"Hah... cough, cough..."
Nami sat slumped on the deck, gasping for breath.
Her long, silky orange hair was now completely soaked with lake water, clinging wetly to her cheeks.
She wrung some water out of her clothes. Feeling sticky and uncomfortable all over, she furrowed her brows and complained irritably:
"Seriously, what is going on here?! Even the mountaintop is a whole ocean! The waters around the Land of Wano are a complete mess. None of this makes any sense!"
"Yohohohoho..."
Brook shakily propped himself up on the deck with his Cane Sword and sighed, still shaken. "We really took a stroll along the edge of hell. They weren't kidding about 'getting into the country being a major ordeal'!"
"Hey, stop complaining for a second and look over there!"
At some point, Sanji had leaped up to the lookout. He wiped the water from his face, his sharp gaze piercing the thin mist still lingering over the lake, and pointed into the distance. "Land ahead!"
Everyone perked up at his words and peered in the direction he was pointing.
At the far end of the lake, a strange, utterly different landscape slowly unfolded before their eyes.
There was none of a tropical island's lush greenery, nor any of Totto Land's fairy-tale candy buildings. All they saw was an ancient landscape of jagged rock formations and sprawling masses of stone.
Gnarled pines rooted themselves among sheer cliffs. The distant peaks were steep and treacherous, as though carved by a sword, and even the strange clouds drifting through the sky looked like something found only in ukiyo-e prints. Everything exuded an isolated desolation and a grim, murderous air.
"So that's... the Land of Wano?"
Ronan narrowed his eyes slightly, a faint smile curling his lips. "What a natural killing ground."
"Finally... we