Decades before God Valley, in the dying days of the Old World's pirate aristocracy, a young Silvers Rayleigh is kidnapped by the most dangerous man alive - Rocks D. Xebec - and dragged to the lawless paradise of Sabaody Archipelago to be auctioned to Celestial Dragons. What looks like a slave grab is a smokescreen for something far worse, and what begins as a rescue mission becomes the first cold war of a generation: pirates, Marines, World Government assassins, and royalty all converging on one island, one auction, and one secret Devil Fruit nobody is supposed to know exists.