The Rocks Pirates Out of Control

Faced with this situation, the Marines desperately needed new blood, both for the present and the future.

The Marines as they stood could hardly stop the Rocks Pirates, whose power kept growing.

He had fought Rocks D. Zebek and knew how terrifying he was. Alone, he was no match for him. Only with Kong at his side could he hold his ground.

Kong had not eaten a Devil Fruit back then. Stung by that defeat and determined to gain the strength to fight Rocks, he later ate a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit.

Combined with his formidable physique and Haki, it had made Kong stronger than ever. He should now be capable of holding his own against Rocks D. Zebek.

But holding his own was all he could hope for. Rocks was a Monster unlike any the world had seen. Who knew how powerful he had become?

Or what abilities he was still hiding?

At the thought of Rocks, his arm began to ache.

The Rocks Pirates were completely out of control.

As Fleet Admiral, he knew of the World Government's scheme. The Marines had taken part in it too.

At first,

when the Rocks Pirates had just been formed, the Marines and the World Government had helped fuel their rise.

They had wanted to make the Rocks Pirates a prominent target for everyone else.

The aim was to make the pirates fight among themselves and drain their strength in the New World.

Then the Marines and the World Government could reap the benefits, marshal their forces, and wipe out the Rocks Pirates in one stroke.

Pirate power would be greatly weakened, strengthening the World Government's rule.

Even with two fearsome pirates like Rocks and Jaeger among their ranks, the World Government had been confident in its plan.

It had not believed the Rocks Pirates could grow while facing challenges from the other rulers of the seas.

There were two sides to the matter. If pirate power weakened, the World Government's rule would grow more secure.

If pirate power grew, the world would become more chaotic. Affiliated Nations would rely more heavily on the World Government, and more countries might join them, increasing the Heavenly Tribute it received.

That path, however, could bring unforeseen losses.

The World Government had different strategies for different situations.

That was how it had always operated.

It sounded like a perfect plan, but events had veered far from what they expected.

They had underestimated the Rocks Pirates. Their strength was beyond anything they had imagined.

One after another, pirates who challenged them submitted to Rocks, and the Rocks Pirates expanded rapidly.

And they had Jaeger, a Monster with the astonishing feat of killing an Army General to his name.

Even before founding the Rocks Pirates, Rocks D. Zebek had invited many Monsters and powerful fighters from the New World to join him.

The founding of the Rocks Pirates had been planned well in advance, not decided on a whim. They had formidable fighters from the start.

The World Government's efforts to fuel their rise had instead helped the Rocks Pirates.

Rocks did not need to seek out those proud pirates one by one. He only had to wait for them to challenge him, defeat them, and bring them into the fold.

It saved Rocks a great deal of time.

In the world of pirates, the defeated usually met one fate: death.

But those defeated by the Rocks Pirates only had to submit and join them. They could even retain some independence. Why wouldn't they take that bargain?

By the time the World Government realized this, it was too late. The Rocks Pirates' strength snowballed until, in a short time, they had become powerful enough to threaten the Marines.

The Marines responded by sending a massive fleet led by the Three Admirals, hoping to destroy the Rocks Pirates before they grew any stronger.

A battle that shook the world began, and its outcome stunned everyone.

The Marines lost, and the defeat had come with alarming ease.

Even the Three Admirals fighting together could not decisively defeat Rocks.

The Marines' strongest fighters became stepping stones for Rocks D. Zebek's rise to fame across the seas. It was a humiliation for the Marines.

Had they not retreated in time, the fleet would inevitably have been destroyed.

Who could have imagined Rocks was such a freak of nature, able to withstand an assault by all three Marine Admirals?

And the Rocks Pirates had other Monsters besides him. Few people could even stand against Jaeger.

Now the Rocks Pirates were more unstoppable than ever.

The Marines and the World Government, in turn, set their sights firmly on them.

The two sides entered their fiercest struggle yet. Even Fleet Admiral Black took the field himself.

More than half the New World became their battlefield. The fighting lasted over a year, and both sides suffered heavy losses.

Neither could gain the upper hand.

The Marines had their advantages: better intelligence, the ability to concentrate their forces, and warships with greater firepower than the pirates' vessels.

The pirates were formidable, but their forces were more scattered.

The war between them came to an abrupt halt only after that major operation.

The drawn-out war against the Rocks Pirates had brought immense pressure from world opinion down on the Marines and the World Government. The Affiliated Nations, too, had begun to doubt their strength.

So they devised a plan specifically to weaken the Rocks Pirates. Their target was Jaeger, the Grim Reaper.

The operation against Jaeger, the Grim Reaper, succeeded, but both sides paid dearly. Their losses were too great for them to stop the Rocks Pirates from growing.

Jaeger's death set the entire Rocks Pirates aflame. They destroyed ninety percent of the Marine strongholds in the New World.

Already battered, the Marines could not hold them back. The casualties and financial losses were staggering.

At one point, the Rocks Pirates even threatened to attack the G-1 Branch, the gateway to the World Government.

The Marine Bases standing today had all been rebuilt, at an almost unimaginable cost.

That was why the Kronos Kingdom had paid little heed to the rebellion stirred up by the World Government.

The World Government simply could not afford to keep pouring money into an effort that produced no results. Its losses were already vast, and its finances were under enormous strain.

Most Affiliated Nations sided with the Kronos Kingdom, and the World Government still depended on their Heavenly Tribute.

In the end, the war concluded with a victory for the Rocks Pirates.

The Rocks Pirates officially replaced the Marines as the rulers of the New World—and became its sole rulers.