There was another force in this war that could not be ignored.
The World Government.
During the disaster, World Government Agents had mingled with the crowds in Wano Country's bustling Flower Capital.
Under cover of the chaos, they secretly searched for traces of the Road Poneglyph.
Unfamiliar with Wano Country, they could only search slowly.
They focused especially on important sites connected to the Kozuki Clan.
Under normal circumstances, though, Samurai guarded those places.
Even the World Government had not expected a plague to break out. It hampered their operations, and some agents were infected.
World Government reinforcements arrived. After the disaster left the Flower Capital largely abandoned and most residents fled, the agents' work became much easier.
The Flower Capital was not empty. Plenty of people had failed to evacuate with the main group, arrived later, or been banished there.
People died of plague and hunger every day, but a lucky few always survived.
Like survivors in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, they held on one day at a time.
After a full six months, the Agents had searched everywhere they could. At last, they found a hidden passage in the Kozuki Clan's ancestral graveyard.
Inside lay their target: the Road Poneglyph.
"We finally found this thing."
Looking at the red Stone covered in mysterious writing, an Agent took out a camera and snapped a photo, his voice tinged with emotion.
Being Agents did not mean they had no feelings. They simply believed what they did was right—their so-called "Dark Justice."
They had put untold effort into finding this Stone, especially with the plague still spreading and showing no sign of fading.
They had lost quite a few people.
They did not know what the stone was, but now that they had found it, everything they had done was worth it.