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Thriller Bark.
As the name implied, this island ship was a bizarre and terrifying place.
Countless twisted plants and grotesque creatures existed upon the island.
Or rather, calling them "creatures" was not entirely accurate.
Because in truth... they were corpses that moved.
Hideous stitching marks covered their bodies, sewing together humans and animals, humans and plants, and even humans with other humans.
Yet strangely enough, these corpses, which should never have possessed life, could not only speak and move, but even displayed distinct personalities of their own.
And the reason for that was…
"Fushi!" "Fushi!"
"As expected of Lord Moria's powers! Fuuu, although it's exhausting, the zombies produced this time are even stronger!"
Deep within the ancient and bizarre castle at the center of Thriller Bark, a vulgar-looking man dressed in strange mesh clothing and high heels laughed obscenely.
"Thank you for your hard work. Please go die now, Lord Hogback."
Beside him, a beautiful but expressionless female zombie maid replied coldly.
That was Hogback's zombie servant, Victoria Cindry.
"Eh!?" Dr. Hogback was instantly struck by emotional damage.
"Y-you want me to die?"
"Please do so at once."
"You actually admitted it!?"
And just as master and servant continued their usual routine of verbally attacking each other…
"Hee-shishishishi!"
A massive figure within the shadows before them let out a shrill laugh.
"Well done! I knew I could trust you with this; these are the corpses of the great pirate 'Kentara' and his officers from seventy years ago. Only your stitching techniques and corpse restoration skills could make them this perfect, Hogback, my loyal subordinate!"
"And paired with the Shadow of the famous South Blue swordsman 'Bear-Slayer' Aradon... a perfect combination!"
The speaker was a gigantic, obese man with a protruding horn on his forehead, an unnaturally long neck, and extremely sharp teeth and ears.
From any angle, his appearance could only be described as monstrous.
Naturally, it suited Thriller Bark perfectly.
"Oh, you flatter me, Lord Moria."
And Dr. Hogback's response naturally revealed the man's identity.
One of the infamous Seven Warlords of the Sea, the master of Thriller Bark…
Gecko Moria.
"After all, I rarely used to stitch corpses together..." Hogback grinned widely.
As a genius surgeon of the past, the things he once stitched were naturally the wounds of living patients. Only after partnering with Moria eight years ago had he changed professions and begun stitching together corpses instead.
And so he understood very well…
"Fushifushi... my techniques still aren't 'perfect.'"
"After all this experimentation, I've realized that only the freshest corpses of truly powerful individuals, combined with the most perfect stitching techniques and the strongest Shadows, can create truly 'perfect' zombies."
At this point, he sounded somewhat regretful.
Because it was obvious, he was still far from achieving all three conditions.
"Hee-shishishishi, no rush."
But Moria merely reclined with his hands behind his head as he spoke casually.
"In the future, you'll help me conquer the seas and become Pirate King. By then, there won't be any shortage of powerful corpses and Shadows..."
As he spoke, Moria suddenly seemed to remember something.
"Oh right, where are Absalom and Perona?"
He sounded somewhat puzzled.
"Today is the day we test the new zombies. Why hasn't she come yet?"
And just after those words…
Buzz!
A man with a lion-like face and wearing a trench coat suddenly appeared out of thin air within the room.
"Gao!"
He first let out a beast-like roar before speaking.
"She's probably still asleep. You know how hard it is to wake her once she falls asleep. Want me to go get her now?"
"Hee-shishishishi... her morning temper is awful. Forget it."
Moria was actually quite tolerant toward his subordinates.
"Since she's not coming, then we'll conduct the test ourselves…"
"BOOOOM!"
He never got to finish his sentence.
Because at that moment, the entire castle began to shake violently.
"Waaah!"
Dr. Hogback crashed awkwardly onto the floor. His round glasses tilted crookedly, and several surgical knives ruthlessly stabbed into his backside.
"S-so painful..."
"Are you dying, Lord Hogback?"
"I'm not dying at all!"
While master and servant continued tormenting one another, Absalom straightened himself up.
"What's going on? A seaquake?"
Naturally, he understood the sheer weight of this terrifying three-masted ship.
As an island ship, even the storms of the Grand Line should not have been capable of shaking it this violently.
Only a seaquake could possibly make it tremble to such an extent.
"No…"
But at this moment, Gecko Moria frowned deeply.
It had been far too long since he had personally fought in battle, and many of his instincts had naturally dulled over time.
But even so…
At this moment, he still felt something on a primal level.
"Open the windows!"
Thus, he immediately ordered the nearby zombies to throw open the windows.
And once the windows were opened, from the towering height of the castle, they instantly saw the entirety of the outside scene.
At this moment, the Florian Triangle, forever shrouded in dense fog and normally possessing eerily calm seas, had transformed into something utterly different.
"WHOOOSH!"
Unprecedented gales howled wildly through the air, uprooting and toppling every tree within the giant forest covering the island ship.
Massive waves slammed against the vessel, while the dense fog churned faster than ever before.
"BOOOOM!"
Above the pitch-black sky, deafening lightning exploded continuously. Silver-white bolts danced wildly like countless serpents.
"A storm... tempests and thunderclouds?"
"This is way too exaggerated! Even the New World rarely sees weather like this... how could something like this appear in the Florian Triangle?"
"Lord Hogback should stop speaking nonsense when he doesn't understand anything. You should go die first instead."
"Eh? Cindry, don't say things like that to me."
Absalom and Dr. Hogback instinctively came to such conclusions when they saw the horrifying natural phenomenon.
But…
Gulp.
At this moment, they clearly heard the sound of Moria swallowing nervously beside them.
"Lord Moria?"
And when they turned their heads, they saw that the Warlord's body had gone completely rigid.
His entire body trembled violently. His enormous fists clenched so tightly that cracking sounds echoed out, and even his eyes seemed to twitch uncontrollably.
"N-no... it's not a natural phenomenon..."
He spoke with a trembling voice.
Memories, many years old, yet still chilling to the bone, surged through his mind.
Because now, within the dense fog, he could already vaguely make out that colossal figure.
Its body coiled like a mountain range, its massive dragon horns resembling a crown amidst the mist.
Every movement of its limbs stirred wind and thunder while sweeping through blazing cloud-fire.
"That's... that's..."
At this moment, Absalom and Dr. Hogback also gradually saw the creature more clearly.
"A DRAGON!?"
THUD!
The instant that word was spoken, Moria collapsed to the ground almost reflexively.
"Kaido... Kaido, how could he have chased me here? He shouldn't have been able to find me..."
At this moment, he resembled a fish thrown onto dry land. Even speaking and breathing had become difficult.
But only moments later…
"...Huh!?"
Moria suddenly noticed something strange.
Because the figure emerging from the fog truly was a dragon, just like the monster from his memories.
But there was one crucial difference.
"The color..."
He saw the dragon soaring through the sky. Faint flames surrounded its long body, yet its scales were still clearly visible… They were crimson red.
"Red!?"
Not azure blue.
Which meant…
"It's not Kaido!?"
Moria realized this unbelievable fact, and only then did he notice other details.
For example, the sea-beast mask fused almost seamlessly onto the dragon's face.
And the skeleton dangling from the dragon's whiskers, swaying in the wind.
"This guy is..."
At that moment, Moria's eyes flashed with immense wariness, and an unprecedented burning excitement.
And in the next instant, all of Thriller Bark heard the voice of that colossal being.
"'The Twelve Zodiac'... Shinryu."
"I have come to pay a visit... and to retrieve a few things."
(End of Chapter)