Infiltrating the Wandenreich

While the whole world was in an uproar over the Big News Morgans, a ship sailed in at this delicate moment outside the God Valley.

It's not a fleet, just a single warship.

At the bow of the ship, two burly men stood side by side, gazing at the island that appeared ahead.

Their eyes held a silent meaning.

"This is the God Valley. It doesn't feel the same as I imagined."

"You've been here before?"

"No."

"Then what do you mean by 'different'?"

"I already said it's all in my imagination."

The warship docked, and Garp and Zephyr disembarked.

As their feet touched the ground of the God Valley, the two of them suddenly froze, as a strange gust of wind swept over them, ruffling their hair.

They looked up and saw that the entire God Valley resembled a post-war landscape, desolate as far as the eye could see.

The grass on the ground had been burned dry, leaving only the black soil still warm, broken tree trunks, burnt leaves, a junkyard-like cluster of buildings, and a broken half of a mountain peak in the distance.

This was the first thing the two of them saw.

"This used to be a country, right? Now it's a desolate wasteland," Zephyr said in a low voice, his tone enigmatic.

"After all, that kind of thing happened." Garp had no intention of joking, and his eyes swept around with a complicated expression.

The matter ended faster than I could have imagined.

When Garp received the order and reluctantly set off, Zephyr said he wanted to come along too.

They can return to the four seas from the Grand Line, unlike pirates who can use the Navy's dedicated route, which allows them to directly cross the Red Line.

But while passing through the Holy Land Mary Geoise, they received news that shocked them.

The World Government has been defeated!

Losing is one thing, but the complete annihilation of the Holy Knights, the death of all Five Elders, the Celestial Dragons on God Valley Island, and all the surrounding Marines are gone—what the hell?!

The most outrageous thing is that they didn't even know how many enemies there were, or who they were!

The extent of the battle damage is outrageous, it's off the charts!

God knows how exaggerated Garp and Zephyr's reactions were when they found out about this.

It's like Kong suddenly calling and saying he wants to break away from the World Government and go it alone... That's absurd!

Besides that, there was another surprising thing.

Surprisingly, the World Government did not completely conceal the information; instead, it openly allowed them to learn some of it.

If this had happened in the past, the World Government's first reaction would have been to suppress it and deal with the Navy as casually as possible.

It seems this blow was really big...

In short, Garp and Zephyr are still on their way to God Valley as ordered, preparing to investigate the place in person.

After giving the order to the marines on the warship to remain in place, the two went directly to the island without taking any soldiers with them, and ventured deep into the island together.

If the intelligence weren't so reliable, Garp would have seriously doubted whether God Valley was actually a deserted island.

The World Government sent him here just to play with him.

"This place is so remote, you can't even see a bird!" Garp complained.

Zephyr didn't speak, but simply observed the surroundings.

This is a main street, and traces of various shops can still be seen in the collapsed buildings on both sides, suggesting that it must have been a bustling commercial street for residents before.

But now everything is destroyed, and the two of them still don't know the cause or the course of events.

Okay, so the World Government is still hiding its true nature.

Garp and Zephyr had no idea what the Celestial Dragons had been doing here before, or why Rocks and his gang had suddenly attacked the place.

It's like they know the outcome, but they're still completely clueless about what happens in the process.

Could it be for treasure?

The two wandered around the God Valley, but there was nothing noteworthy; it was all ruins, as if a meteorite had crashed there and destroyed everything.

"This must be an indigenous person." Zephyr crouched down and pulled a body out of the pile of rocks.

It was a middle-aged man, his face contorted with despair, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, as if he had seen something before he died.

Zephyr reached out and closed his eyes, sighing as if he had sighed out all the suffering in the world.

"This won't work. We're completely clueless. We won't find any useful information unless we turn this island upside down!" Garp rubbed his head in frustration.

"We've only just come in, what's the rush? No matter how much you say, important information won't just pop up on its own." Zephyr stood up from the ground.

"No... it's really out!" Garp paused for a moment, then suddenly pointed in a certain direction.

Zephyr turned his head and was immediately stunned.

It was a completely collapsed building, and wisps of black smoke, like the lingering smoke from burning firewood, were rising from the gaps between the piled stones and tiles.

The two exchanged a glance, then rushed over and began searching, quickly clearing out an open space.

On the ground, there was a dark, circular pit, with a ring of black flames swirling around the opening, rotating slowly like a whirlpool on the sea.

Not far from this pool of black substance, there was a trail of blood extending from outside. Although it had dried and blurred, it did not escape the eyes of the two men.

Without a doubt, this is something extraordinary, giving one an instinctive sense of unease upon seeing it.

"What the hell?" Zephyr frowned as he looked at it.

"Try it and you'll see!" Garp casually picked up a rock and threw it towards the black hole.

Something surprising happened.

The stone felt no contact with anything; it seemed to have encountered a swamp and sank directly into that black expanse.

Once the large rock had completely disappeared, Garp and Zephyr looked at each other and immediately understood each other's thoughts.

"A trap? Or is there something down there?"

"Just standing here chatting won't get us anywhere if we want to know what's inside."

"Shall we go in?"

"Go in!"

Without further hesitation, the two jumped in together.

The moment their bodies completely disappeared into the black hole, they lost their sense of time and space, becoming disoriented and unable to distinguish front from back, left from right.

All I could feel was myself falling downwards, faster and faster, until it was almost imperceptible.

Fifty meters... four hundred meters...

Zephyr was tense all over, silently calculating.

But he soon couldn't keep calculating anymore; he even began to wonder whether he was falling or rising higher.

They couldn't even tell which way was up or down.

When the darkness suddenly vanished and light flooded into my eyes, the world suddenly became different.

Garp's eyes widened, and what came into view was a world of two colors: the sky was pitch black, and the earth was pure white.

On this gleaming white ground, buildings of varying heights sit, filling the field of vision.

Like a castle steeped in history, an ancient palace frozen in ice, vast expanses of white buildings, square skyscrapers with pointed roofs, and a plaza paved with silver-gray bricks and straight, round columns...

The vast, empty world was crowded with numerous buildings, with passageways connecting them in all directions.

The sky was clearly black, yet a light from who-knows-where enveloped the entire world in a cold hue, making one feel chilled to the bone.

A bead of cold sweat clung to Garp's forehead as he felt a chill run down his spine at the sudden, earth-shattering change.

"Where exactly is this place...?"