Somewhere in the New World, a ship with a lion's head is sailing— the Thousand Sunny!
Xia Chen lay on the lion's head, wearing sunglasses, enjoying another comfortable day of sunbathing.
Several days had passed since they left Secon Island, and also several days since he witnessed Zephyr's death.
After Zephyr's death that day, he went straight back to Secon Island, and after spending another day Secon Island with the others, they set sail for the next island.
Xia Chen's life on the ship these past few days hasn't been much different from before, except that he often has to do something fun before going to bed at night.
Robin, being young and new to sexual experience, had already developed a taste for it.
He was tired, but it's nothing serious. He's still young and can handle it!
Thinking of this, Xia Chen suddenly felt a little weak from last night's exercise, and a wave of drowsiness washed over him. He then lay down on the lion's head and fell asleep until...
"Hey everyone! I can see an island!"
Luffy roared.
Xia Chen slowly opened his eyes, sat up, and looked at the excited Luffy with a somewhat helpless tone.
"Why is Luffy always so agitated? It's just an island!"
Even so, Xia Chen looked in the direction Luffy had pointed to. The moment he saw the island, a look of surprise appeared on his face.
A desolate island appeared before them, filled with an unknown purple gas.
"This is... Punk Hazard?"
Xia Chen muttered to himself, though it was a question, his tone was full of certainty.
Even though the island he was on was very different from the one he remembered, a place of ice and fire, the distinctive research institute ruins on that island told Xia Chen that this was Punk Hazard from the original story.
As for why there wasn't an interplay of ice and fire, it's even simpler: Akainu was killed by him in the Paramount War, so why would he bother fighting Aokiji?
What truly surprised Xia Chen was that they had managed to get to Punk Hazard, even though his arrival had already changed a lot of things.
But how come they were able to arrive at Punk Hazard just like in the original story? The plot revisions are that powerful?
So, does that mean Luo will still be on this island? And also...
Could Momonosuke, the character countless One Piece fans want to Momonosuke pieces, be here too?
Given the power of plot correction, it's highly unlikely that Kozuki Toki will teleport Momonosuke and Kin'emon to twenty years in the future, as in the original story, to wait for someone capable of defeating Kaido to appear twenty years later.
Instead, it's been transported to eighteen years later!
Of course, all of this is just Xia Chen's speculation; whether it's true or not, they'll have to go to the island to verify!
If that's the case, Xia Chen would actually be more comfortable with it, because then his experience with the original work would come in handy.
It would not be said that those experiences were rendered useless because of the changes he brought to the world.
Lost in thought, Nami looked at the Log Pose in her hand and couldn't help but show a speechless expression.
"Wait... why aren't the two islands we went to after arriving in the New World the islands that the Log Pose was pointing to?"
Is there something wrong with the Log Pose? Or are the islands in the New World just like this?
"It's probably just a coincidence. After all, the Log Pose is quite reliable!" Xia Chen said with a smile as he walked over.
"Are we still going to the island?" Zoro asked curiously.
"Of course not!"
"Of course I want to!"
Two voices rang out simultaneously in everyone's ears. The two speakers were startled and looked at each other, as did the surrounding crowd.
The next second, the two of them spoke at the same time again:
"Absolutely not!"
"I'm going!"
(╬▔盘▔)╯!
Nami appeared beside Luffy as if she had teleported, grabbed his collar, shook him violently, and yelled, "Are you out of your mind? You have to go and see every single island that's not on the Log Pose!"
"What does it matter? You're already here, wouldn't you feel like you're missing out if you didn't go?"
"And these islands might be very interesting, like Secon Island. Didn't you praise the Secon Island springs there?"
Luffy retorted without backing down.
"How can that be the same?"
"Then why is it different again?"
Upon hearing this, Nami could no longer bear it and turned Luffy's head toward Punk Hazard.
"Just look at the desolate landscape of that island and the hazy purple mist. Even a fool could tell this isn't a good place, right?"
"I don't care, I'm going!"
Although Luffy thought Nami's words made some sense, it wasn't enough to dissuade him from going to the island.
And... this seemingly desolate landscape is even more exciting, isn't it? Maybe there's some interesting adventure waiting for us on the island!
"That purple gas is poisonous. Although the concentration is very low now, it will still have some impact on the body if you get it on you!" Xia Chen suddenly said to everyone.
Hearing this Nami breathed a sigh of relief, a smile appearing on her face. She looked at Luffy and said:
"Look, Xia Chen said it's poisonous gas, and it will cause great harm to our bodies..."
"But I can protect ourselves from the effects of these poisonous gases!"
Before Nami could finish speaking, Xia Chen's words froze her expression, which hadn't been happy for long. Then, she mechanically turned her head to look at Xia Chen.
"What you mean by this is..."
"This island is indeed quite interesting, there's no harm in going to take a look!" Xia Chen said with a faint smile.
Nami turned to look at everyone and noticed that most of them had an interested look on their faces, except for Chopper!
Even Usopp looked excited, but for his own safety, he still asked Xia Chen to confirm:
" Xia Chen, are you sure you can block out these poisonous gases?"
"Don't worry, it's all covered!" Xia Chen replied calmly, his tone full of confidence.
Who says Water Avoidance Technique can only repel water? It can easily isolate poisonous gas, okay?
Let alone the low concentration of poison gas in Punk Hazard, even the Land of Death created by Caesar in the original work could be freely strolled around in as if it were one's own backyard without any impact whatsoever!
Seeing that everyone wanted to go to the island, Nami sighed helplessly.
What could she do now? Everyone else had gone, so she had no choice but to go too.
I just hope nothing bad happens on this island! Nami thought to herself as she looked at Punk Hazard...