Inside his sea of consciousness, the System clamped its tiny paws over its face, thoroughly mortified.
How on earth did I get saddled with a host like this?! This is completely humiliating!
Such a brazen scoundrel... Ah!
All of its complicated emotions condensed into a single, sorrowful sigh.
Drake, however, didn't care in the slightest. Face? What was that?
In front of a mountain of treasure, reputation was worth less than dirt!
Traumatized by poverty, Drake made no effort to conceal his "true nature" in this moment!
Bernice stared dumbly at Drake, hesitating for a long beat before asking, "You... want everything?"
"Yeah!"
"Well... it's not impossible. But without capital reserves to sustain our operations, the Dark Clan's finances will hit a severe bottleneck, and generating profit downstream will become quite difficult."
She was telling the unvarnished truth; after all, the Dark Clan's revenue-generating enterprises across the seas required steady capital infusions.
The one hundred and fifty billion Berries she had quoted earlier was the total sum the Dark Clan could scrape together from every single branch.
Liquidating that amount wouldn't strike a fatal blow to the organization, but it would severely drain its vitality. In the short term, maintaining regular profit margins would be out of the question—staying afloat without net losses would already be a miracle.
"What do you mean?" Drake asked.
Bernice pondered for a moment before clarifying, "To put it simply, wiping out the Dark Clan's reserves all at once means our wealth-generation velocity will slow to a crawl moving forward."
Her assessment was already exceptionally conservative. If rival syndicates seized this window to launch a coordinated economic campaign, the Dark Clan could suffer catastrophic damage.
Recovering their momentum would take a considerable amount of time, even with the supreme deterrent of the Dragon Flag Pirates backing them.
Hearing this, Drake's eyes widened. That won't do!
Though he had no head for business, he understood the concept of letting the golden goose lay its eggs.
After weighing the situation, Drake decided to leave a buffer for the Dark Clan—let's keep... twenty billion in reserve!
"Fine! In that case, leave the physical cash reserves with the Dark Clan. I'll take all the gold and precious gemstones! Don't worry—I'll send more funds your way later. The Dark Clan must continue its full-scale global expansion," Drake resolved decisively.
"Understood!" Bernice nodded.
Unless an extreme emergency had arisen, Drake would never make such an exorbitant demand; the situation on his end was clearly critical.
Furthermore, the Dark Clan's rapid expansion was entering its final phase. Once footholds were established across all Four Blues and their standing armed forces matured, endless streams of revenue would pour into their coffers.
When that time came, they might need Drake to personally take the field.
BOOM!!
Suddenly, the surrounding subterranean space jolted violently. The bedrock shook, and streams of sand and dust trickled from cracks along the reinforced walls.
The complex was clearly enduring a massive external concussive impact.
"What happened?!" Bernice's eyes went wide. An incident like this had never occurred within the treasury before.
"It seems we have guests." Expanding his spatial perception, Drake smiled faintly. "Old acquaintances, no less..."
"By the way, Bernice, if a Devil Fruit user attacks the surrounding stone, what happens?"
"There won't be any issue. The walls and foundation are heavily laced with Sea-Prism Stone. Even the former Supreme Officer of the Donquixote Family, Pica, couldn't manipulate the stone down here..."
"Wait!"
"Could the old acquaintances you mentioned be..." Bernice's eyes widened in realization.
"Bingo!" Drake nodded. "It's them! But..."
A trace of confusion crossed Drake's face.
"Shouldn't the Donquixote Family be locked away in Impel Down? How are they here?"
He remembered distinctly that Luffy had defeated Doflamingo in Dressrosa, after which the Marines had imprisoned the entire syndicate in Impel Down.
Yet virtually their entire high-ranking roster was present today, clearly looking for trouble.
How on earth had they broken out?
"You didn't know?" Bernice asked in surprise. "During the Holy War earlier, the remnants of the former Blackbeard Pirates launched another raid on Impel Down."
"Nearly all the prisoners across Level 5 and Level 6 were liberated, and they've been wreaking havoc across several regions ever since."
"However, the true heavyweights were almost entirely absorbed into the Blackbeard Pirates—no, they should be called the Shiryu Pirates now."
"What did you say?!" Drake was genuinely astonished.
How had he missed a development of this scale?
"You really didn't know?" Bernice stared at him with wide, incredulous eyes. Then, another thought crossed her mind, and she asked hesitantly, "Then what about the Levely? Are you aware of what happened there?"
"The Levely?"
"You don't know about that either?" Bernice was even more stunned. Collecting her thoughts, she explained, "Just two days ago, the Levely concluded, and the founding of the New World Government was officially proclaimed!"
"The New... World Government..." Drake finally grasped the situation.
The old regime that had protected the Celestial Dragons had vanished from history entirely.
Seeing Drake lost in thought, Bernice provided a concise rundown of the monumental events of the past few days.
As it turned out, two days ago, the global summit convened by former Revolutionary Supreme Commander Dragon and Fleet Admiral Weitian had drawn to a close.
Numerous revolutionary policies and systems had been codified.
Yet what shook the entire world to its core was the absolute abolition of the nobility.
The very first resolution passed at the conference was the complete dismantling of the aristocratic system—not only the World Nobles, the Celestial Dragons, but every royal and noble caste across all allied nations was stripped of privilege!
Centuries of supreme royal authority were abolished overnight, sending colossal shockwaves across the globe.
Uproars and protests erupted in every sea.
How could the ruling aristocrats willingly accept being demoted to the status of ordinary civilians—people they had looked down upon with supreme contempt for generations?
That ingrained sense of superiority was woven into their very identity; faced with the destruction of their privileged lives, they vowed to resist to the death!
That was the universal stance of the deposed nobility!
Hearing this, Drake felt entirely indifferent. Anyone with half a brain could have foreseen that outcome.
Living in luxury for generations with the absolute power to dictate life and death at will—who wouldn't cling to that kind of life?
Stripping their aristocratic titles was synonymous with stripping that absolute power, a fate they considered worse than death.
Resistance was inevitable.
Did Dragon and Weitian not anticipate this?
They obviously had. The reason they pushed the resolution through regardless was that they possessed absolute confidence in their ability to suppress any rebellion.
Those deposed nobles had no idea what kind of fate awaited them.
Drake chuckled softly, shaking his head. In this world, raw numbers meant very little. With the overwhelming military might of the New World Government, purging the corrupt nobility might not be effortless, but it was certainly far from difficult!
"Right, there's one more thing," Bernice added. "In the chaotic seas ahead, the world's most renowned pirate crews have initiated the final battle for the throne."
"Initially, the overwhelming advantage was held by the alliance of two veteran Emperors: the super-coalition formed by the Beasts Pirates and the Big Mom Pirates!"
"The New World crews led by the Supernovas were routed repeatedly. But just yesterday, the arrival of a single pirate crew completely shattered the existing deadlock!"
"The Straw Hat Pirates!!"
Drake's calm expression vanished, his eyes blazing with brilliant, radiant light.
Luffy... that fateful hour has finally arrived!!