Five days had passed since Oak, Edward Newgate, Golden Lion Shiki, Big Mom Charlotte Linlin, and Kaido of the Beasts—the Five Great Pirates—formed the Pirate Alliance and announced their ambition to unite the New World. Thanks to Morgans, the news had spread across the globe and caused an uproar.
Yet strangely, the World Government, which everyone had expected to make a major move, had not reacted at all. It remained eerily quiet, as though the matter were beneath its notice.
Hachinosu.
The island, once a wreck occupied by second- and third-rate pirates of the New World, was now a vast construction site. Countless people worked to raise one building after another.
Deep within the island, inside a skull-shaped mountain, Oak, Newgate, Shiki, Linlin, and Kaido sat together in the hall of a building.
After announcing their alliance on Whole Cake Island, they had all moved their headquarters here, leaving only some of their people to guard their former territories.
Behind Oak stood a man as tall as a mountain. He was the young sailor Oak had once helped in the West Blue, now the notorious pirate known as "Mountain Eater" A Shan, with a bounty of 870 million.
He had been the first to seek Oak out after Oak arrived on Hachinosu, clinging to his leg and weeping uncontrollably.
Seeing how loyal A Shan was, and that he still remembered Oak's kindness after decades apart, Oak had taken him under his wing. Everyone else had a deputy, while Oak had none. A Shan was roughly on the level of an All-Star or Sweet Commander in an Emperor's crew—and among the stronger ones at that, comparable to an Emperor's right-hand man. He was well suited to the role.
"How's it going? How many groups have come to join us these past