"Yes. You've done well to survive," the illusory figure buzzed.
"Do not forget your mission, Rocks."
Hearing this, Rocks lowered his head even more humbly, a renewed fire of hatred burning in his eyes.
"Of course, my Lord. I will not rest until every last Marine is wiped from the face of this earth. I will clear all obstacles for you."
The phantom seemed to smile with satisfaction.
It gestured to the sky, and a gigantic, swirling vortex of impossible colors tore open the void.
Streaks of black light, pulsing with a palpable aura of death, could be seen within the vortex.
The very air grew cold and heavy.
Rocks stared, his heart pounding with a mixture of awe and terror.
He could feel a deep, ancient power radiating from the vortex, a darkness that promised to unmake creation itself.
"The missile was merely an appetizer, Rocks," the phantom said, its voice filled with pride.
"What we now grant you is the true embodiment of power."
As it spoke, smaller black holes bloomed around the main vortex, each one a gateway to a place of unimaginable energy.
The power leaking from them was so immense it made Rocks tremble.
"My Lord... what is this?" he asked, his voice a timid whisper.
"This," the figure snorted, "is the power you will use to bring this world to heel. Do you think a few Seraphim and some primitive armor can stand against the apex of our technology?"
The phantom slowly stretched out a finger and pointed into one of the black holes.
A single, pitch-black object, darker than any shadow, floated out. It hung in the air, absorbing all light around it.
"Catch, Rocks."
With those final, indifferent words, the phantom turned and vanished.
Rocks immediately scrambled forward, extending his hands piously to receive the treasure gifted to him by his masters.
.....
Far away, on the deck of a colossal government battleship, a young man in a white suit sat quietly, looking out at the distant sky.
"So after that mysterious missile fell, all the pirates vanished from Mariejois," Rob Lucci, the leader of CP0, muttered to himself, massaging his temples.
"The Marines missed their chance to finish them, and now this entire mess has been dumped on our heads. What a headache."
"Lucci," Kaku said, walking up beside him. "We still have no idea where the pirate leaders have gone."
Lucci frowned.
When the Marines had swept the battlefield, they had found the body of Redfield, but that was
it.The other legends—Rocks, Shanks, Whitebeard, and the rest—had used the chaos of the explosion to vanish into the vastness of the sea.
In the end, the Marines had no choice but to abandon the search and focus on the monumental task of rebuilding Mariejois.
On the surface, it had been a victory for the World Government.
But in reality, the cost had been catastrophic.
The Holy Land, their eight-hundred-year-old capital, was over sixty-five percent destroyed.
The cost to rebuild would be astronomical.
Making matters worse, a huge portion of the government's budget was now being funneled directly into the hands of one person: the ten-year-old Marine scientist, Leon.
A new directive had been issued from the highest authority.
The future would not be decided by Haki or Devil Fruits, but by science.
To fall behind in the technological arms race would be to invite destruction.
Leon's work was now the single most important priority in the world.
....
In the deepest part of the ruined government building, a single top-secret laboratory remained miraculously intact.
Inside, a figure with a head of hair resembling a chicken's nest was hunched over a workbench, rubbing his forehead.
Leon stared at the piece of missile fragment in front of him, utterly baffled.
Its molecular structure was unlike any material or element he had ever encountered.
It looked like metal, but it wasn't.
It felt like stone, but it wasn't that either.
And then there was the most terrifying property of all: it could grow.
He watched, mesmerized, as the half-meter-long shard pulsed with a faint inner light.
In the space of two seconds, it expanded, growing to the size of a small hill, nearly 1.5 meters tall, and it showed no signs of stopping.
He finally understood.
This was the secret to the missile's devastating, two-stage explosion.
The warhead had grown exponentially in the final seconds of its descent.
He leaned closer, his curiosity as a scientist overriding any sense of fear.
The thirst for knowledge, for understanding, rose up in him, an unstoppable force.
"What in the world," he whispered in awe, "is this stuff?"
.....
Deep in the New World, the great pirate Whitebeard sat on his throne, his body wracked with pain.
He could feel it now more than ever—the old wounds, the hidden sicknesses, the cumulative toll of a lifetime of war.
The side effects of his own devastating power, coupled with the reckless battles of his youth, had forged him into the World's Strongest Man, but they had also cost him dearly.
His eyes stared at the cloaked figure who had just boarded his ship.
"Gurararara... so you're still alive, Rocks."
The figure slowly lowered the pitch-black hood.
The face it revealed was a terrifying ruin.
The once-handsome features of Rocks D. Xebec were now a grotesque mask of scar tissue.
"I'm not dead," Rocks said, a twisted smile playing on his lips. "Of course I'm still alive."
He threw off the black robe.
His famously powerful physique was a roadmap of hideous scars, each one a testament to some forgotten agony.
But instead of looking weak, the scars only made him seem more monstrous, more terrifying.
The pirates on the deck of the Moby Dick shifted uncomfortably.
"I knew it," Whitebeard rumbled with a wry smile. "I knew you wouldn't be defeated so easily."
Rocks let out a loud, grating laugh that did nothing to comfort the unsettled crew.
After a moment of silence, Whitebeard's expression hardened.
"Why are you here, Rocks?"
Rocks's smile faltered for a second before he shook his head.
"It's nothing. Just visiting an old friend."
"Heh," Whitebeard sneered. "Do you take me for a child? I know your nature. You're not here for a social call. State your purpose."
Rocks pondered this for a moment, then nodded.
"You're right. I'm here for a reason."
He reached a hand to a particularly gruesome scar over his heart and, with a sickening tearing sound, pulled a strange, bone-white scepter from within his own chest.
The moment the scepter was revealed, an unnatural chill swept across the deck.
The Whitebeard pirates felt a cold dread creep into their souls, as if the bizarre weapon was trying to devour their very life force.
Rocks waved a hand, and the oppressive feeling vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving the crew breathing heavily, their faces pale.
"Rocks... what is that?" Whitebeard asked, his eyes locked on the scepter.
In all his decades at sea, he had never seen a treasure so strange, so malevolent.
It radiated a gloom, a chill, and a palpable sense of death.
An incomparably strong killing intent.
"Oh, Newgate," Rocks said playfully. "Where I got it isn't important. What's important is the terrifying power it contains."
Whitebeard fell silent.
Rocks was right.
The origin didn't matter.
The power was real.
"What do you need?" he asked directly.
Rocks's eyes gleamed. "This treasure of mine is powered by death. It can create a wave... a tidal wave of death that will wash over our enemies." He paused, letting the words sink in.
"To unleash it, I need more death. The more people who die, the stronger it becomes."
"How much?" Whitebeard asked, his voice a low growl.
If this was what it took to strike a blow against the Marines, a blow for the survival of his family, then so be it.
The lives of others meant little when his children were in danger.
A strange, cruel arc formed on Rocks's lips.
"It's very simple. I need you to mobilize your entire fleet. Every ship you command. I need you to unleash them on the seas and carry out an indiscriminate slaughter."
He glanced around at the stunned pirates.
"That is what I want. I'll leave the killing to you, Newgate."
The pirates on deck were speechless.
Indiscriminate slaughter? They hadn't fought like that in years.
They were protectors of their territory, collecting fees for their patronage.
"Wait, Rocks," Whitebeard said, his voice dangerously low.
"Are you certain this killing will have a purpose?"
His expression was more serious than it had been in decades.
"I have no problem with killing. But I, Edward Newgate, will not commit meaningless slaughter. I want to know... will this weapon of yours truly give us the power to crush the Marines?"