Ohara vs. the World Government

No command to open fire has yet reached the Marine warships, and terror ripples through Ohara as the people watch them creep closer. Inside the Tree of Knowledge, agents come upon a Poneglyph that has survived a bomb blast entirely intact. Saul keeps charging across the island while the inhabitants dodge clear of the giant's route.

Condemned to die, the scholars receive their sentence over a transmission. Refusing Spandine's call for courtesy, Clover keeps his words sharp, arguing that mankind must face its history rather than entomb it, and waving off the accusation that such a stance is mere idealism. He explains that the ancients chose stone for their record precisely so it could never be erased, and that the people who carved it had been broken by a foe who afterward steered the course of recorded history.

According to Clover, the World Government, which rose to power just as the Void Century drew to a close, stands as the very enemy of a lost kingdom whose memory the Poneglyphs guard. From scattered records and stones the scholars reconstructed the truth of that erased nation. What the regime fears most, he insists, is not the Ancient Weapons but the surfacing of that kingdom's real story. The instant before he can speak its name, the order is given and he is gunned down.

Spandine then jabs the trigger atop his Golden Den Den Mushi, calling down a Buster Call. As the Tree of Knowledge catches fire, he loses interest in finishing off the scholars and moves to leave with Olvia in tow. Rather than flee, Robin tearfully begs Olvia to confirm she is her mother. To shield her, Olvia denies it, and both are reduced to weeping, until Robin stuns Spandine by declaring that she can read the Poneglyphs. At that very moment, the Buster Call slams into Ohara.

The chapter establishes that Poneglyphs cannot be destroyed and that the World Government took shape at the close of the Void Century. A kingdom that thrived during that lost era is named by Clover only in passing, since he dies before revealing its identity, a riddle that fuels much of the wider narrative. The Buster Call is set off here for the first time within the flashback. The cover continues the Miss Goldenweek side-story, her party commandeering Hina's ship with a handful of Colors Traps.