Almost at the same time that Xie Wen and the others boarded the "Valstrax Subspecies," the Big Mom Pirates arrived at a hidden island in the Calm Belt under the guidance of CP Agents.
It had once served as a training base for CP Agents. They had since moved away, but the island still belonged to Cipher Pol, and some intelligence files were indeed stored there. Those files also genuinely contained information related to Mother Carmel...
Lies alone certainly would not have been enough to lure Big Mom all the way here. That was why, even before this, the World Government had released quite a bit of intelligence related to Carmel elsewhere as well, keeping Charlotte Linlin on the hook all the way to this island.
Likewise, to keep Big Mom hooked, the World Government had only provided scraps of intelligence. They had essentially only let Charlotte Linlin know that they really did have ties to Carmel, while remaining evasive about exactly what those ties were.
"Mamamama... I wonder what the Marines will bring out this time."
Charlotte Linlin spoke with a smile that did not reach her eyes as she stepped onto the island.
Neither she nor her children were fools. Of course they had noticed something was wrong along the way, but Charlotte Linlin's confidence in her own strength had led her to ignore it.
Of course, the main reason was that the intelligence released by the World Government really was related to Carmel. That was why Charlotte Linlin had patiently continued to "play" along.
But as time passed without her obtaining any useful intelligence, she had begun to grow impatient.
"Perospero, where are the nearest Marine Base and Affiliated Nation? If the intelligence they give us this time is still like before, we'll destroy them and then