Before long, Garling and Saint Saturn left the camp together and headed for Pangaea Castle.
...
At the port beneath the Red Line, a massive transport ship arrived as well.
Katakuri appeared to be in charge of the vessel. He was walking down the gangway when Momonga stepped forward to meet him.
"Did everything go smoothly?"
Katakuri nodded calmly.
"Fairly smoothly. But that thing is just too big. To really haul it out, we would've had to completely dismantle Wano Country's 'Wall of Isolation.' We didn't have the time, and Ortoren was pushing hard, so we only managed to dismantle and bring back its main cannon intact…"
As he said this, the composure on Katakuri's face cracked slightly, a trace of awe flashing in his eyes as if he'd recalled something unforgettable.
Momonga followed his gaze toward the enormous transport ship, curiosity impossible to hide.
The subject they were discussing was, of course, the ancient weapon Pluto, hidden in Wano Country for centuries.
When Ortoren had first sent Katakuri to Wano Country to dig out Pluto, Katakuri had been completely stunned.
One of the three ancient weapons said to be capable of destroying the world… Pluto was actually in Wano Country?
He wasn't the only one shocked. Kaidou had been just as dumbfounded. After ruling Wano for so many years, Kaidou had never known that one of the ancient weapons was hidden right under his nose.
If he'd discovered it earlier and managed to use it, wouldn't he have already been unstoppable?
Unfortunately for him, it was far too late for regret now.
"Can the main cannon still be used after being taken apart?" Momonga asked as he led Katakuri toward the center of the camp. "It sat there for centuries without any problems, but what if dismantling it damaged something…"
Katakuri sighed with feeling.
"That's all thanks to Master Tom. Otherwise, that thing looked like a single, seamless whole. There was no way to dismantle it, and honestly, no one would've dared. You have no idea, but according to the blueprints, Pluto has a self-destruct mechanism. If we'd accidentally triggered it during disassembly, it would've detonated instantly. Forget the people on site, the entire Wano Country would've been wiped out."
This was another thing that had left Katakuri shaken.
Not only did Ortoren know where the existing Pluto was hidden, but one of his subordinates, the master shipwright who oversaw all shipbuilding for the New World Marines, the Fish-Man Tom, actually possessed the complete blueprints for the ancient weapon Pluto.
When Katakuri arrived in Wano Country and realized there was no way to extract Pluto in a short amount of time, he immediately contacted Ortoren and explained the situation. Ortoren didn't hesitate at all and sent over a specialist.
At first, Katakuri thought Master Tom had come to rely on his decades of shipbuilding experience to study Pluto's structure, maybe figure out how to dismantle its main cannon.
He never expected Tom to arrive with the complete blueprints in hand. His understanding of Pluto was astonishingly thorough. With a few of his apprentices, he spent four or five days working nonstop, and in the end, they cleanly removed Pluto's main cannon along with its energy reactor.
Soon after, guided by Momonga, Katakuri entered the command tent.
Inside, he saw Ortoren and Sakazuki standing over a blueprint spread across the table, writing and sketching as they discussed something.
"The intelligence on the God's Knights has been compiled and cross-verified by Spandine and Stussy," Ortoren said, pointing at several documents on the table. "We can already confirm some fairly accurate information. For example, the God's Knights currently have nineteen members. One of them is the Supreme Commander, Garling, the current head of the Figarland family. There are also five so-called Great Knights said to rival our Marine Admirals. Those six are combat forces worth paying close attention to. As for the remaining twelve, their exact strength is unknown, but since they're part of the Celestial Dragons' strongest armed force, they must have some real ability."
Sakazuki snorted, his expression disdainful.
"So now just anyone dares to claim they can rival Marine Admirals?"
Leaving aside an abnormal existence like Ortoren, Sakazuki himself had absolute confidence in his own strength. On these seas, there were people who could reach his level, but they were few and far between.
A bunch of noble enforcers holed up in Mary Geoise, claiming they had five Admiral-level fighters and a commander who might even be stronger than an Admiral?
Did they really expect him to believe that?
Which Marine Admiral hadn't fought their way up through life-and-death battles?
These pampered nobles either amuse themselves with so-called human hunts or rot away in Mary Geoise. And they think they're qualified to measure themselves against a Navy Admiral?
"Hahahaha! That really makes it sound like us Admirals are just common cabbages," Ortoren said, laughing along.
Maybe in terms of raw, surface-level strength, the five Great Knights of the God's Knights could rival Admirals. But when it came to life-and-death combat, real battlefield experience, and clashes between true top-tier fighters, Ortoren absolutely did not believe they could be mentioned in the same breath as Navy Admirals.
That was completely unrealistic. Impossible.
After the laughter faded, Ortoren's expression grew serious.
"But this Garling… he's got something to him. Before I came here, I asked the old woman back home. During the God Valley incident, the Rocks Pirates once fought this so-called God's Knights. Most of them were all flash and no substance, but this guy Garling stood out back then. Otherwise, the old woman wouldn't still remember him. So many years have passed. There's a good chance he's truly grown into someone formidable. He's worth paying close attention to."
Sakazuki listened quietly. After a moment of thought, he said, "If that's the case, then let a real Navy Admiral go and weigh this Garling for himself."
Let's see how this man dares to claim he's stronger than an Admiral.
As he finished speaking, Katakuri and Momonga walked in.
Ortoren was already used to it, but Sakazuki's expression stiffened slightly. After all, Katakuri had once been a notorious pirate with a six-hundred-million-Belly bounty posted at Marine Headquarters, the publicly acknowledged second-in-command of the Big Mom Pirates.
Still, Sakazuki quickly steadied himself.
Thinking it over, the New World Navy—or rather, the Neo Marines—had relied heavily on Katakuri and the Big Mom Pirates during their expansion in the New World over the years.
And now, by making use of the World Government's authority, they had washed their hands clean, stepping ashore as a legitimate power. They were no longer pirates, but a strong, lawful nation of the New World.
Katakuri himself could no longer be viewed through the lens of a pirate. On the surface, his current identity was Ortoren's elder brother and the second prince of Totto Land.
"You're here? How did things go?" Ortoren greeted them.
Sakazuki didn't say anything, only giving a slight nod. Given his personality, that alone was already more than enough. The others understood his temperament and didn't mind.
"The things you wanted have arrived at the port without issue," Katakuri replied with a faint smile.
"Good," Ortoren said, slapping the table in satisfaction. "According to our intelligence, the World Government is very likely in possession of Uranus, one of the ancient weapons. If the enemy has it and we don't, that puts us at a disadvantage. We might not use an ancient weapon, but we must have one."
You have Uranus, I have Pluto. I don't plan to strike first, but if you dare to use yours, I'll have Pluto bombard Mary Geoise.
When Sakazuki heard the words "ancient weapon," he froze for a moment. "Pluto? You have Pluto?"
"What's so surprising about that?" Ortoren said smugly. "Not only do I have Pluto, I even have its blueprints. If you're interested, once things settle down, I can build one and give it to you."
But after combining what he knew about Pluto in Wano, the blueprints themselves, and his discussions with Master Tom, Ortoren had come to understand the deeper issue.
Building Pluto wasn't difficult at all. The blueprints existed, after all. The real problem was energy.
The existing Pluto, preserved in Wano for centuries, had, according to Master Tom's on-site surveys and research, only enough remaining power for three to five shots at most. Without a massive and continuous energy supply afterward, it would amount to nothing more than an empty showpiece.
So in theory, among the three great ancient weapons, only the utterly unreasonable Poseidon still possessed the ability to truly destroy the world.
Uranus and Pluto, on the other hand, now served only as deterrents. At best, they could erase three to five islands in an instant. As for ending the world itself—that was something they simply couldn't do for now.