Sea Circle Calendar, Year 1498.
At the heart of an uninhabited island, a shirtless man stood alone.
His deep-set eyes carried an innate disdain, a sharp contrast to his flawless, handsome face now etched with unwavering focus. Black, unruly hair tied casually at the back of his head, he gently set down a small mountain with practiced ease and wiped the sweat from his brow.
In recent weeks, Ozz had been hurling mountaintops for training—more precisely, hurling massive boulders from one end of the island to the other, then teleporting in an instant to catch them mid-air, only to throw them back again.
No closer, no farther.
If his control over Conqueror's Haki wavered even slightly, the massive rock would disintegrate into rubble on impact. And that meant starting all over.
It was an unorthodox but deliberate method—his way of tempering the monstrous strength he'd been born with and mastering the evolving force of his Conqueror's Haki as his body matured.
And the results? Nothing short of spectacular.
Ozz could feel it—his grip on his own power growing stronger, more precise.
One more time!
Swiping the sweat from his face, he exhaled slowly. His presence swelled, his aura intensifying with each breath.
With Haki pouring out like a tidal wave, Ozz lowered into a stance—Fish-Man Karate: Tang Ca-Wa True Fist—a technique he'd learned from his Fish-Man crewmate, Sanbel.
As he focused, the once-unrestrained aura of his Conqueror's Haki began to shrink inward.
What had been a diffuse field of dominance now condensed into something far more lethal.
Dark crimson lightning crackled and coiled around his fist, thickening with each passing moment. Until, at last—it wasn't lightning anymore. It was thunder incarnate, black and red, alive with destructive intent.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Only when he could compress it no further did Ozz finally release the strike.
A single punch.
At the island's center, the last standing peak—the largest and only one left—shattered into dust under the force of his fist.
Where once stood a mountain, there remained only a crater, ten meters wide and equally deep.
Such overwhelming power!
A grin split Ozz's face. The thrill of it made his scalp tingle. It was more euphoric than any massage or pleasure. It consumed him.
After months of relentless training, he had done it.
Conqueror's Haki Infusion—mastered.
Ozz's mood soared. The next phase would be comparatively simple: refining his teleportation powers.
The focus now was on integrating teleportation into live combat, experimenting with moving external objects, and sharpening reaction times. Nothing fancy—just raw, brutal repetition until his instincts took over.
Only after exhausting every drop of strength would Ozz allow himself a rare break—fishing, reading the papers.
Hobbies he'd nurtured since childhood.
"By now... the time should be getting close."
The public execution of Captain Roger.
There was no way Ozz would miss that.
Ending the day's training on a high note, he ate more than usual, energized by his success. As he shoveled food into his mouth, he scanned the latest headlines, eyes searching for news on the Roger Pirates.
After all, if the captain was about to become Pirate King, his bounty should've shot up by now, right?
"Beru beru beru beru…"
Ozz looked up, curiosity piqued.
The Den Den Mushi's shrill cry cut through the silence, pulling him from his thoughts.
It was Sami calling.
Sabaody Archipelago
Illegal Zone, Grove 17.
In a rowdy tavern packed with the usual riffraff of the seas—pirates from all over the world drank, gambled, bragged, and traded intel.
As the gateway to the New World, Sabaody was a melting pot of opportunists:
Ambitious rookies hungry for glory, human traffickers looking for easy prey, bounty hunters chasing gold…
And of course, the broken and bruised—those who had been crushed in the New World and crawled back to this lawless zone to lick their wounds.
Among them were the likes of Trebol and his crew, whose dreams of becoming "kings" had been shattered by stronger wills.
Inside a lavish private room in the tavern, tensions ran high. A confrontation was already underway.
Across from the main guests stood a hulking man in gold-plated armor, and beside him, a grotesque man in sunglasses twirled a club-shaped cane, a string of mucus dangling from his nose as he laughed with brazen mockery.
"Beh-heh-heh-heh… Lady Sami, of course the goods are ready. The ship's just… delayed. I'm sure you don't mind, do you?"
"What?"
Sami's bodyguard looked at him in disbelief. "You took the money and now you're saying the goods aren't here?"
Deals like this had a golden rule in the underworld: money in one hand, goods in the other.
Trebol's version—take the money, the goods will come—might as well have been daylight robbery.
In other words:
"I'm taking it by force. What're you gonna do about it?"
Sami, no stranger to the darker sides of business even before Ozz joined her, still had her own muscle. Not the kind that made headlines, but enough to hold the line.
And now, faced with blatant disrespect, her usual calm gave way to cold fury. She motioned for her men to surround the two.
"If we don't see the merchandise, no one's leaving with a single beli."
Boss or not, Sami had presence—her sharp, fox-like eyes burned with anger as she glared down the two smug trespassers.
"Beh-heh-heh… So you do want to play dirty, huh?"
Trebol didn't flinch, not even with barrels pointed at his face. That smug grin said it all:
"I own this room."
"You're the ones playing dirty!" Sami snapped, her chest heaving with rage. "Enough. Take them down—"
But she was cut off.
The ground began to quake.
Suddenly, the entire room lurched. The floor buckled and cracked beneath their feet.
Sami's men—brawlers and enforcers with hard eyes and harder fists—stumbled. Their guns and clubs clattered uselessly to the ground. One by one, they dropped, sucked into the floor, only their heads poking out like drowning men gasping for air.
Sami's face turned pale, her mind racing.
Devil Fruit powers?
"Beh-heh-heh, good guess! Too bad there's no prize for getting it right!"
"Sami-sama—!"
Just then, a scantily clad woman burst into the room. One look at the chaos and her face turned ashen.
"What happened, Airi?" Sami demanded, her voice low and tight.
Airi bit her lip, her voice trembling:
"There are pirates causing havoc all over the district—taverns, restaurants, even the casinos! We're completely overwhelmed!"
"Some of the area bosses tried to fight back… They were killed on the spot!"
The blood drained from Sami's face. She turned back to Trebol, now smiling with deliberate menace.
The timing of this assault—right after their clash began—
There was no way it was a coincidence.