"The decision is yours, you damn old woman!"
Before she could finish speaking, Burgess raised his fist and smashed it straight into Amazon—the gatekeeper of the Gate of Heaven—knocking her unconscious with a single punch.
After that, Burgess began ransacking the toll station without the slightest courtesy, all the while feeling genuinely puzzled by Amazon's courage.
When you see pirates, not only do you not run—you block the road and demand tolls? Are you always this fearless?
"What kind of junk is this? Just a few shells? And this is Sky Island currency? The face value is enormous! Even if you burned it as paper money for the dead, they'd probably look down on it!"
Faced with coins that looked nothing like Berries, Burgess showed not the slightest interest, casually flipping them around in his hands.
As everyone knew, the larger the face value printed on a currency, the lower its actual purchasing power tended to be.
The exchange rate between Sky Island money and Berries was likely over a hundred to one. Calculated that way, a single banknote was practically equivalent to scrap paper.
And once you left Sky Island, this worthless currency couldn't be spent anywhere at all.
After all, the Blackbeard Pirates had always believed in one principle when shopping:
Never pay if you don't have to.
"You're poor as hell!"
After turning the entire toll booth upside down, Burgess found only a few tens of millions in Sky Island currency. He was so furious he nearly vomited blood, his eyes rolling back on the spot.
"This is only a temporary checkpoint," Van Augur said calmly, half-lidding his eyes as he stared at the cloud path ahead. "It's normal for months to pass without anyone coming through."
Yet even as he spoke, an inexplicable sense of unease lingered in his heart.
According to common sense, such a thin cloud road shouldn't be able to hide anything—but he couldn't shake the feeling that something enormous was lurking inside it.
"There's serious technical sophistication here."
Xiao's eyes shone brightly as he stared at the cloud path without blinking. Then he casually grabbed a massive red-skinned lobster—tens of meters tall and weighing hundreds of tons.
The reason was simple.
Although this cloud path appeared thin on the surface, the space inside it was unimaginably vast—large enough to contain an entire small lake.
People lived within it.
Countless strange Sky Island fish inhabited it.
And all of these phenomena clearly involved rudimentary space compression technology.
There was no doubt about it.
The world of One Piece was brimming with endless surprises and mysteries.
Merely by exploring these ancient remnants, Xiao could glimpse the former brilliance and grandeur of this world.
Clouds condensed into solid matter, permanently suspended in the sky.
Cloud paths that concealed compressed space.
Balloon fish living inside, capable of inflating with strength much like pufferfish.
And beyond that, the ancestors of Sky Island had been farsighted. Fearing that future generations might struggle to survive after losing technological knowledge, they had transformed their wisdom into naturally regenerating resources embedded throughout the island.
Future generations could simply harvest and use them.
Even without understanding the underlying principles, they could still enjoy the conveniences provided by Sky Island's advanced technology.
One had to admire the foresight of Sky Island's predecessors—they had likely foreseen the catastrophic disaster that would erase technology, and labored for the welfare of their descendants long in advance.
In contrast, the Lower Sea once possessed a glorious and radiant civilization, yet now it had faded like drifting clouds, leaving little behind.
Fortunately, Sky Island still retained a vast trove of precious ancient technological heritage—like a radiant pearl—bringing boundless hope to future generations.
"Shrimp~~~!"
The Express Shrimp let out a thunderous cry.
Being seized by Xiao for research filled it with unprecedented humiliation.
It was an apostle of God—how dare a mere mortal from the lower world treat it this way?!
The Express Shrimp flew into a rage, raising its massive pincers as if to tear the man before it to pieces.
But Xiao merely glanced at it calmly.
In that instant, the shrimp felt its shell soften, as though all its strength had vanished.
It had never encountered such a terrifying presence.
That overwhelming aura pressed down like the weight of heaven itself, suffocating it completely.
Before Xiao, its so-called god was nothing more than a clown—fit only for parody.
"Alright, Pipi Shrimp," Xiao said lightly. "Charge toward Sky Island."
With the Blackbeard Pirates seated firmly on the back of the Express Shrimp—now thoroughly subdued by Xiao's domineering presence—they shot forward like an arrow loosed from a bow, racing toward Sky Island.
"Shrimp~~!"
The Express Shrimp waved its enormous pincers cheerfully, as though joyfully cheering on their journey.
…
…
"Hahaha! This place is amazing! Boss, why don't we just take it for ourselves?!"
Burgess danced his bulky body around before leaping high into the air, landing steadily atop the thick clouds.
These clouds were as solid as indestructible land, yet retained the softness and elasticity unique to clouds. Exotic plants and flowers found nowhere else flourished across their surface.
"How stupid," Van Augur muttered coldly, watching Burgess bounce around like a child on a trampoline.
But then—
He saw his captain and the other two crewmates leap up as well, howling like monkeys as they bounced alongside Burgess.
Van Augur lowered his head in silence.
They're even stupider when they're together.
If given the choice, he truly didn't want to associate with these people.
At that moment, the sound of a gentle harp caught everyone's attention.
A blonde, long-legged angel descended toward them.
White wings sprouted from her back, and her hair was tied into two cute buns. She stepped lightly and greeted them enthusiastically:
"Hello!"
"Are you from the Lower Sea? My name is Conis!"
Xiao and the others stopped playing, stepped forward, and surrounded Conis directly.
Their towering figures blocked out the light, shadows engulfing her entirely, making her look like a small child by comparison.
"Hahaha! You're really an angel—this is fascinating!"
Xiao reached out and tugged at the wings on Conis's back, discovering that they were real, connected directly to her shoulder blades.
However, they were malformed flesh wings—capable of only minimal flapping. Beneath the outer feathers, the internal structure was pitifully small, utterly incapable of flight.
They resembled goose wings grafted onto a human body—beautiful on the outside, yet internally deformed, ugly, and devoid of any real aesthetic harmony.
"Hey, Conis," Xiao asked casually, "do you feel anything when someone touches your wings?"
As his palm passed over her back, streams of cyber aura surged forth, scanning her body inside and out.
This was a purely non-human lifeform.
Xiao's scientific curiosity instantly ignited.
If the cyber aura hadn't been able to directly analyze her internal structure, he might have already considered dissecting her on the spot—just to see how she was built.
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