Chapter 706

Far within the unpredictable seas of the Grand Line lay an island that the world had long since abandoned to rot. Sailors whispered of it in taverns with lowered voices, pirates sought it out as a sanctuary beyond the reach of the law, and the World Government pretended it no longer existed at all.

The island no longer possessed an official name. Maps referred to it differently depending on the region— Dead Crown Isle, The Forsaken Kingdom, Blackwater Haven. None of those names were real. The island’s true name had been erased so thoroughly from history that not even the scholars of Ohara had possessed complete records of it before their destruction.

Yet three centuries ago, this forsaken land had once rivaled Arabasta in both power and prosperity. At the height of its glory, colossal ivory cities stretched across fertile valleys and towering cliffs. Vast ports welcomed merchants from every corner of the world, while massive fleets bearing the kingdom’s crest dominated nearby trade routes.

More than a few million citizens had once lived beneath its banner. Its rulers were said to possess immeasurable wealth, advanced craftsmanship, and influence that reached deep into the political heart of the world itself. Then, almost overnight, the kingdom vanished.

Official records claimed the monarchy had fallen into corruption and depravity — that its nobles secretly funded pirate crews, trafficked weapons, harbored criminals, and conspired against the stability of the world. The World Government declared the kingdom an enemy of peace and launched a devastating purge in the name of justice.

Battleships descended upon the island like divine punishment. Entire cities burned. Royal bloodlines disappeared. Libraries were reduced to ash. Monuments were torn down stone by stone. Every mention of the kingdom’s name was systematically erased from official history. And over time... the truth disappeared with it.

No one alive knew whether the accusations had been real or fabricated. No surviving testimony remained. Three hundred years of censorship and fear had buried the past beneath layers of silence. The island itself became little more than a stain upon the world map — a cursed reminder of what happened to nations that stood against the established order.

Centuries later, the once-great kingdom had decayed into a shadow of its former self. Where millions had once thrived, barely a hundred thousand souls remained scattered across the island’s crumbling settlements. Ancient marble roads now lay cracked beneath weeds and swampwater. Half-collapsed cathedrals leaned over districts consumed by poverty and vice. The skeletal remains of royal fortresses still loomed atop distant cliffs like the corpses of forgotten giants.

The Marines rarely patrolled the island directly anymore. Officially, it remained under World Government jurisdiction, but in practice, it had been abandoned decades ago. The island carried too much stigma, too much blood, too much lawlessness to ever truly reclaim. And nature abhorred a vacuum.

Pirates came first. Then smugglers. Then bounty hunters, black-market traders, assassins, escaped convicts, traffickers, information brokers, and every breed of criminal rejected by civilized society.

Over generations, the island transformed into something unique within the Grand Line—neither a true nation nor complete anarchy. Calling it merely a "pirate haven" failed to capture its strange reality. Because despite its filth and brutality, the island possessed rules. Not laws written by kings or enforced by the Marines, but ancient understandings born from survival itself.

No large-scale slaughter within residential districts. No destruction of ports that sustained commerce. No slave raids against native islanders. No unnecessary conflict that would invite a Buster Call upon the island again. Break those rules, and even pirates would turn against you.

The islanders themselves had adapted to coexist with the darkness surrounding them. Shopkeepers sold supplies equally to civilians and wanted criminals. Doctors treated pirates without asking questions. Tavern owners offered neutral ground where rival crews could drink without bloodshed—most of the time. Children grew up hearing stories from murderers and mercenaries as casually as others heard bedtime tales from grandparents.

Crime was not merely tolerated there. It had become woven into the island’s survival. Many locals even viewed pirates less as invaders and more as necessary predators within an ecosystem that sustained everyone. The black markets kept the economy alive. Smuggling routes brought medicine and food. Criminal syndicates maintained order where no government remained.

It was ugly. Violent. Morally rotten. But it worked. At the center of the island stood the ruined capital of the forgotten kingdom — a sprawling graveyard of shattered palaces, flooded courtyards, and enormous statues whose faces had been deliberately destroyed centuries ago. Entire districts beneath the city had sunk underground, forming labyrinthine tunnels now occupied by gangs, fugitives, and things far worse.

Rumors persisted that somewhere beneath those ruins lay the truth of what had truly happened three hundred years ago. Ancient records. Forbidden treasures. Evidence the World Government had killed to conceal. Most dismissed such stories as drunken fantasy. But in the Grand Line, forgotten truths had a dangerous habit of surviving.

The royal catacombs had not felt the touch of living men for nearly three centuries. Buried beneath layers of collapsed earth and forgotten ruins, the ancient necropolis slumbered beneath the dead kingdom like a sealed wound the world had desperately tried to erase. Entire passageways had caved in long ago, forcing even a man like Dracule Mihawk to carve his way through mountains of stone and roots simply to descend deeper into the darkness.

The deeper he traveled, the older the air became. It was stale. Suffocating. Heavy with the scent of ancient dust, dried decay, and stone untouched by sunlight since before the current age of piracy had even begun. Every footstep echoed unnaturally through the hollow corridors, as if the dead themselves were listening.

The catacombs were colossal. This had not been a mere burial site for nobles—it was an underground city of the dead. Towering pillars lined the endless corridors, though many now leaned at dangerous angles, fractured by earthquakes and time. Massive statues of forgotten kings and queens stood decapitated in the darkness, their faces deliberately destroyed centuries ago by invaders seeking to erase every trace of the kingdom’s identity.

Ancient murals stretched across the cracked walls, barely visible beneath grime and mold. Mihawk’s sharp eyes could still make out fragments of them—scenes of immense fleets crossing storm-ridden seas, warriors kneeling before strange black stones, and a radiant kingdom standing proudly beneath a sun-shaped crest that no longer existed anywhere in recorded history.

Then there were the skeletons. Thousands of them. Not peacefully buried. Scattered across collapsed chambers and shattered stairways, many still wore rusted armor or royal garments reduced to threads. Some remained huddled together near sealed gates, as though entire families had hidden here during the kingdom’s final moments, only to die trapped beneath the earth as the world above burned.

And through it all, silence ruled supreme. Not the silence of peace. The silence of something forgotten by history itself. Finally, after crossing three massive burial chambers and descending deeper beneath the island than any living soul likely had in centuries, Mihawk entered the heart of the royal crypt.

The burial chamber was enormous. Even in ruin, its scale was breathtaking. Half-collapsed arches stretched high overhead like the ribs of some ancient beast, while cracks in the ceiling allowed roots thicker than ship masts to snake downward into the chamber. Black water pooled across the fractured marble floor, reflecting the faint glow of Mihawk’s torchlight.

And there, at the very center of the chamber, stood the stone. The flame from Mihawk’s torch flickered violently the moment he stepped closer, the darkness itself seeming to drink the firelight whole. A massive square block of black stone towered before him.

The Poneglyph. Dust coated its surface in thick layers, untouched for centuries, yet the stone itself remained immaculate. Unscarred by time. Unbroken by collapse. Eternal. Ancient characters carved across its surface glimmered faintly beneath the dust like the lingering ghost of history refusing to die.

The entire chamber felt wrong around it. As though the stone possessed a presence of its own.

Mihawk’s golden eyes narrowed slightly. "...Is this why the country was purged?" he muttered quietly.

His voice echoed through the chamber before being swallowed by the oppressive stillness.

This was not the first Poneglyph Mihawk had encountered. But it was the first time he viewed one differently. Not merely as a relic. But as a weapon against time itself.

He stepped forward slowly, torch in one hand while Yoru rested across his back in absolute silence. Reaching out, Mihawk placed his gloved hand upon the cold black surface. To most people, it would have felt like ordinary stone. To Mihawk—it felt alive.

Not literally. But spiritually. Dense. Heavy. Endless. A will lingered within it. Rosinante had once told him about the possibility—that the Poneglyphs were not simply carved stones, but monuments infused with Haki so profound that they had endured for over eight centuries untouched by decay or destruction.

Mihawk believed it now. Because he could feel it. The same way a master swordsman could feel the soul of a blade. Infusing Haki into objects was not foreign to him. After all, Mihawk himself had transformed Yoru into a Black Blade through years of relentless refinement and overwhelming willpower. He understood better than almost anyone alive the monstrous level of Haki required to permanently alter an object.

And yet this...? This was beyond even that. This was an entire monolith infused with enough willpower to survive eight hundred years buried beneath kingdoms, earthquakes, floods, and war. Mihawk’s gaze sharpened. There were only two explanations.

Either the Kozuki family of Wano possessed some forgotten technique capable of pooling together the Haki and will of countless individuals into a single object...or someone from the ancient world had possessed strength so overwhelming that they alone could force their will upon stone itself for eternity.

The very thought was absurd. And yet the evidence stood directly before him. His hand slid slowly across the dust-laden surface before finally withdrawing. Truthfully, Mihawk would never have bothered with this excavation had Rosinante not personally requested a rubbing of the Poneglyph as a favor. Since he was already traveling through the first half of the Grand Line, he had agreed.

But now...now his curiosity had awakened. Mihawk took a slow step backward. "Indestructible... Huh?" A faint smirk touched his lips. "I wonder..." The air shifted.

Without another word, Mihawk unclipped the massive cylindrical pack strapped across his back—the tools meant for recording the Poneglyph’s text—and casually tossed it aside. The bag crashed against the floor with a dull thud that echoed throughout the catacombs.

Then—SHING.

In one impossibly smooth motion, Mihawk drew Yoru. The massive black blade emerged like the unveiling of death itself. The temperature in the chamber seemed to plummet instantly. Mihawk planted his feet firmly against the fractured stone floor and gripped the weapon with both hands, his golden eyes never leaving the Poneglyph before him.

He was going to test it. Not out of arrogance. But because he needed to know. Rosinante had once claimed he managed to leave a mark upon one of these stones. Rosinante had also spoken of monsters like Rocks D. Xebec and Gol D. Roger leaving traces of themselves upon the supposedly indestructible relics. For Mihawk, there was only one conclusion. If other men could mark it, then he would cut it.

BOOOOOM.

The entire catacombs trembled violently. An overwhelming aura exploded outward from the World’s Strongest Swordsman like a natural disaster unleashed underground. Dust cascaded from the ceiling. Ancient pillars cracked. Black water rippled violently across the chamber floor.

Even the darkness itself seemed to recoil.

Yoru trembled within Mihawk’s grasp as torrents of Haki flooded into the blade without restraint. This was not a casual test. Mihawk had no intention of holding back. Invisible pressure crushed the chamber from every direction as his will surged higher and higher, colliding directly against the ancient will embedded within the Poneglyph itself.

And for the first time in centuries, the silent royal catacombs shook as though the dead kingdom itself had awakened. Mihawk narrowed his eyes. Because he could feel it now. The resistance. The crushing pressure emanating from the stone. It was not merely durable. It was as though the accumulated will of an ancient era was pressing back against him—a weight vast enough to challenge even him directly.

The will of the past... refusing to kneel. Mihawk’s lips slowly curled upward. Finally—something worthy of being cut.

Then—it erupted. A monstrous wave of Haoshoku Haki exploded from Dracule Mihawk like the wrath of a sleeping god awakening beneath the earth.

Black lightning detonated across the royal catacombs, violently tearing through the darkness as if the shadows themselves were being devoured. Ancient pillars disintegrated into dust beneath the sheer pressure. The marble floors shattered apart in spiderweb fractures stretching hundreds of meters outward from Mihawk’s feet.

Far above, across the island itself, the earth trembled. Pirates drinking in taverns suddenly froze as their mugs shattered. Smugglers stumbled as entire streets quaked beneath them. Ships anchored along the harbor violently rocked against the tides despite the sea remaining unnaturally still.

And deep beneath the island, the source of the catastrophe stood unmoving.

CRAAAAACK—!

The ancient bedrock supporting the catacombs split apart. Massive fissures tore through the underground chambers as if the island itself could no longer endure Mihawk’s presence. A colossal crater formed around him, swallowing pillars, tombs, and entire sections of the royal crypt into darkness.

But what truly sent terror crawling through the air...

was the manifestation behind him.

His Haki had become visible.

A colossal phantom formed amidst the storm of black lightning—a towering demonic Tengu clad in darkness itself, its burning golden eyes mirroring Mihawk’s own. The spectral giant stood silently behind the swordsman, both hands wrapped around an enormous blade pointed toward the heavens.

It looked less like an aura—and more like a calamity given form. The pressure alone was enough to suffocate weaker men instantly. Mihawk slowly raised Yoru. The Supreme Grade Blade screamed.

Green torrents of Haki poured into the black sword so violently that the air around the blade warped and twisted under the strain. Black lightning coiled around Yoru like dragons fighting for dominance, while the edge itself glowed with a terrifying emerald radiance capable of splitting the night apart.

Mihawk’s hawk-like eyes narrowed. For the first time in years—he poured everything into a single strike. Every ounce of skill. Every ounce of Haki. Every ounce of willpower.

"Ittōryū ōgi..." The chamber collapsed around him as his voice echoed like thunder through the abyss. "RENGOKU...!"

BOOOOOOOOOOM—!!!

The slash descended. The world split apart. A blinding green arc of destruction erupted from Yoru, tearing through the underground kingdom with apocalyptic force. The slash carved upward through layers upon layers of earth as though the island itself were paper before Mihawk’s blade.

The surface of the island exploded.

Across the dead kingdom, an enormous emerald line erupted from beneath the earth and surged across the landmass at impossible speed. Mountains split apart. Forests vanished into spiraling shockwaves. Entire districts cracked down the middle as the attack threatened to cleave the island cleanly in half.

Even the heavens reacted. The clouds above the island were violently torn apart as a massive green fissure illuminated the night sky itself, stretching beyond the horizon like the scar of a god’s judgment. No one understood what was happening.

Pirates stared upward in horror. Civilians collapsed as overwhelming Haki washed over the island like a tsunami. Some believed the island was being destroyed by an ancient weapon. Others thought the end of the world had arrived. But none of them knew the truth.

That all of this devastation...was merely the aftermath of a single swordsman testing his blade. And then—the slash met the stone. Yoru collided with the Poneglyph. The impact did not produce sound immediately. For one impossible moment, the entire world seemed to freeze.

Then reality screamed. The collision unleashed a shockwave so violent that the remaining catacombs vaporized instantly. Entire underground chambers disappeared into nothingness as compressed force exploded outward in every direction. Yet the Poneglyph remained standing.

The black stone radiated an ancient glow as the inscriptions across its surface illuminated one by one. And then Mihawk felt it fully. The will inside the stone awakened. It was vast. Ancient. Overwhelming beyond reason.

The pressure crashing against Mihawk no longer felt like mere Haki—it felt as though the weight of centuries, civilizations, and forgotten history itself was resisting his blade. As though the world refused to allow this monument to fall. Black lightning erupted wildly as Mihawk’s Haoshoku clashed directly against the ancient will embedded within the stone.

Two monstrous forces collided. One was the ambition of the current era’s greatest swordsman—a man who stood alone at the summit of bladesmanship. The other...was the lingering will of an age buried by history itself. The dead refusing to yield. The catacombs became a warzone of Haki.

The spectral Tengu behind Mihawk roared soundlessly as Yoru pressed harder against the Poneglyph. Green shockwaves tore through the underground abyss while black lightning split the darkness apart endlessly.

For several seconds, neither side yielded. It was less a clash of strength—and more a battle of existence itself. Could the will of one man surpass the will of eight hundred years?

Then slowly...the pressure began to recede. Like the tide retreating from shore. The emerald radiance faded. The black lightning dispersed into the darkness. The monstrous Tengu vanished piece by piece into drifting shadows. Silence returned. Or what little remained of it.

The royal catacombs were gone. Utterly destroyed. The enormous underground kingdom had collapsed entirely, and soon countless tons of earth would bury the ruins forever once more. Dust clouds rolled endlessly through the abyss as fractured stone rained from above. At the center of the devastation stood Mihawk. Calm. Motionless.

SHINK.

He slowly sheathed Yoru. "Tch..." His eyes settled upon the Poneglyph. "...I’m still not good enough, am I?" The ancient black stone still stood like an immovable titan amidst the destruction. Unbroken. Unaffected. Almost.

A single shallow scar now stretched across one side of the Poneglyph where Yoru had struck. Just one mark. Barely enough to be called damage. If anyone in the world had witnessed what Mihawk had just accomplished, they would have fallen to their knees calling him a monster... perhaps even a god.

To scar a Poneglyph at all bordered on impossible. Yet Mihawk felt no pride. Only dissatisfaction. Only the burning frustration that there still existed something his blade could not fully cut. For a swordsman like him— that truth ignited obsession.

But after a moment, the disappointment faded from his expression as quickly as it had appeared. If cutting a Poneglyph were truly easy, then Rosinante would have done it long ago and never stopped bragging about it afterward. A faint smirk tugged at Mihawk’s lips at the thought. Then his eyes drifted toward the discarded cylindrical bag lying half-buried beneath rubble.

"...Shit." For the first time since unleashing an attack capable of bisecting an island, Mihawk looked mildly annoyed. "I forgot the rubbing." He rubbed his forehead with a sigh before walking over and retrieving the bag from the debris. "Maybe I should’ve tested cutting it after making the copy..." Dust continued falling around him as Mihawk glanced back at the newly scarred Poneglyph.

"...Rosinante’s going to nag me endlessly about that mark showing up on the rubbing." And with the dead kingdom collapsing into ruin around him once more, the World’s Strongest Swordsman simply adjusted Yoru at his back and calmly prepared to finish the job he originally came for.

****

Unknown to Dracule Mihawk, the island above had descended into complete chaos. Those few brief seconds of overwhelming pressure had shaken the entire landmass to its core. The tremors alone had split roads apart and collapsed already unstable ruins, but it was not the earthquake that truly terrified the people of the island.

It was the feeling. That monstrous suffocating presence that had descended upon everyone without warning. For one horrifying instant, every living being on the island had felt death breathing directly down their necks.

Pirates who had slaughtered entire crews collapsed to their knees gasping for air. Hardened bounty hunters instinctively reached for weapons with trembling hands. Even the island’s criminal overlords—men who ruled through fear and bloodshed—had frozen under the crushing weight of that unseen force.

Many genuinely believed the island itself was about to sink. Yet this was still the Grand Line. And this island in particular had long since become home to society’s refuse. Murderers. Traffickers. Smugglers. Escaped convicts. Survivors. People hardened enough by violence that even terror eventually became just another obstacle to endure.

So after several tense minutes, the panic slowly began settling into uneasy confusion. One such place struggling to regain order was an enormous ruined fortress near the island’s eastern district—once a royal watchtower centuries ago, now converted into the headquarters of one of the island’s largest criminal syndicates.

The structure looked like a corpse of forgotten nobility. Half-collapsed stone walls surrounded a massive open courtyard littered with broken cannons, rusted cages, and drying bloodstains that never truly faded from the old stone. Makeshift wooden platforms connected shattered towers while armed men patrolled the fortress carrying rifles, sabers, and axes.

Hundreds of criminals operated under this syndicate’s banner. Pirates, bounty hunters, mercenaries, slave traders, assassins — all tied to the underground world in one way or another. The courtyard buzzed with chaos as members shouted over each other trying to make sense of the sudden catastrophe.

"Was that an earthquake...?!"

"No way in hell that was natural!"

"The harbor nearly split apart!"

"Shut up and check the perimeter!"

At the center of the courtyard stood a broad-shouldered man barking orders while smoke curled from the cigar clenched between his teeth. Unlike the others, he remained calm. Dangerous. The type of man who maintained control not through loyalty but through fear.

Then suddenly—a shrill scream tore through the fortress. Every head turned. A massive, burly man emerged from one of the lower corridors, dragging a little girl across the muddy stone ground by her hair. The child looked no older than eight or nine.

Her pale body was covered in bruises, both old and fresh. One eye was swollen nearly shut while dried blood stained the corner of her mouth. Her torn clothes barely hung together anymore, exposing countless lash marks and fading scars spread across her thin arms and legs. Her pink hair, once likely vibrant and soft, had become tangled and filthy from neglect and abuse.

Yet despite being dragged like an animal—she still glared at them. The little girl clawed desperately at the man’s wrist as he hauled her forward, her small fingers bloody from struggling against him.

"The little wench tried to escape during the commotion!" the burly man snarled. Without slowing down, he violently hurled her across the courtyard. The child crashed into the muddy ground like a ragdoll, skidding several feet before finally stopping near the syndicate leader’s boots.

"That bitch took a chunk outta my hand too!" The brute raised his bleeding palm furiously. A clean piece of flesh had indeed been torn away near the thumb, teeth marks still visible. The gathered criminals laughed cruelly.

"Savage little rat."

"Should’ve broken her legs already."

"She’s got spirit, I’ll give her that."

The leader exhaled smoke slowly before crouching beside the girl. Unlike the others, his expression carried no immediate rage. In fact... he almost looked gentle.

"Did you really have to beat her this badly?" he asked lazily without even glancing at the burly man. The little girl trembled instinctively as his hand brushed her tangled hair aside. That fake kindness terrified her more than the beatings. The leader gently rolled her onto her back, revealing the full extent of the bruising covering her tiny body.

"Despite everything I’ve given you..." he said softly. "Food. Shelter. Protection on an island where children disappear every day..." His smile widened slightly. "...you still want to run away?"

The little girl said nothing. She only glared at him through swollen eyes. That was enough. The smile vanished instantly.

CRACK.

His fist slammed directly into her stomach. The child folded violently as blood sprayed from her mouth. Before she could even scream, another blow smashed across her face hard enough to send her sprawling through the mud. The courtyard fell silent except for the sounds of impact. The leader rose slowly before grabbing the girl by the throat and lifting her into the air effortlessly.

"You ungrateful little parasite," he hissed, all warmth gone from his voice. "Do you know how much money people would pay for a Devil Fruit like yours?"

SLAM.

He smashed her into the stone ground hard enough to crack it. "You should be thanking me." Another kick slammed into her ribs. "Without us, you’d already be dead."

Again.

Again.

Again.

Each strike was merciless. Deliberate. The kind of violence meant not merely to hurt but to break someone mentally. Yet the little girl refused to scream anymore. Curled weakly in the mud, bruised black and blue and barely conscious, she still glared at him with stubborn hatred burning behind tear-filled eyes. That defiance irritated him more than anything.

"Tch." The leader crouched again, gripping her jaw tightly enough to make her whimper. "You’re lucky your devil fruit ability is useful to us," he growled coldly.

"If not for that ability of yours... you have no idea how much worse your fate could’ve been." The little girl’s breathing trembled unevenly. She knew he was right. The only reason she was still alive was because of her Devil Fruit. A strange power she had obtained completely by accident years ago.

At first she hadn’t even understood what had happened to her. Only later, after being captured by this syndicate, had she learned the truth. Learned the name "Devil Fruit." Learned that the ghosts she could create were unnatural powers coveted by monsters.