The perpetual blizzard of Drum Island dwindled into a distant memory as the unified continent of Merveille climbed into the temperate troposphere, banking south-southwest along the Grand Line’s magnetic corridors.
Beneath the gentle hum of the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi and the subterranean warmth of the gold electromagnetic grid, the sub-zero chill that had frosted the castle ramparts evaporated, replaced by the clean, crisp breeze of the open sky.
In the eastern wing of the imperial citadel, Dr.
Kureha threw open the carved mahogany shutters of her new private quarters, her purple-tinted sunglasses perched low on the bridge of her hooked nose.
A bottle of aged plum liqueur dangled loosely from her fingers.
Behind her, her cherished wooden sleigh rested on an ornate velvet rug, surrounded by dozens of opened wooden crates containing antique surgical tools, historical medical tomes, and glass jars filled with preserved specimens.
Leaning over the stone sill, Kureha stared down at the sprawling panorama below.
She had spent nearly a century living atop the isolated, barren cliffs of the Drum Rockies, surrounded by snow, dying kings, and shivering peasants.
But the sight greeting her eyes this morning defied every law of geography she had ever known.
Directly beneath the citadel lay the terraced stone plazas of Merveille, shaded by ancient pine groves and dissected by clear mountain streams fed by condensation traps.
Further down, connected by massive bridges of reinforced bedrock and gold-veined conduits, were the emerald canopies of Upper Yard, the pristine white cloud-canals of Angel Island, and the ancient golden ruins of Shandora—all floating serenely ten thousand feet above the open ocean, shielded from the world below by an endless ring of manufactured storm clouds.
“Gahahahaha!” Kureha cackled, taking a burning swig from her bottle.
“To think a woman in her youthful one-hundred-and-thirties would live to see an airborne kingdom.
That arrogant brat wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest.”
A soft, measured knock sounded at the door.
Before Kureha could tell the visitor to scram, the heavy oak doors swung inward.
Arthur entered, his tall frame cloaked in his signature high-collared black mantle trimmed with crimson.
Flanking him was Laki, her hand resting habitually near her concealed weapons, while Makino and Kaya followed close behind, holding leather-bound administrative ledgers.
“Good morning, Grand Chancellor,” Arthur greeted her smoothly, his voice carrying the calm resonance of a king in his own hall.
“I trust your quarters meet your standards.”
Kureha took another puff from her thin pipe, exhaling a plume of sweet blue smoke toward the ceiling.
“The bed is too soft and the room is too quiet, brat.
But the wine cellar in your lower vault has vintages from thirty years ago that I thought went extinct with the previous century.
For that alone, I won’t poison your morning tea.”
Arthur smiled faintly.
“A fair bargain.
If you have finished unpacking your archives, the time has come for your formal inspection.
An empire’s chief physician must understand the anatomy of the realm she is sworn to preserve.”
Kureha snorted, tucking her bottle into the waistband of her flared denim trousers and pulling her cropped leather jacket snug across her shoulders.
“Fine by me.
Let’s see what kind of playhouse you’ve built up here, Arthur Pendragon.”
The tour began within the heart of Merveille’s domestic district: the newly constructed pavilion of the Round Table Medical Academy.
Guided by Kaya, they entered a sprawling complex of open-air courtyards, vaulted stone lecture halls, and sterile, glass-enclosed laboratories.
Over fifty young men and women—an even mix of Skypiean sky-dwellers with small white wings and Shandian tribal youths—stood in disciplined rows along the examination tables, dissecting plant fibers and cataloging chemical compounds under the supervision of senior nurses.
“We have organized the curriculum into three primary disciplines,” Kaya explained, her eyes shining with quiet pride as she gestured toward the workstations.
“Field surgery and emergency trauma, pathology and toxin synthesis, and botanical pharmacology.
We utilize Skypiean Light Dials to provide shadowless illumination in the surgical theaters, and Flame Dials to sterilize our steel instruments instantly without coal or wood fires.”
Kureha’s sharp eyes darted across the room, analyzing every detail with the instinct of a master surgeon.
She walked over to an examination station where a nervous Skypiean student was struggling to dissect a delicate, silver-veined leaf.
Without warning, Kureha slapped the back of the boy’s head with a resounding thwack.
“Idiot!” Kureha barked, leaning over the trembling boy with an intimidating scowl.
“You’re cutting along the primary vascular bundle with a serrated scalpel!
The moment the cellular wall ruptures, the coagulant sap oxidizes into useless ash!
Hold the blade at a thirty-degree angle and slice with the grain, or I’ll use your ears for skin-grafting practice!”
The student scrambled to correct his grip, his hands shaking as the delicate silver sap pooled cleanly into his vial.
Kaya watched with admiration, while Makino offered a warm, approving smile.
Kureha straightened, blowing a ring of smoke toward the ceiling as she looked at Kaya.
“The brats have decent discipline, little apprentice.
Their fundamentals are raw, but their hands aren’t ruined by civilian bad habits yet.
With six months of real hell, I’ll turn them into surgeons who can suture an open heart in the middle of an artillery bombardment.”
“They are yours to forge, Doctor,” Arthur said as they exited the academy.
Descending through the stepped gravitational platforms linking Merveille’s central apex to the lower tiers, the group stepped onto the fertile, humid soil of Upper Yard.
The transition was instantaneous.
The cool, crisp alpine air of the citadel gave way to the dense, oxygen-rich warmth of a primeval tropical forest.
Enormous hundred-foot ironwood trees towered overhead, their sprawling roots wrapped around ancient stone monuments and carpeted in vibrant, pulsating mosses.
Gan Fall stood near a research pavilion at the forest’s edge, consulting with several Shandian agriculturalists.
Spotting Arthur, the elderly knight planted his lance firmly into the soil and bowed with deep, unyielding respect.
“My Sovereign,” Gan Fall greeted him warmly, before his eyes fell upon Kureha.
The old knight blinked, taking in the eccentric woman’s low-rise jeans, tinted sunglasses, and defiant posture.
“And this must be the esteemed physician from the blue sea.”
“Don’t call me esteemed, old man,” Kureha scoffed, though her eyes were already scanning the colossal trees and the glowing fungi clinging to the bark.
“I’m a rogue doctor who charges exorbitant fees.
But this soil…
the mineral density is absurd.
The atmospheric pressure at this altitude forces these plants to concentrate their active alkalis.
A single gram of this moss could cure half the fevers in the Grand Line.”
“It is Vearth,” Gan Fall said with solemn reverence.
“For four centuries, our people shed oceans of blood over this soil.
Under Lord Arthur’s decree, it now serves to feed our citizens and provide medicine for the world.”
Kureha took a slow draft of her plum wine, her mocking smirk fading into a look of genuine, clinical wonder.
“A war over dirt…
humanity never changes.
But at least you’re using it to cultivate remedies instead of graves.”
Arthur led the party deeper into the lower tier, bypassing the ancient waterways of Angel Island toward the subterranean hollows carved into the bedrock beneath Merveille’s roots: the Prehistoric Biosphere.
As the heavy reinforced iron blast doors slid open, a blast of hot, primordial air rushed out to meet them, carrying the rich, sulfurous scent of ancient swamps and the thunderous, low-frequency roar of apex carnivores.
Kureha stopped dead in her tracks.
Stretching before them was a vast, subterranean jungle bathed in the warm, artificial sunlight generated by massive Light Dials and electromagnetic conductors.
Through the dense groves of giant prehistoric cycads, a herd of thirty-foot Triceratops grazed peacefully along a freshwater lagoon.
In the distance, a colossal, crimson-crested Tyrannosaur stood atop a basalt outcrop, its deafening roar rattling the glass vials in Kureha’s pocket.
“Dinosaurs…?” Kureha whispered, her pipe dangling loosely from her lips.
Her jaw slacked as she stared at the living relics of an era that had ended millions of years ago.
“Real, living beasts from the dawn of the sea…
where did you steal an entire ecosystem, brat?!”
“Little Garden,” Arthur answered calmly, leaning on the observation railing.
“An island trapped in prehistory.
We harvested its apex predators to serve as a live-fire crucible for our vanguard, and transplanted its flora to provide raw, uncorrupted biological material for your research.
The immune systems of these ancient reptiles contain antibodies against diseases that the modern world has entirely forgotten.”
Kureha began to chuckle, a low, rasping vibration that steadily grew into wild, unrestrained laughter.
“Gahahahaha!
A hundred and thirty-nine years on this earth, and I thought I had seen every horror and miracle the Grand Line had to offer!
Extinct bloodlines…
primeval pathogens…
natural antibodies from the dawn of creation!
Give me three months in this pit, Arthur, and I’ll synthesize an antidote for every biological poison the World Government ever dreamed up!”
“That is precisely why you are here, Doctor,” Arthur replied, his voice firm and absolute.
They ascended toward the lower plateau of Merveille, where the ringing of hammers and the concussive cracks of high-yield combat echoed across the open parade grounds.
At the far end of the field, five hundred black-armored aerial shock troops of the Vanguard were executing high-velocity tactical maneuvers.
Utilizing Waver technology and Breath Dials strapped to their boots, they blurred through the air like hunting birds, raining down concussive buckler strikes and harpoon volleys.
Standing in the center of the formation was Wyper.
The Shandian berserker was stripped to the waist, his tribal tattoos glistening with sweat.
As a dozen warriors charged him with iron spears, Wyper’s fists clenched.
Air distorted violently around his knuckles, vibrating with high-frequency kinetic pressure.
BOOOOOM!
With a short, explosive jab, Wyper released a massive, localized shockwave from his fist, blasting the air forward like an invisible cannonball.
The concussive wave shattered the earth, sending his lieutenants skidding thirty yards backward through the dirt without harming a single muscle of Wyper’s own arm.
“The Shock-Shock Fruit,” Arthur observed quietly.
“The power to generate, absorb, and command concussive kinetic shockwaves.
Combined with his natural berserker constitution, Wyper is becoming an unyielding pillar of our vanguard.”
Kureha watched with a critical medical eye, nodding slowly.
“His cellular rebound is flawless.
The Devil Fruit acts as a biological shock-absorber.
He won’t tear his ligaments apart like he used to with those suicidal Reject Dials.”
Then, a booming roar of laughter shook the mountainside, dwarfing the sound of the vanguard’s training.
“Gegyagyagya!”
“Gababababa!”
From the southern encampment, two colossal figures strode across the plateau, their massive iron helmets gleaming in the sun.
Dorry the Blue Ogre held his hundred-foot longsword over his shoulder, while Brogy the Red Ogre carried a barrel of roasted dinosaur meat the size of a tavern.
Kureha’s pipe dropped from her mouth.
Her purple sunglasses slid entirely down her nose, revealing wide, genuinely stunned eyes.
“Dorry…
and Brogy?!” Kureha choked out, her voice cracking for the first time.
“The Giant Warrior Pirates?!
The terrors of Elbaf from a century ago?!”
Brogy stopped, looking down from his twenty-meter height with a wide, toothy grin.
“Gababababa!
Who is this tiny old woman shouting our names?!”
Dorry squinted down, his golden eyes widening slightly.
“Wait…
a woman with silver hair and a bottle of plum wine…
Gegyagyagya!
Brogy, look closely!
That’s the fiery young doctor from the winter island!
She used to patch up our scouts in the northern seas before we set sail for Little Garden!”
Kureha’s face flushed with a mixture of nostalgia and sheer exasperation.
“I haven’t been ‘young’ in eighty years, you overgrown meat-heads!
What in the world are two legendary captains of Elbaf doing taking orders from a human brat?!”
Brogy laughed until the ground shook.
“Lord Arthur shattered our century-long duel with his own two hands and cleaved the Spear of Elbaf in half!
The warriors of Elbaf bow only to the supreme king!
Gababababa!”
Kureha turned back to Arthur, staring at him as though he were a mythical calamity draped in human skin.
“Daikengou swordsmanship…
uncatalogued dragons…
ancient giants…
sky dwellers…
and extinct monsters.
You aren’t building a pirate crew, Arthur.
You’re assembling an armada designed to wage war against the world.”
“The world order is built on a throne of glass, Doctor,” Arthur said, his voice dropping into cold, lethal certainty as they returned to the high terrace of the citadel.
“It requires only one determined hammer to shatter it entirely.”
As the afternoon sun dipped below the horizon, the ambient air grew noticeably drier, warmer, and thick with the scent of distant desert dust.
Merveille had crossed the northern weather boundaries of the Grand Line, entering the scorching atmospheric belt of Sandy Island.
Below their cloud cloak, the endless blue ocean was giving way to vast, sun-bleached dunes of golden sand that stretched across the horizon like an ocean of dust.
Alabasta.
Arthur stood at the edge of the terrace, looking down at the ancient desert kingdom.
Beside him, Laki checked the ammunition in her customized Dial-rifle, while Kureha took a long, thoughtful swig of her plum wine, leaning against the balustrade.
“The kingdom of sand,” Kureha remarked, her tone turning unusually somber.
“Ruled by the Nefertari family.
One of the original twenty bloodlines that founded the World Government eight hundred years ago.
And currently, if the underworld whispers are true, crawling with Baroque Works conspirators.”
“Crocodile’s rebellion is entering its final movement,” Arthur said smoothly, the golden flecks in his eyes reflecting the dying sun.
“He has starved the people with Dance Powder, turned the royal guard against the rebels, and searched desperately for the Ancient Weapon buried beneath the dunes.”
Arthur raised his right hand, feeling the dry desert winds swirl around his fingers.
“Crocodile seeks to build a military utopia on blood and deception.
We will allow him to corner the royal family.
And when the illusion breaks, we will descend.”
Arthur turned to his retinue, his voice echoing with calm, sovereign authority.
“We do not come to save Alabasta for the World Government.
We will secure Princess Vivi, extract the scholar Nico Robin from Crocodile’s grasp, assimilate the high-tier assets of Baroque Works, and recover the knowledge of Pluton before the World Government can ever seize it.”
Beneath the falling dusk, the great shadow of Merveille glided silently over the endless sands, positioning itself like an unseen executioner above the desert realm.