Night fell.
A strange sense of vigilance set alarm bells ringing in Minos's heart. He glanced around, but found no danger.
"What's going on? This feeling... is it in my consciousness space?"
Slowly sinking his mind into his consciousness space, Minos received a piece of news from Golden Paradise that left him speechless.
Once Karma Points had accumulated to a certain extent, he would face backlash from the World Consciousness! Aside from when Minos had first crossed into this world, when he could be considered to have arrived with Karma Points of his own, every time he accumulated enough Karma Points afterward, he would encounter some "trial" bestowed by the heavens.
"What kind of old-school infinite-stream setting is this!? Are you about to send Final Destination after me!?"
The moment Minos finished complaining inwardly, the sea suddenly changed. An incredibly powerful Upward Sea Current instantly struck their ship, launching the entire vessel into the sky.
The incident had come too suddenly. Even Katakuri, without actively using his Observation Haki, had not foreseen such a terrifying natural disaster. Cries of alarm immediately rang out across the ship.
At the same time, the previously calm blue sky suddenly erupted with violent winds. In less than half a minute, the weather went from calm and peaceful to a hurricane of immense force!
The climate of the New World was ever-changing, but such an intense shift in weather within so short a time was still exceedingly rare.
What was more, this climatic change had come without any warning. Even the navigators of the Charlotte Pirates had been completely unprepared.
Within the terrifying gale, the ship was like a tiny toy, tumbling endlessly through the sky.
"Everyone, watch out!" Katakuri shouted. He immediately activated his Devil Fruit awakening, assimilating the entire ship with his power. Countless mochi arms extended out and seized everyone aboard.
At the same time, flowing masses of mochi wrapped around the entire ship. This non-Newtonian fluid displayed astonishing defensive power, protecting the vessel from severe damage.
"This really is a disaster out of nowhere! Good thing I'm on Katakuri's ship right now. Otherwise, in this weather, even if I weren't a Devil Fruit User, I probably wouldn't survive."
Tightly wrapped in mochi, Minos secretly breathed a sigh of relief, though unease still lingered faintly in his heart.
"The World Consciousness's backlash... can't be this simple, can it?"
The storm finally subsided. The ship plummeted from the sky and crashed onto the sea with a thunderous boom, nearly breaking apart. If Katakuri had not used the Mochi Mochi Fruit to glue the vessel tightly together, this high-quality pirate ship of the Charlotte Family would have been smashed into a pile of planks on the spot.
Even so, the awakened Homies ship had gone completely silent. It was impossible to tell whether it had fallen asleep or was simply finished for good.
Everyone gradually made their way onto the deck. Fortunately, after taking stock, they found that aside from several lost Homies, the other crew members had suffered no losses.
"Where are we?" Charlotte Daifuku asked, still dizzy and disoriented.
"Look over there! There's an island!" Violet said, pointing into the distance.
Minos also activated Clairvoyance and looked toward the horizon. Sure enough, an island lay roughly a dozen kilometers away.
However, rather than an island, it looked more like a fortress. Deep, sturdy defensive walls guarded the edge of its coastline. The walls were nearly several dozen meters high, making it impossible to see what the island's interior looked like.
A dense, crisscrossing layer of fine wire mesh covered the outer surface of the walls, with complicated pipes running everywhere across it. Sparks occasionally flashed across the wires. Clearly, it was an electrified defensive net meant to provide powerful protection.
With the sharp vision of his Evil Eye, Minos could even make out warning signs deliberately hung on the electric grid: "Do Not Touch."
Seeing that, Minos began to feel a vague sense of foreboding. "Is there an island in the New World guarded this heavily? And it looks full of technology..."
"Judging from how orderly this island is, it doesn't look like a pirate base either... Don't tell me we stumbled into some Marine base?"
While Minos was still wildly speculating, a streak of golden light shot out from the island. Then the sky suddenly blazed with golden radiance as countless golden light bullets rained down on everyone aboard the ship.
Yasakani no Magatama!
The Marines' newly appointed Admiral, Glint-Glint Fruit User Kizaru!
In an instant, Minos understood. This was the Marines' scientific base, Vegapunk's location: Punk Hazard!
"Damn!" Minos's mouth was full of bitterness. In some ways, this place was far more dangerous than G1, the Marines' main base in the New World.
There wasn't always a Marine Admiral stationed at G1!
And if they attacked an ordinary Marine base, other bases might not necessarily send reinforcements, nor would that base necessarily call for aid.
But if they had arrived at Punk Hazard, the other Marines would definitely go mad and surround this entire ship.
Katakuri had already seen the attack through his future-seeing Observation Haki. Without hesitation, he used his awakening to create countless mochi arms, blocking Kizaru's attack.
"Oh... so it's the greatest masterpiece of the Charlotte Pirates." Standing in the sky, Kizaru idly picked at his nails. "You even managed to find the Marines' newest scientific research base. No wonder you're called the best-informed Pirate Crew in the New World. You really can't be underestimated."
The mochi arms gradually withdrew, and the ship returned to its original appearance. Katakuri's face darkened slightly. What did Kizaru mean, they had even managed to find the Marines' newest scientific research base? They had been thrown here directly by a hurricane!
Katakuri refused to believe that this damned monkey had not seen how bedraggled they were. Those words were nothing less than blatant mockery.
Kizaru himself was rather troubled as well. No Log Pose could reach Punk Hazard, so in theory, they would not encounter anyone all year long. As far as Kizaru was concerned, guard duty was nothing more than clocking in and slacking off.
Who would have thought that the Charlotte Pirates would fall from the sky like this? Their luck was just too... hard to say whether it was good or bad.
An ordinary Pirate Crew would have been one thing, but a massive fleet like the Charlotte Pirates could truly pose an enormous threat to all of Punk Hazard. And they absolutely had such intentions.
—As long as they knew that Vegapunk was in this experimental base.
Thus, this battle was unavoidable!
Before you continue