The Mountain of Miracles, and the Promise with Laboon

Fierce winds and torrential rain lashed down, the sea churning violently like a pot of boiling water.

The Eclipse pierced through the thick, thunderous clouds, and the sea ahead seemed to have lost the shackles of gravity. An incredibly wide canal with rushing currents defied all laws of physics, flowing upward against the towering, crimson-red rock wall of the Red Line!

The entrance to the Grand Line—Reverse Mountain.

"How is the water flowing up the mountain?! This is insane!"

Carina clung tightly to the mainmast, her mouth agape in shock as she stared at the mythical, reverse-flowing waterfall before her.

"Hold on tight! We're riding the current up!"

In the wheelhouse, Sabo gripped the helm with white-knuckled intensity, his black eyes flashing with unprecedented focus and excitement. Buggy scrambled on deck to adjust the angle of the sails, allowing the Eclipse to cut with surgical precision into the surging current.

"Rumble!"

The ship shuddered violently, and a sudden sensation of weightlessness took hold. Like a black flying fish, the Eclipse was hoisted by the raging current, charging straight toward the heavens along the cliff face of the Red Line.

Ace did not reach for any handholds.

With his hands tucked into his pockets, his tall, sturdy frame stood as firmly on the bow as if he had taken root.

Breaking through the thick cloud layer, the view suddenly opened up.

Sunlight pierced through the mist, illuminating the magnificent Red Line until it shimmered. The currents from the four seas converged here, emitting a deafening roar like the most majestic symphony composed by nature.

Ace gazed silently at the indescribable, fantastical spectacle before him, a flicker of genuine wonder and longing—the kind belonging to a transmigrator—rising in his deep black eyes for the first time.

"What an incredible world!"

Ace felt the gale rushing against him, the corners of his mouth curling upward involuntarily.

In his past life, this existed only on the pages of a manga. But now, he was standing here in the flesh, feeling the wild, magnificent, and illogical power of this planet.

It was no wonder Roger and so many other heroes had rushed toward this sea one after another. In a world filled with infinite miracles and unknowns, failing to reach its peak and witness all these wonders for oneself would be a waste of the chance to live a second life.

"Prepare for the drop! Hold on!"

Carina shouted. The Eclipse crested the highest peak of Reverse Mountain, then followed the converging currents as it plummeted toward the mist-shrouded sea below—the true Grand Line!

Accompanied by the whistling wind and the feeling of weightlessness, the Eclipse sliced through the water mist like a sharp blade, slamming heavily into the waters of Twin Capes and sending white spray soaring into the sky.

"We made it! We've entered the Grand Line!" Buggy collapsed onto the deck, gasping for air.

However, before they could even make sense of their surroundings, a massive, cloud-piercing wall of black flesh suddenly appeared on the sea ahead.

"What is that? A black mountain?!" Carina's eyes widened.

"No! It's moving!" Sabo tightened his grip on his staff, his eyes narrowing.

"Auuu!!!"

With a mournful, earth-shaking cry that vibrated through the entire sea, the "black mountain" slowly turned. It was an island-sized whale, its scale beyond conventional measure. Its head was covered in gruesome, crisscrossing scars, and it stared at the Eclipse with a single, massive eye.

"It's an Island Whale! It's going to ram us!" Buggy was so terrified he split his body apart on the spot.

Facing this living natural disaster, Ace remained eerily calm, raising a hand to signal Sabo not to attack.

He strode to the bow, looking up at Laboon, the giant whale that had been waiting in solitude for fifty years.

In the original story, because it could never wait for the return of the Rumbar Pirates, it rammed its head against the Red Line every day, trying to shatter the mountain to find its masters.

Looking at the shocking scars on Laboon's head, Ace did not rush forward to fight it like Luffy would have.

He took a deep breath, and a voice, thick with a faint pressure of Conqueror's Haki, boomed across the sea.

"Stop ramming that mountain, you stupid whale."

Laboon's movements paused, and that giant eye turned toward Ace at the bow.

"That man with the afro who plays the violin all day... he isn't dead yet."

Ace kept his hands in his pockets, staring straight into Laboon's eye, his tone calm yet carrying the weight of a promise worth a thousand gold. "His pirate crew ran into trouble and got trapped in the Florian Triangle. But he still remembers his promise to you."

At the mention of the afro and the violin, Laboon's massive body trembled violently. It seemed to understand Ace's words, letting out a low, whimpering cry of sorrow.

"Guard this place. It won't take another fifty years."

A confident smile tugged at the corners of Ace's mouth. "When I establish absolute order on this sea, I will bring that man back to you. That is my promise to you."

Laboon watched the tall man before it in silence.

Soothed by that steady, powerful aura, the giant whale that had been agitated for decades miraculously calmed down. It sank slowly into the water, leaving only half its head exposed, and let out a long, gentle, and grateful cry.

Ace made the promise simply because he was fond of this whale and the skeleton from the original story. Although the original work hadn't explicitly stated it yet, it was clear that Brook was a man with quite a story of his own.

"It's incredible, it actually understood?" Carina covered her mouth in surprise.

Just then.

"Truly astonishing. I've been guarding it here for decades, and this is the first time I've seen a pirate make Laboon quiet down with just a few words."

An aged yet powerful voice drifted over from the direction of the lighthouse on the shore.

The group turned to look and saw an old man wearing a petal-patterned shirt and a peculiar flower-like decoration on his head. He was holding the day's newspaper and walking slowly from the lighthouse at Twin Capes.

When Buggy saw the old man's face, he froze, his eyes turning red as he scrambled toward the ship's rail.

"Doctor Crocus?!" Buggy's voice was thick with unconcealable emotion.

The old man on the shore paused, his cloudy gaze landing on Buggy's prominent red nose.

"Oh? Isn't this Buggy, the apprentice from back then?" Crocus lowered the newspaper, a flash of surprise and nostalgia crossing his eyes. "What brings you here? I just saw in the paper that you joined a rookie pirate crew called the Eclipse."

As he spoke, Crocus's gaze moved past Buggy and landed on the tall, dark-haired youth standing at the bow, whose aura felt as deep as an abyss.

With that one look, the former ship doctor of the Pirate King could no longer look away.