Time passed, and at last, it was time to close the net.
Aokiji and Kizaru had stayed out of the public eye these past few days. Their reputations were enough to make countless people wary, but Alabasta was vast. There were still plenty of places where one could avoid the Marines' inspections.
Wherever there was an opening, someone would try to exploit it.
Batch after batch of pirates quietly made landfall in Alabasta by routes they believed were safe and hidden. Little did they know that the Marines had been watching their every move.
"If this goes on, things will get out of hand," Zephyr told Loa.
While Kizaru and Aokiji had been lying low, more than five hundred pirates with bounties exceeding thirty million Beli had landed in Alabasta. Even with their crews pared down and traveling light, the total number of pirates in the country had climbed past ten thousand!
The number of pirates in Alabasta had swelled to its limit. For now, the situation remained under control, but once it passed that point, even the reputations of two Admirals and Loa would not be enough to hold them back!
So what if they were afraid?
When a volcano erupted, the force of it overwhelmed everyone. If death waited either way, why not take a chance? Once panic spread across Alabasta, the Marines would face condemnation from around the world, no matter how great their eventual victory!
And so, that afternoon, the three of them conferred and decided to put their plan into motion.
The first step: pass off a fake as the real thing!
The pirates hiding in Alubarna suddenly noticed that the Marines guarding the Poneglyph were withdrawing in droves! Within a few hours, the Poneglyph that had been protected like an impregnable fortress—one they would