The Grand Line, within the Alabasta Kingdom, upstream on the Sandora River.
Scorching winds swept up sand, raising wave after wave across the boundless yellow desert. The sky was a dazzling blue, without a single cloud. The merciless sun baked the earth, making even the air shimmer in distorted ripples. This was a forbidden zone for life. Apart from the occasional passing vulture and drought-resistant cacti, no other living things could be seen.
Yet at that moment, a strangely shaped flying vessel was gliding silently above this deathly still desert.
The vessel was small, about thirty meters long, its entire hull painted in sandy-yellow camouflage that blended with the desert. Most unusual was its propulsion system-there were no sails on either side of the hull. In their place were three pairs of enormous metal structures resembling birds' wings, their surfaces fitted with dozens of modified Jet Dials and Wind Dials. These shells expelled air at specific frequencies, allowing the vessel to fly steadily through the thin air at high altitude while keeping noise to a minimum.
This was the Harrier reconnaissance airship, newly developed by the Empire's Ministry of Works and Academy of Sciences using Sky Island technology and Dials. At that moment, two men inside its cabin were looking down through a specially made observation window at the vast sea of sand below.
One wore silver armor and a white robe. His features were handsome, his gaze as keen as an eagle's. He was Ma Chao, General Who Pacifies the West and Marquis of Huaili. Blue-black serpents of electricity faintly flickered around him, a natural leakage of the Zekrom Fruit's power that lent even the cabin air a faint ionized tang.
The other wore a moon-white scholar's robe beneath a pale-blue crane cloak. With refined, handsome features and a