The next day, Marineford, the highest conference room of Marine Headquarters.
The heavy iron doors slowly closed, and the two rows of guards outside snapped to attention, their rifle butts striking the ground hard.
Bang!
The dull sound cut off the outside world, signifying that everything to follow would be classified as the Navy's highest secret.
A map of the New World covered the entire long table.
Blue markers represented the Navy, black represented Legal Adventure Groups, and red represented pirate forces.
Sengoku sat at the head of the table. Tsuru, Garp, and Zephyr sat to the left, while Kuma and Enel represented the Shichibukai below them.
Sakazuki, Kuzan, and Borsalino sat opposite them. Bullet, Gion, Kaji, Smoker, and the other core Vice Admirals took their seats in turn.
At the back of the conference room stood several captains of Legal Adventure Groups that had long operated around the outskirts of the New World.
Not a single person spoke in the vast conference room. Every gaze rested on the map.
The red markers that had once been scattered throughout the New World were continuously gathering along three massive routes.
This was not the migration of ordinary pirate crews.
These were pirates driven out of the Four Seas and Paradise by the Navy and Adventure Groups, now banding together beneath the banners of the three Emperors of the Sea.
Heavy footsteps came from outside. Rock was the last to enter the conference room.
He walked to the map and tossed a stack of intelligence reports onto the table.
"For the past five years, the pirates of the New World have been steadily compressed."
"There are fewer and fewer scattered forces, and pirates who once slaughtered one another have begun actively seeking patrons."
Rock raised his hand and pointed in turn at