The Holy Land of Mary Geoise.
Faced with the high-velocity mobilization of the Revolutionary Army, the World Government was finally losing its internal stability. Inside the primary chamber, the faces of the Five Elders were exceptionally dark, not a single soul daring to easily formulate a verbal statement.
"Those absolute, useless trash anchoring the Navy!" the bald Elder spat in a furious roar. "How many days has it been? They deployed practically their entire global military mass, yet they flatly failed to freeze the Revolutionary Army's advance! And exactly what structural failure explains the reports tracking Borsalino?!"
"The active parameters have indeed decoupled from our predictive models. However, the most jarring operational anomaly remains Rob Lucci—he was actually liquidated!" the Elder with the two-pointed beard noted, tracing his whiskers as his mind ran complex calculations.
"Nevertheless, a saving grace remains: he successfully secured the biological plasma of Princess Vivi, and our excavation units have safely arrived in Arabasta. Before a long timeline can elapse, the Ancient Weapon Pluton, which has slumbered for eight centuries, will formally re-enter the global grid!"
"True, that stands as a vital piece of positive data. Those Legendary Four Brothers have truly optimized their combat mass to an untouchable tier. Frankly, if our regime fails to lock down Pluton during this window, the World Government... might genuinely face absolute ruin!"
"The core issue is how we are supposed to justify this failure before Lord Im..." Another Elder muttered, the collective focus of the room instantly pivoting to rest on the bald Elder.
Princess Vivi's primary strategic utility was to function as the biological key to unseal Pluton, and that objective had indeed been checked off.
However, Lord Im's explicit, personal directive had demanded the extraction and delivery of Vivi herself. In that regard... they had suffered a total operational failure.
Naturally, since the bald Elder had been the sovereign executive personally managing that deployment, the current trajectory indicated... his future prospects were looking exceptionally grim. In fact, whether his biological vessel would even be permitted a "future" remained highly debatable.
Lest they forget, the initial deadline decreed by the monarch had been a strict ten hours.
Yet now...
Multiple days had already elapsed, and this afternoon marked the precise calendar date scheduled for their audience with Lord Im.
The bald Elder's facial parameters failed to register a single trace of emotion, but a highly critical analysis would have unsealed the reality that his eyes were shifting erratically. His heart rate had scaled to a frantic velocity, a dense, suffocating shadow of dread completely enveloping his frame.
The remaining four Elders mapped these physical anomalies with absolute clarity, yet not a single one of them dared to utter a word of commentary.
The exact microsecond Lord Im's incandescent fury was unleashed, their titles as the supreme administrators of the global regime would mean absolute zero. To the monarch, they were nothing more than easily replaceable puppets.
Snapping their lives would be as simple as crushing an insect.
"I shall personally deploy to Arabasta," the bald Elder suddenly declared, pushing his frame up as his sharp gaze swept across his peers. "Coordinate with Lord Im on my behalf; request that he grant my vessel a minor buffer of a few days. I covenant to extract and deliver Princess Vivi back to this coordinate at absolute maximum speed."
The remaining Elders preserved a heavy silence. They comprehended his tactical panic, and deeply understood his psychological state.
"We shall run the request..." the other four Elders murmured, their expressions deeply strained. Formulating a plea of that nature before Lord Im was a maneuver where even having multiple lives wouldn't suffice to guarantee survival.
"Sigh." The Elders let out a collective, heavy sigh.
"Very well. We shall represent your intent before Lord Im. As for what manner of judgment his highness decrees—that lies entirely beyond our capacity to influence."
"Understood!"
The bald Elder dropped his head in a heavy, deeply grateful nod. For them to stretch their institutional margins to this degree was already according him an immense volume of deference.
Had his survival metrics been completely hopeless, their solitary protocol would have been to systematically sever all links to his profile to ensure the fallout failed to touch their own perines.
Having anchored the apex of the World Government for decades, he possessed exhaustive data verifying the absolute terror of Lord Im. That entity could no longer be evaluated through human metrics.
He had cleanly sundered the boundaries of mortality; calling him a god was far from hyperbole!
The self-proclaimed Emperors of the Sea were indeed colossal, monster-like titans—yet they remained merely mortal monsters.
As long as Lord Im anchored the empty throne, the foundation of the World Government would mathematically refuse to collapse. At worst, the low-tier assets below would sustain a minor volume of structural damage.
"For this, you have my deepest gratitude!" Bowing deeply to his peers once more, the bald Elder turned on his heel and marched out of the chamber.
The moment the threshold cleared behind him, the remaining four Elders slowly pushed themselves up from their seats.
"Let us deploy. It is time to face Lord Im," the Elder with the spectacles stated softly.
The others offered no verbal response, silently falling into alignment behind him.
As the silhouettes of the four Elders faded down the long corridor, they failed to register a microscopic anomaly inside the room they had just vacated: a small patch of frost slowly crystallized across the stone floor, rapidly expanding to shape the physical manifest of a human vessel.
Former Marine Admiral, Aokiji!
"My, my... my networks have just intercepted some thoroughly preposterous intelligence."
Ever since he had formalised his enlistment under Drake's Dragon Flag vanguard, Aokiji had systematically kept his coordinates redacted from global radar.
He had been aggressively running a highly classified, solo investigation to unearth a singular truth: exactly what coordinate did the absolute, systemic darkness fracturing this world originate from?
On the surface, the rapid expansion of the Great Pirate Era had inflicted irreversible, catastrophic trauma upon the global population.
Yet behind the scenes, the World Government was continuously orchestrating proxy wars across various kingdoms, while the deeply decayed, corrupt Celestial Dragons ruled over humanity with unbridled tyranny.
Countless young, idealistic Marines who entered the service harboring dreams of absolute justice were being systematically steered down corrupted paths. Exactly whose structural failure had generated this layout?
Unless his calculations could isolate that core variable, Aokiji refused to believe this world could ever transition into a state of genuine, unyielding justice and peace.
And his systematic trace of the anomalies had ultimately terminated directly at the steps of the World Government.
Consequently, he had breached their perimeter.
He intended to run a firsthand diagnostic to verify exactly what manner of horrific, hidden operations the global regime was executing in the dark.
This was a high-risk, black-budget operation his former institutional alignment as a Marine Admiral would have mathematically forbidden him from executing. But today, he operated with absolute zero constraints.
"Lord Im..." A sharp, piercing light rippled across Aokiji's eyes. The name registered as simultaneously completely foreign, yet strangely resonant in his memories.
Executing a high-speed displacement, his shadow silently trailed their vector.
He was going to decode exactly how many ancient secrets the World Government was hiding behind its closed doors.
Inside the hidden sanctuary, the four Elders were dropped onto one knee, their frames projecting absolute, unyielding reverence toward the shadow looming on the elevated dais.
This precise layout was cleanly mapped by Aokiji, who had successfully integrated his presence into the surrounding shadows of the chamber.
The visual data delivered an immense shock to his system. Who exactly were the Five Elders?
They were the absolute, supreme administrators of the entire civilized world—yet at this exact microsecond, they were collectively kneeling like common servants before a single entity!
Had this visual log been transmitted to the global press, it would have comfortably registered as the most monumental, reality-bending headline in the history of the sea.
Right then, the robed silhouette hovering atop the high throne spoke.
"Exactly what form has the extraction of Pluton assumed?"
Im gently tapped two long, pale fingers against the armrest of the empty throne, his voice echoing with a strange, boundless, and utterly detached resonance. The biological vessel was clearly positioned right before their eyes, yet the acoustics made it sound as though the source was anchored a thousand meters away.
"Lord Im, the campaign to secure the asset Pluton has successfully initialized. Our victory is mathematically absolute!" the Elders reported with profound, shaking reverence.
"Mm. Excellent," Im noted softly, before the audio channel returned to absolute silence.
Deep within the sanctuary, thick beads of cold sweat saturated the foreheads of the four Elders. Not a single soul dared to draw a deep breath, maintaining a perfectly static, frozen posture as they waited.
They were fully aware that the bald Elder's absence had been instantaneously mapped by Lord Im's surveillance arrays the exact microsecond they entered. Yet because the monarch's attitude remained entirely redacted from their tracking, they mathematically refused to initiate any unscheduled commentary.
Triggering a single fraction of dissatisfaction from Lord Im and getting their own vessels liquidated as a consequence was a strategic failure they could not afford.
"Regarding the subversives of the Revolutionary Army—exactly what operational blueprints has your command finalized to resolve their mobilization?" After an extended silence, Im's voice resonated once more.
The tone remained entirely detached and airy, looking exactly as though the geopolitical collapse of the world failed to register as an active variable in his calculations.
"Our forces shall unleash their absolute defensive mass to buffer their advance, ensuring the subversives fail to close the distance to the Holy Land by even a single millimeter!" the four Elders declared in perfect unison.
"Fail to close the distance by a single millimeter?" Im's voice suddenly spiked, scaling multiple decibels in a fraction of a breath.
The syllables carried a distinct, chilling edge of mockery and sheer amusement.
"And you expect your command to enforce that limit... when your vanguard lacks the capacity to even register that an intruder is actively anchoring your sanctuary right now, you absolute, useless trash?!"
Deep within the shadows, Aokiji's pupils violently contracted. In that exact microsecond, the legendary Im had already unleashed a catastrophic, high-velocity energy strike targeted directly at his coordinate!