I am the Bandit King of the East Sea.

"This island is the closest place to the true final island."

"Roger, your crew is probably the closest to the true final island in history."

After Sig said that, Rayleigh and the others weren't really happy.

I thought I had reached the final island, but now I realize it was all for nothing.

Roger glanced at the navigator, who nodded in agreement with Sieg's statement, before asking again:

"You mean there's another island? How can we reach that true final island?"

“The true final island cannot be reached using the regular Log Pose,” Higuma said. “Your Roger Pirates must have seen the Poneglyphs during your voyage, right? They’re those square stones covered in ancient writing.”

"Poneglyphs? We have indeed seen a few. What's wrong? Is this related to the final island?" Roger asked, puzzled.

Sieg glanced at Tengetsu beside him and continued:

"Among the historical texts scattered around the world, there are four special red historical texts."

“Every red historical document records a location.”

"When you decipher these four red Poneglyphs and intersect the four locations on the map, you will be able to find the location of the final island. The red Poneglyphs are like maps that guide your way!"

Roger was slightly startled. He frowned and thought for a moment, then suddenly realized.

"I remember that the world government had already banned people from reading the history books a long time ago."

"If the location of the final island is contained within the red Poneglyphs, then this certainly makes sense!"

As he said this, a smile gradually crept onto Roger's lips.

"Hey, Roger, what's there to be happy about?" Jabba said irritably, still immersed in the disappointment of failing to land on the final island.

Roger laughed loudly:

"The final island, which holds the legendary treasure, is off-limits to the World Government."

"Doesn't this mean that the great treasure of the final island is more important than we imagined? I'm getting more and more excited."

“But…” one of the crew members, still disheartened, argued:

"Captain Roger, we still don't know where the four red Poneglyphs are."

"Moreover, the interpretation of the Poneglyphs has long been explicitly prohibited by the World Government. Perhaps there is no one in the world who can interpret them?"

"Who knows how long it will take to find the four red historical texts and then the person who can decipher them?"

"I do have some clues about the person who deciphered the Poneglyphs," Sieg said, glancing at Amaterasu beside him.

"In the New World, there is a country called Wano Country, where the Kozuki family has inherited the knowledge of ancient scripts."

Chapter 697 The Anomaly of the Life Card

The country of Wano...the Kozuki family...

After Higuma revealed this information, the pirates all fell silent.

After a long pause, someone finally spoke:

"I've heard that Wano Country has been closed off from the world for many years. Even if we know who can decipher the ancient script, getting to Wano Country, finding the Kozuki family, and then locating the four Poneglyphs... that sounds like a pretty difficult task..."

Roger didn't take it to heart and laughed loudly:

"Isn't this better?"

"Finding someone to decipher the Poneglyphs, searching for the four Poneglyphs themselves, and a brand new adventure awaits us. I haven't had enough of being a pirate yet!"

"If it's this easy to reach the final island, to be honest, I'm still a little unsatisfied."

"Guys, how about embarking on a second great voyage with me?"

As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together, and Roger's emotions also infected the pirates around him, making them cheer up again.

However, the gazes of Rayleigh, Jabba, and the others toward Sig remained unsettled.

Wang Xige, the vice-captain of the Rocks Pirates, is a ghost who has been dead for 12 years.

But right there at the end of the Log Pose, on Water Star Island, awaited the Roger Pirates.

Moreover, the words revealed a great deal of information, giving the Roger Pirates, who had no clue about Water Star Island, a new direction for their voyage.

"Just who is this guy?"

"Is he giving us directions?"

Rayleigh, Jabba, and the others were surprised, and they also thought of Roger's trip across half of the Red Line many years ago, in the early days of the Roger Pirates when he was drunk.

"This guy is definitely not simple."

"He was there when Roger went to sea, and he's here on this Water Star Island now... He must have some ulterior motive, trying to achieve it through Captain Roger...?"

Rayleigh narrowed his eyes, gradually becoming wary.

................

at the same time.

In another part of the New World, at the headquarters of the Rocks Pirates, lies Beehive Island, the Pirate Paradise.

Rocks D. Giebeck stood before the towering floor-to-ceiling windows of the Skull Mountain building, gazing down at the pirate paradise island, his eyes as deep and dark as the night.

After 12 years of development, Beehive Island has become much more prosperous, and the number of pirates entrenched here is far greater than before.

This era belongs to the sea lord, Lox.

After years of fighting, he has almost driven out the entire navy of the New World, realizing his original ambition and making the New World a new world for pirates.

In this era, he is the true uncrowned king.

Countless great pirates gathered under his command, making him the most powerful pirate crew on the entire sea, without exception.

"Captain Rocks."

A deep voice came from behind me.

The speaker was a giant with muscles as if cast in iron, and a pair of long horns on his head. He was shirtless, with a gourd of wine tied around his waist, and looked unruly.

"Captain Rocks, what are all those bottles on this wall?"

Lox turned around and glanced at the giant.

"That's true, Kaido. You're a newcomer to the pirate crew, so you probably don't know much about these things yet."

Lockes nodded slightly, his gaze falling on a wall in the room.

The display shelves on the wall were filled with transparent bottles and jars.

Each bottle contained a small piece of ash, and each glass bottle had a corresponding name label on it.

"These are the ashes of the Life Card."

"These are the ashes of Vivre Cards left behind after the deaths of powerful members of the pirate crew before you."

After more than a decade of fighting, the Rocks Pirates were not without casualties. Many of the strongmen that Rocks had favored died during the campaigns.

The embers of this bottle of life cards are the only thing they left behind.

"So many people?" Kaido was also taken aback; there were dozens of bottles on the display shelf.

It's important to know that Rocks was extremely arrogant, and anyone he considered a strongman was definitely not some nobody.

"How about it? Scared?"

Rocks burst into laughter.

He collected the embers of these life cards, certainly not to mourn the dead...

"These fallen souls are the foundation upon which our Rocks Pirates became the masters of the seas..."

"Those who die are the losers; those who live are the strongest among us."

As Rocks finished speaking, Kaido's gaze fell on one of the bottles, and he let out a soft gasp.

"But how come there's a perfectly intact life card on this bottle?"

"What are you talking about? How is this possible? Only the life cards of the deceased are kept here." Lockes still didn't believe it and walked over, then his pupils suddenly contracted.

He suddenly reached out and grabbed the bottle.

The fragments of the Life Card inside the glass bottle floated up in one direction on their own, without any wind.

Lox lowered his head and read the name on the bottle label.

"First Mate Wang Xige."

Lox looked up.

His dark eyes suddenly lit up, and then the corners of his mouth slowly curved into a smile, as if he were thinking about something.

"interesting."

"How could a life card that had long since turned to ashes reappear? This is truly an unprecedented anomaly."

Lox muttered to himself, a smile playing on his lips, slightly lost in thought.

"Captain Rocks?" Kaido asked in a deep voice from the side.

"Who is Sig? And what's with the strange title of First Mate Wang?"

Lox paused slightly.

He then gave Kaido a disapproving look.

"That's true."

“You’re new here. He’s been dead for 12 years, and the ocean doesn’t remember the dead.”

"His name is Wang Xige. He was the vice-captain of our pirate crew when it was first established."

At this point, Rocks' gaze swept across the scene with a hint of reminiscence, recalling the events of the past. He gave Kaido a deep look.

"Speaking of which, your Devil Fruit ability might actually have some connection to Wang Xige..."

"Go ask the long loaf or the bigom."

Lockes pushed open the door and walked away on his own.