read lots story at patre-on
always update and finish
belamy20 only for 5$
"Overcast... overcast again."
Bonney looked at the food stockpiled on the deck with an expression of pure heartbreak. "With all this moisture in the air, the food on the Black Whale isn't going to last long. Are we there yet...?"
Nami frowned, staring at the Log Pose in her hand. "Ever since we entered this sea zone, the magnetic field has gone completely haywire. The needle is useless."
She wrapped her arms around herself, shivering as she glanced around the thick fog. "You don't think some zombie skeleton is going to pop out and eat us, do you?"
CRACK—BOOM—!
Two sudden cracks of thunder practically made Nami jump out of her skin.
"We're almost there," Chrollo assured her. "This sea zone naturally draws all ships into the perimeter of Thriller Bark. That's exactly why so many vessels vanish here every year."
"Since we descended from the sky and chose to sail the surface, the ocean currents will pull the Black Whale right to it."
Nami hugged herself tighter. Please stop talking... you're making it worse!
While the Black Whale sailed through the lonely, foggy waters, another vessel was approaching Thriller Bark from a different route within the Florian Triangle.
It was a warship with a figurehead depicting the twelve animals of the Zodiac. It was heading straight for the cursed island's territory and had actually arrived a step ahead of them.
Step... step...
Three figures slowly disembarked. The first wore a black-and-white spotted outfit and a hat with two bull horns. The second had explosive blonde hair and three distinct whisker marks on his cheeks. They were members of the Zodiacs—"Ox" Mizaistom Nana and "Tiger" Kanzai.
Their faces were completely unreadable. With their arms crossed, they walked straight toward Moria's gothic fortress. Trailing silently behind them was a massive, hulking figure wearing a bear-eared hat—moving with the cold, mechanical stiffness of a machine... The "Tyrant," Bartholomew Kuma!
Upon spotting the intruders, Absalom, the invisible man, scrambled away in a panic to report to Moria. The trio met absolutely zero resistance and soon arrived at the very top of the massive Thriller Bark castle.
"Moria," Mizaistom said, his voice flat.
Moria looked utterly confused by the two strangers standing in front of Kuma. Arrogantly ignoring them, he called out to the giant behind them. "Kuma! What brings you here?"
"..." Silence. Kuma didn't give the slightest response.
Mizaistom picked up the conversation. "He won't—or rather, he can't—answer any of your questions."
"And who the hell are you two?" Moria finally shifted his gaze, sizing up the relatively short men in front of him.
At first, Moria's eyes still held a trace of dismissive contempt. But Mizaistom's next words wiped it clean off his face.
Mizaistom leaned in close to Moria's ear and slowly enunciated five words: "The Knights of the Zodiac."
"!!!"
"You're his subordinates?!"
Moria looked stunned. In an instant, his expression shifted to pure defensive caution, his eyes locking onto the two men.
Seeing his reaction, Mizaistom flashed a meaningful smile. "Figarland sends his regards."
Taking a step forward, Mizaistom stared directly into Moria's eyes. "He has a question for you."
Mizaistom enunciated every syllable clearly. "Why are you secretly hoarding the corpses of the Rocks Pirates?"
Instantly—
Moria's face drained of all color.
---
Meanwhile...
THUD.
The Black Whale dropped its anchor near the coastline.
Looking at Nami shivering like a leaf and Bonney clearly dreading the place, Chrollo looked thoroughly exasperated. "Uvogin, Nobunaga, Phinks, Feitan. The difficulty level of this dungeon isn't high. The four of you will take Shizuku, capture Moria, and bring him to me. The rest of you stay on the ship."
Those four were the Troupe's primary combat vanguard. They needed to accumulate battle experience and push their limits so they could awaken their Haki as quickly as possible.
The five selected members nodded in unison, while Nami and Bonney practically deflated with relief.
After placing his [Echoes of Destiny Compass] on the five of them, Chrollo turned to Shizuku. "Shizuku, pay very close attention to how Moria uses shadows. That's going to be your power soon."
He then turned to Uvogin, explaining the mechanics and weaknesses of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit. "Make sure you protect your own shadows from being cut."
"And finally..." Chrollo spread his arms wide. "...go wild."
"Yes, Boss—"
Step... step... step...
The sound of their footsteps gradually faded into the thick fog.
"Didn't they say this place was crawling with zombies and ghosts? Why is it so quiet?"
Shizuku pushed up her round glasses with her index finger, a flicker of mild curiosity in her eyes.
She was very different from Nami, Bonney, and the other girls.
If Nami's reaction to this island-ship was pure terror, Bonney's was utter disgust for the gloomy weather, and Machi's was a simple, intense hatred for filthy creatures like zombies...
Shizuku was the complete opposite.
Her eyes held none of those intense emotions—only a childlike sense of curiosity.
Shizuku suffered from severe amnesia. Or rather, calling it amnesia wasn't quite right... it was more like an extreme lack of memory retention.
Just like in the original timeline when Uvogin died and she completely forgot he even existed, Shizuku had immense difficulty processing complex emotions. Therefore, most of the time, she simply forgot them. It was almost impossible to catch Shizuku showing intense anger, ecstasy, sorrow, or fear.
"Who knows? Maybe they sensed we were coming, got terrified, and hid," Phinks answered without a care in the world.
"I don't think so." Nobunaga crouched down, rubbing some freshly disturbed dirt between his fingers.
"Looking at the tracks, a massive crowd definitely moved through here recently. But they were all rushing in the exact same direction. It looks like... they were being driven by something."
The five of them soon passed by a sprawling, chaotic graveyard. Every single grave had been dug up, the dirt thrown haphazardly aside. "Why are the zombies already out?" Nobunaga muttered, looking genuinely confused.
"Did someone beat us here?" he analyzed, stroking his chin.
"Let's speed it up, then."
Dropping all caution, the five of them bolted toward the center of the Ghost Island at top speed.
Long before they even reached the center, the deafening roar of battle hit them. A horrifying, nearly 70-meter-tall zombie giant with twin horns was violently smashing the ground, furiously attacking two glowing figures. On the other side of this chaotic battlefield, a massive horde of zombies was swarming a tall man wearing a bear-eared hat. But the man was fighting like a machine, constantly firing laser beams from his hands and mouth, blasting the zombies back wave after wave.
Seeing the utter chaos, the five Troupe members froze.
"Unless I'm seeing things, those two glowing guys are Ox and Tiger, right? What the hell are they doing here?" Uvogin looked stunned.
Nobunaga, however, was staring intently at the cyborg-like man. He immediately spun around and bolted back toward the Black Whale.
"That man... there's a very high chance he's the father Bonney's been looking for—the Warlord, Bartholomew Kuma. I'm going back for the Boss."