Angel Island, Cloud Beach.
Jeno's burly frame was hunched over the Waver like a giant bear guarding its kill. His thick fingers danced over the milky-white Wind Dial he'd just extracted. He'd already produced a set of precision tools, ready to gut the device that defied every law of Blue Sea mechanics.
"Wait! Honored guest!" Pagaya waved his hands in a panic, desperate to stop the fanatic mechanic. "The Wind Dial is a biological artifact. If you crack the shell by force, the internal storage chambers will collapse! It'll be useless!"
"Biological?" Jeno paused, his brow furrowed, but the fire in his eyes only burned hotter. He grabbed Pagaya by the collar, lifting the middle-aged man off the ground. "Old man, you said this shell sprays wind. What else do you have up here in the clouds?"
"Everything!" Pagaya squeaked. "Heat Dials for cooking, Flame Dials for forges, Flash Dials for light, Tone Dials for recording voices..."
"Anything for war?" Sabo asked, leaning against the ship's rail.
Beside Pagaya, Conis hugged her white cloud-fox, Su, a flicker of fear in her eyes. "The priests and the Guard use Impact Dials. They can absorb a physical blow and release that exact destructive force back instantly. But the recoil is so violent it can shatter an ordinary person's arm."
"Absorb and reflect kinetic force?" Jeno froze. Then, a metallic, manic laugh erupted from his chest. "Hahaha! That's a divine gift for my power hammer! If I line the hammer head with Impact Dials, every strike will stack the reflected energy of the previous one. I could turn a fortress into dust with a single swing!"
While Jeno spiraled into mechanical ecstasy, Leona leaped down from the Eclipse, her bone-cleaving knife glinting. She ignored the shells, her vertical pupils locked onto a flat, translucent fish swimming through the cloud-sea.
"Fish in the clouds?" Without hesitation, she flicked her wrist. A silver flash later, a massive Sky Fish was flopping on the beach. She pried a scale loose with her knife. "Lighter muscle density than Blue Sea fish, but the fat is aerated and rich... if I render this and pair it with the Sea King marrow from the hold, I can create a Tier-1 revitalizing broth."
Carina stepped off the gangway, clutching a navigation chart and sighing at her eccentric crew. "Can we focus? We're at 10,000 meters and we don't even know who runs this place."
"We don't need to," Ace said.
His tall, commanding figure appeared at the top of the gangway. He strode onto the cloud-beach, his dark red windbreaker snapping in the thin air. His gaze bypassed Angel Island and locked onto the massive landmass in the distance—a place choked by giant vines, looking utterly alien against the white clouds.
Ace could sense a swarm of powerful life signatures there, and one—a violent, arrogant magnetic field—that sat high above the rest.
"Old man," Ace said, looking at Pagaya. "What do they call that forest over there?"
Pagaya and Conis turned deathly pale. "That is the Holy Land! You must never go there!" Conis whispered. "That is Upper Yard. It is the domain of the Almighty God—Lord Enel. Anyone who sets foot there faces the 'Divine Judgment' of the priests... or the lightning of God himself!"
"God's Island?" Buggy scoffed, pushing up his sunglasses. "I've sailed with Captain Roger, kid. I've seen the 'Gods' of the Blue Sea. There's no such thing as a god in this world—just people with big egos and bigger fruits."
"Target spotted! Illegal entrants: The Eclipse Pirates!"
A sharp, disciplined shout erupted from the treeline. Dozens of guards in white berets swarmed the beach, slithering across the clouds in a strange, prone crawling posture. The man in the lead, a bearded officer named McKinley, lifted his head.
"I am McKinley, Captain of the White Beret Unit! Blue Sea outlaws, you bypassed the Heaven's Gate toll and destroyed a checkpoint. By the law of God, you are Level 11 felons!"
Jeno, annoyed at having his Dial research interrupted, stood up. His massive shadow swallowed McKinley. "I don't have time for 'cops and robbers.' Scram while I'm still in a good mood."
"Blasphemy! You defy the law of God!" McKinley waved his hand. The White Berets leveled tubular weapons equipped with strange shells. "Surrender and pay a hundredfold fine, or face the Cloud Sanction!"
Sabo adjusted his top hat, a hint of pity in his eyes. "Laws set by a 'god'?"
Ace's voice drifted across the beach, amused. He didn't even drop into a fighting stance. "You've got it backwards. Pirates don't follow rules. We break them."
"FIRE!" McKinley roared.
Dozens of White Berets triggered their launchers. Instead of lead, massive nets of high-density clouds surged forward to envelop the crew.
"Is that it?" Jeno sneered. His mechanical rig vented high-pressure steam. He didn't dodge. His right arm, the Hydraulic Power Hammer, swung in a brutal arc.
CRACK!
The "tough" cloud-nets were shredded by raw physical force. The shockwave from the hammer hit the sand, blasting the front line of White Berets into the air like autumn leaves.
"Monster strength!" McKinley stammered, reaching for his transponder snail to call the priests.
Before he could move, a blue blur appeared before him. Sabo held his alloy staff against McKinley's chest. Flickering orange flames licked the metal, singeing McKinley's beard.
"Tell your men to stand down, Captain," Sabo said with a sharp, cold smile. "Our Captain doesn't like background noise."
McKinley froze, paralyzed by the heat of the flames and the steel in Sabo's gaze.
"Let's move," Ace said, turning his back on the guards. He looked toward Upper Yard, his coat flapping. The static in the air from that direction was calling to him.
"Leona, bring the fish. Jeno, bring your tools."
Ace began walking toward the forbidden forest with heavy, rhythmic steps.
"Target: Upper Yard. Let's go see this 'God,' and while we're at it, we'll take every ounce of gold and tech this island has to offer."
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