The Straw Hat Pirates continued along the course of their original fate. With Camie and Hachi's help, they left the auction house and met Rayleigh...
Inside Shakky's Rip-off Bar, in the Sabaody Archipelago.
In stark contrast to the widespread unrest caused by Enel's purge and the tension of the Marines assembling outside, an eerie calm hung over the bar.
Led by Dark King Silvers Rayleigh, the Straw Hat Pirates had taken temporary refuge in this safe house.
Behind the counter, Shakky, the still-charming proprietress, elegantly polished a glass as she watched Luffy, whose face still brimmed with curiosity.
Holding her slim cigarette between her fingers, she couldn't help smiling. She exhaled a faint ring of smoke and teased him.
"Well, well~ I didn't expect you to be so outrageously bold. You actually dared to attack a Celestial Dragon... though you weren't the first."
"Huh? Not the first?" At that, Luffy stretched his rubber neck half a meter, leaning toward Shakky.
"Someone's sent those annoying guys flying before?"
"Sent them flying?" Shakky shook her head gently. "Oh, it wasn't anything as simple as 'sending them flying'..."
She paused, then calmly dropped a bombshell.
"That man cut the heads clean off two Celestial Dragons, openly, in front of everyone, and walked away carrying them!"
"!!!"
"What?!!"
Apart from Luffy, who kept blinking as though trying to picture the scene, the other Straw Hats-
Nami, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, Chopper, Robin, Franky, and Brook-
All turned to stone on the spot, their faces filled with utter shock and disbelief!
Cut... cut off the heads of Celestial Dragons?! Two of them?! In front of everyone?!
It was an act of madness that shattered everything they thought they knew!
The most blatant, most absolute trampling of this world's supreme "divine authority"!
"Wh-who was it?!" Usopp trembled,