It was the beginning of April, Sea Circle Calendar year 1520.
It should have been a season of renewal, of spring warmth and blooming flowers, but after that earth-shattering explosion in Mary Geoise, the entire world plunged into a bitter winter.
Endless volcanic ash shrouded the planet's surface.
Hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and other natural disasters swept across the world in wave after wave from the ruins of Mary Geoise. The catastrophe also severed communications around the globe.
People were stranded on isolated islands, holding out against those disasters and waiting for the light to come.
They did not know what catastrophe had struck the New World, nor what fate awaited them. All they could do was rely on the knowledge in the three books printed and distributed by the Marines to withstand the disasters.
They waited for the day the world's communications would return, for the figure who bore justice on his shoulders to appear...
The man named Sakazuki had journeyed from the North Blue to the Grand Line, and from the Grand Line to the New World, carrying the weight of countless killings with every step...
With the fiercest magma, he shattered the walls of darkness that shrouded the world.
When the volcanic ash veiling the sky finally cleared, a light unlike any the world had ever seen would greet it...
Later...
The world gradually returned to normal.
When the World Federal Government established by the Marines released the list of those killed in the war, the world fell silent. Only then did people learn how brutal that war had been.
Three years of war and seven days of decisive battle had swept this world clean...
On the pirates' side:
The Beasts Pirates were annihilated.
Kaido, one of the Four Emperors, died. The All-Stars-King, Queen, and Jack-the