There were more clones than what Zed saw here. Some were off reading books, others were training Ain and Binz, a few were working alongside Enel to help refine his devil fruit mastery—and the rest were doing nothing at all, simply because everything that needed to be done was already being done.
"What a powerful devil fruit… no, what makes it powerful is your talent. Without your talent, this fruit would be useless," Zed said lightly.
Kong laughed. Zed didn't know just how true that really was.
"Let's set sail. We'll explore this new world—no skipping corners," Kong declared, and with those words, all of the clones vanished, leaving behind only five.
With that, they moved to prepare for departure, ready to witness just how vast this world truly was.
They reached Paradence in no time, thanks to the sheer speed of the Maxim. Enel's growth had pushed his control of lightning to a new level, allowing him not only to power the ship but to lift it entirely and hurl it forward like a projectile, using Electromagnetism.
What would have taken 3 days was shorten to just a 10 hours, and Enel wasn't that tried after such a long nonstop journey. Of cours,e before they had left, they had taken a logpost, or else they would just aimlessly be traveling.
"Just in time, and it's locked onto an island," Enel said, glancing at the log pose wrapped around his arm. The needle had finally settled, pointing to a nearby island.
Kong, who was playing cards with Zed, looked over with mild interest to see where they'd ended up. Everyone else stood and turned to face the horizon.
"What the…" Kong raised an eyebrow at the strange sight before them.
He wasn't alone. Everyone stared in silence at the massive trees stretching skyward, their trunk towering so high it seemed to pierce the clouds. The entire island was covered in thick, dense forest—an overwhelming sea of green.
"…Enel, are we in the Calm Belt?" Zed asked, narrowing his eyes as he noticed the unnaturally still waters. There were no waves, not a hint of the wind, all pointing towards them being at the Calm Belt.
Enel blinked at the question, processing it. Kong turned to him with a blank expression for a moment before bursting into laughter.
"We were traveling aimlessly! How was I supposed to notice there were no waves when we were flying?" Enel snapped, clearly annoyed.
And how could he not be? Of all people, it had to be Kong laughing at him for getting lost.
Plus, it's not like he really knew what the blue sea was—he was from Skypiea. It hadn't even been a month since he set foot down here. In fact, it had only been around seven days… so little time had passed, yet it already felt like a lifetime.
"It's okay to not have a sense of direction… Anyway, all islands in the Calm Belt are dangerous. So much so that most are left untouched," Kong said with a casual smile.
Enel sighed and let the topic go. Enel wasted no time, bringing the ship down onto the island. Kong, too impatient to wait, had already jumped ahead—not that anyone minded. After all, if he got lost, Enel could always track him down.
To grasp just how massive the trees on this island were… they stretched so high, they nearly touched the clouds, and their trunks were wider than a city block. Enel walked up to one of them, resting a hand on the bark before glancing back at the Maxim.
"What are you thinking?" Zed asked, walking over as he took in the sight of the massive forest.
"I was thinking of using this wood to rebuild the Maxim. It's stronger than the material the ship's currently made from," Enel said casually, tapping the tree to prove his point. Despite the strike, the trunk didn't even show a scratch—it hadn't been damaged in the slightest.
But Enel suddenly paused, his head snapping toward the ground. He leapt back just as sharp mandibles burst from beneath the surface. Out crawled an ant the size of a car, lunging at him. Enel pointed forward, firing a beam of lightning that struck the creature dead on—but to his surprise, the ant tanked the hit, its body enduring the blast as it charged again.
Enel's eyebrow twitched. This was the New World, the sea of monsters… but for even an ant to withstand his lightning? Before he could process it, more ants began crawling from underground, swarming toward Enel, Zed, and the ship.
Enel snorted coldly, spun his staff, and vanished in a flash, reappearing in the middle of the swarm as he cut through dozens of ants in the blink of an eye. But no matter how many he struck down, more kept coming, only to be sliced apart just as quickly.
'Their exoskeletons aren't normal… there's a trace of Haki in them.' Zed narrowed his eyes, crushing every ant that dared approach him. At the same time, Ain and Binz sprang into action, while the rest of the crew provided support, unleashing a steady stream of gunfire into the advancing swarm.
Elsewhere, Kong was walking through a city built for giants. The houses were massive, but run-down, abandoned long ago. As he moved through the empty streets, he spread out his Observation Haki, scanning the area until he locked onto something buried inside one of the crumbling homes.
He stepped inside and found it: a diary. The book was old, roughly 400 years by his estimate. The pages were made from a type of thinly-cut wood, the kind used in ancient times when paper wasn't yet widely produced. It looked fragile, yet it had survived the passage of time, its stiff pages still able to be flipped through and read.
It was also massive—large enough to be considered a normal-sized book in the hands of a giant. So, Kong enlarged himself just to flip through it comfortably.
'The language is old… but not too difficult to learn,' Kong thought as he flipped through the pages. It took a bit of effort, but before long, he was able to piece together enough of the text to get a sense of what the diary was trying to convey.
"Although we are stranded on this island, we will not give up. We plan to rest here for a few days before attempting the journey back to Elbaf. We must return the Poneglyphs to Elbaf, even if it means fighting Imu herself!"
'Elbaf… that's the land of the giants, right?' Kong thought, flipping through the massive pages. 'It makes sense, considering this place was once home to giants. But… who's this Imu guy?'
The rest of the pages were too damaged to read clearly, so Kong skipped ahead.
"These damn ants… they seem to guard the trees. Whenever we attack one, they swarm us. Individually, they're small and weak, but their numbers make them a serious problem. What's more troubling is that the newborn ants seem to develop a resistance to whatever killed their predecessors. Their shells grow tougher, resistant to cuts, impact, and who knows what else. The more we kill, the stronger the next wave becomes."
'Ants that adapt to whatever kills them?' Kong thought, flipping to the next page. 'I wonder what their limit is.'
"Damn it! After forty days and forty nights of nonstop fighting, one of us finally fell. The ants have retreated for now, but how long until they return? We want to leave this island, but they're keeping us trapped in this ruined village. I can feel it… They're waiting. Waiting for the next generation of ants to grow strong enough to wipe us out. This island seemed perfect for us giants at first… but it turned out to be a death trap."
"These ants… they're monsters. We tried to strike at the roots. I forced the Ant Queen out—she's no ordinary creature. She's an immortal monster… a Devil Fruit user. The Hentsuu Hentsuu no Mi…? How unlucky can we be? We're going to die here. But I'll leave this diary behind for whoever finds it. Complete our mission. Return the Poneglyph to Elbaf. It was never meant to be lost on this cursed island—it was meant to be read."
"Enel, have everyone return to the ship. I want them far from the island," Kong said, his voice calm but serious. "Zed, you and I will head underground. We're going to meet the Ant Queen."
As he spoke, Kong expanded his Observation Haki, pushing it deep into the earth below. It took a moment for his senses to fully adjust, but soon, the image of an underground city began forming in his mind—vast, complex, and alive with movement.
He focused his Haki on the most heavily guarded area… and there it was. A massive ant, the size of a giant, stood still, staring up at the ceiling of its subterranean world—until its head slowly turned, eyes locking onto the surface.
It looked directly at Kong. In that moment, the creature stepped back, its instincts screaming in alarm.
Wasting no time, the Ant Queen ordered all of her children to focus their efforts solely on Kong. At the same moment, her body began to shift and rumble. Like a living minigun, she started firing eggs in rapid succession. Each egg needed only a minute before hatching, unleashing fresh waves of offspring.
But as she laid eggs nonstop, the Queen quickly realized it wouldn't be enough. After a brief pause, her body began to mutate once again. This time, instead of countless small eggs, she began forming a single massive one. Without hesitation, she turned on the unhatched eggs around her, devouring them to fuel this new creation.
She didn't stop there. The roots that shaped the underground chamber were torn apart and consumed. Even the skeletal remains of the giants that once ruled this place—those that had formed her throne—were not spared. Everything was sacrificed for the creation of this one monstrous spawn.
She was preparing to give birth to an Ant King, and it would be a waste not to give it everything she had. For years, she had feared making this move—feared that her son might one day overthrow her. But none of that mattered now. If she didn't give her all, their race might be wiped out today. So she poured everything into this one act, determined to create her strongest child yet.
{A/N: The Calm built is the least explored place in One Piece; the fact that there is no wind or waves makes it hard to travel there. It's also home to many dangerous and unexplored Islands... well, there is nothing saying that there are a lot of unexplored islands, but it would make sense.}