The bad news wasn't over yet.
The Rocks Pirates went on a rampage.
After three years of chaotic war and time to recover, everyone's desires had come roaring back. They longed to fight, kill, and plunder.
How could the Treasure Vault Rocks D. Zebek had opened possibly satisfy so many members of the Rocks Pirates?
Plunder, slaughter—nothing was off-limits.
The New World, the first half of the Grand Line, even the Four Seas.
The entire world became a target of the Rocks Pirates.
In just two months, nineteen kingdoms outside the World Government Member States were destroyed.
Eight World Government Member States were wiped out.
Five kingdoms bowed to the Rocks Pirates and submitted.
Each had to pay tribute to the Rocks Pirates every year.
Two of them had even been World Government Member States.
After submitting to the Rocks Pirates, they no longer were.
Affiliated Nations breaking away from the World Government to submit to pirates sent shock waves through kingdoms across the world.
No matter how much they had looked down on pirates before,
after the World Government's defeat, everyone knew the Rocks Pirates were not to be underestimated.
Kingdoms submitting to pirates was nothing new. Plenty had been destroyed by pirates who then took their thrones.
But for a World Government Member State to do so? That was a first.
It dealt another heavy blow to the World Government's prestige. More and more people were losing faith in it.
Its foundations were shaken to the core. The Rocks Pirates had trampled it underfoot for all to see.
Even dispatching powerful Marines at once would change nothing.
The Marines were short on manpower, and the warships they needed to stay mobile were in even shorter supply. Replacing those ships would take time.
And because the Rocks Pirates chose