, while the location of the final block remained entirely unknown to the world.
Should anyone wish to claim the mantle of the Pirate King, they would first have to wrench the rubbings from the clutches of these three apex monsters, and then scour the ends of the earth for the missing final stone.
Even if an ambitious soul miraculously accomplished all of that, they would still face the ultimate bottleneck: translating the ancient script. In the current era, Nico Robin was the sole living being capable of deciphering that language. While certain shadows within the World Government might possess the knowledge, none of them would ever lift a finger to aid a pirate.
Staring at the impossibly high threshold, Robin finally understood. It was no wonder that despite the Pirate King dying so many years ago, the throne had remained completely vacant.
The path to the top was built upon absolute impossibilities.