The Thousand Sunny towards the " Island of Oblivion " Akasha, the surrounding sea gradually shrouded in a thick, grayish-white fog that seemed almost tangible. Visibility plummeted, and even the sound of the waves became muffled and distant, as if absorbed by the heavy fog. The air was filled with a damp, chilly atmosphere, and an indescribable sense of antiquity, like opening a cellar sealed for a thousand years.
"This fog... it's so thick." Nami gripped the Log Pose tightly; it trembled slightly, seemingly affected by interference, but stubbornly continued to point deeper into the fog. "Everyone, be careful, keep your distance, don't get separated!"
Usopp and Chopper were already hugging each other, trembling. "I knew it! There was definitely something strange about this place!"
"I feel so suffocated..." Chopper's little hooves clung tightly to Usopp.
Luffy, however, enthusiastically stretched out his arm, trying to catch the drifting mist. "Oh! I can't catch it!"
Zoro clutched his sword, cautiously surveying his surroundings. In this environment, his sense of direction seemed even more precarious.
Sanji lit a cigarette, the smoke blending into the thick fog, making it almost impossible to see. "What terrible weather. I hope the ladies on the island don't get cold."
Franky turned on the ship's searchlights, but the beams could only penetrate a short distance in the thick fog, proving ineffective.
Brook tilted his head (even though he was just bones): "Yo ho ho ho~ Even my bones feel a chill, even though I don't have skin..."
Robin stood quietly by the ship, reaching out to touch the cool mist, lost in thought.
Jinbe calmly steered the ship, relying on his sense of the water flow to navigate the fog with difficulty.
The flames in Ace's hands appeared somewhat dim here, as if their light had been swallowed by the mist. "This mist seems to absorb energy and light?"
Allen stood at the bow, a barely perceptible glint of light flickering in the depths of his eyes. His perception, like invisible tentacles, penetrated deep into this strange mist. It was not merely water vapor; it contained extremely faint yet omnipresent fragments of information and a stagnant sense of time. It was as if countless memories, sounds, and images had been shattered and dissolved into this mist, forming this graveyard of information, a quagmire of time.
"It's not just a fog," Allen said slowly, his voice exceptionally clear in the silence, "This is... the graveyard of memories. Countless broken, forgotten fragments have settled here, interfering with reality."
As if to confirm his words, some indistinct, intermittent sounds suddenly emerged from the thick fog—children's laughter, the clash of swords, the roar of waves, the chanting of some ancient language... These sounds intertwined, forming a dizzying cacophony. Occasionally, the fog would condense into some indistinct, fleeting, blurry images.
"Whoa! A ghost!" Usopp screamed in fright.
"Is... is it something that happened in the past?" Chopper hid behind Zoro, both afraid and curious.
Robin tried to make out the sounds and images, but they were too fragmented to be pieced together. "The information was vast, but incomplete, like torn pages of a book."
Just then, the Thousand Sunny seemed to break through some invisible barrier, and the surrounding fog suddenly thinned. The outline of an island appeared and disappeared in the mist.
It was not the desolate or terrifying place I had imagined. Through the thin mist, I could see the outline of a city on the island, but the buildings were ancient and peculiar, many of them dilapidated and covered with some kind of eerie moss. The entire island was quiet, without any lights or signs of human habitation, like a huge tomb forgotten by time, sleeping for thousands of years.
The Log Pose remained fixed on this desolate island.
"That's... Akasha?" Nami felt a chill run down her spine.
"It looks... like nobody lives here." Luffy tilted his head.
"An empty city?" Sanji frowned.
Allen's senses, like the finest radar, swept across the island. He could "see" the long-dried traces of life remaining in the city, and feel the profound sorrow and... a kind of unwilling obsession that permeated the entire island. More importantly, he sensed that at the center of the island, there was an exceptionally powerful yet stagnant collective consciousness, like a huge, dormant vortex, unconsciously absorbing and organizing the fragments of memory in the surrounding mist.
"It's not empty," Allen's voice carried a hint of solemnity, "Sleeping there... is the 'past' itself."
The Thousand Sunny slowly approached the desolate dock on Akasha Island. As the ship gently touched the rocks on the shore, it was as if a switch had been flipped, and the glowing moss on the island suddenly lit up for a moment before returning to its original state.
The exploration of the Island of Oblivion has officially begun. What the Straw Hat Pirates doesn't know is that on this land, forgetting may be more dangerous than remembering.