Teach's Anomaly

After concluding the "cooperation," Annus did not linger in the Blue Sea. He returned to the Heavenly Kingdom instead.

Lilith was already waiting at the end of the colonnade. Annus stopped when he saw her expression.

"What happened?" Annus asked.

Lilith did not beat around the bush. Her voice was lower than usual. "Lord Annus, Teach entered the library three days ago. The God Guard on duty changed shifts, and for about the time it takes to burn an incense stick, no one was watching him. When the replacement returned, Teach was no longer where he had been—in the restricted section."

The restricted section was a row of cloud shelves at the deepest end of the library. They held everything Annus had gradually collected during his years with the Rocks Pirates.

There were encrypted documents seized from sunk Cipher Pol ships, records related to Devil Fruits acquired from Hachinosu's underground black market, copies of fragmentary scrolls from the Void Century that even the World Government claimed to have destroyed, and several manuscripts Rocks had personally written on developing Devil Fruit abilities.

Those books had no catalog numbers or indexes. They were piled haphazardly on the cloud shelves, coated in a thin layer of dust. Aside from Annus himself, only Lilith and Diumil knew their exact contents.

"Which books did he touch?" Annus's voice remained steady.

"I took stock. Two pages are missing. They were torn from a handwritten fragment of the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia. That fragment gave a brief classification of the strongest Devil Fruits. One page was specifically about Logias, and the other—"

Lilith paused, her tongue flicking quickly across her upper lip. "The other contained legendary records of multiple abilities."

Annus fell silent for a moment. His right hand rested atop his staff, his fingertips tapping the head