That day in the past at God Valley, when three idiots formed a united front for reasons of their own.
Solomon, who had no intention of becoming a leading figure of the new age himself and had only promised to quietly support them from behind, revealed part of his Magecraft to ordinary people—something no proper Type-Moon magus would ever do—for the sake of smoother cooperation.
Solomon the mage: lacking in humanity, cowardly, soft, fluffy, and prone to mistakes.
"Be careful not to get hit by a stray shot. This is Gandr, a cursed bullet. If you get struck by it by accident..."
"Pwahahaha!!! That's reassuring!!! But what happens if we do get hit?"
"When a mage of my level fires Gandr, it's not just a simple curse that lowers your condition. If you're unlucky, it can cause fatal illnesses in the human body. Cardiac arrest, AIDS, monkeypox, herpes, and so on."
"Uwahahaha!!! I still haven't given up on my love for Shakky!!! I'll dodge it somehow, so fire away!!!"
Rocks D. Xebec.
The most vicious and most terrible great pirate of that era.
With the intervention of Solomon, a dependable supporter who had never existed in the original story, Roger and Garp began their suffocating advance toward a miracle that would turn the world upside down.
Amid a colossal clash of Conqueror’s Haki so violent it seemed the world itself might split apart, the rough men of the sea hurled their ambitions against one another.
No one among the forces gathered at God Valley dared rashly interfere in the battle of the four men who would one day be treated as legends.
Among them, Kaido, then an apprentice pirate of the Rocks Pirates, witnessed a scene so shocking it would become the turning point of his life, and engraved into his mind the creed that would define him forever...
"This is it!!! I don't know which side will meet its end!!! But fate never betrays expectations!!!! Yes!!! Death is what completes a person!!! Worororo!!!!"
Smack! Someone cracked Kaido on the crown of the head with an Armament Haki-enhanced flick to knock some sense into him.
"Shut up, brat!! Quit spouting nonsense you'll cringe over later and help gather up the treasures the Celestial Dragons brought with them."
Kaido, who wanted to become a real man like Captain Rocks, was so overwhelmed by witnessing the very peak of masculine romance in real time that his eyes had practically rolled back. Watching him with utter disbelief, Charlotte Linlin—who would later become the Four Emperors Big Mom—mercilessly smacked the apprentice brat who would one day become Kaido of the Beasts.
Grumbling that Linlin was a woman and couldn't understand a man's dream, Kaido still obeyed his senior in the crew and hurried to sweep up the treasures the Celestial Dragons had left behind while evacuating.
And it wasn't just Kaido. Everyone at God Valley was waiting for the outcome of that suffocating battle.
The scales of a fight no one could predict even an inch ahead slowly began to tip toward the alliance of the three idiots.
Roger and Garp created openings, and after taking several direct hits from Solomon's Gandr, the face of Rocks—who had been utterly relaxed, thinking that three small fry together were still just small fry—began to twist in real time.
"Damn it! Mage King! What the hell is this attack?!"
"This is a battle that only ends when one side falls. There's no reason to tell an enemy like you the symptoms of a trivial curse."
"The area between my legs is suddenly itching like crazy!!! So much it's interfering with my Haki!!!"
At Rocks's cry of anguish, Roger and Garp recalled the effects of the Magecraft called Gandr that Solomon had briefed them on earlier. For a moment, the two men offered their condolences to Rocks as fellow men.
In any case, Solomon's support was a game changer that completely altered the tide of battle, and Rocks was driven to the brink of death.
He had challenged the world with immense ambition, but now, realizing at last that he had been defeated by the small fry he had considered far beneath him, Rocks spat out a mouthful of dark red blood and barely managed to keep his feet on the ground.
He had no strength left.
If he fell again now, he would never rise.
I lost.
But I, Xebec, do not want to die disgracefully.
Until the very end, I will pour out my full strength and unleash my final Haki.
Harald.
Why didn't you choose me? If only you had lent me your strength... Damn it. I just swore I wouldn't go out pathetically, and yet I still can't help but feel regret.
"Khuhuhu... This will probably be the final blow. Come. Pirate and Marine. The age ahead will be yours! Prove to me, one last time, that you have the right to lead the new era!"
Even in his final roar, Rocks deliberately denied the existence of the Mage King. Celestial Dragons. In his firm belief, they were the enemies of the new age, meant to be overthrown, and could never become the true protagonists of an age of change.
The final waves of Conqueror’s Haki collided, and the ground of God Valley could no longer endure it. The earth itself shifted.
At last, victor and loser were decided in the great duel fought by the central figures of the God Valley Incident.
Like the end that would one day befall his friend and business partner Whitebeard... Rocks brought his turbulent life to a close standing upright, his body frozen in place.
At the solemn death worthy of the world's worst pirate, Kaido—who had fled to a remote place to escape the nagging Linlin and witnessed Rocks's final moments—was so moved that he bawled his eyes out, and his conviction that death was what completed a person became firmer than ever.
Solomon, too, paid respect to Rocks's end. He had been the first great threat Solomon had faced since coming to this world. The death of a great warrior. He was worthy of a king's praise.
Solomon slowly approached Rocks's body and offered a funeral rite in mourning for his death.
With the Mage King's parting verse, Rocks at last brought his bitter life to an end.
Up to that point, it had been fine.
It was the completion of a world where everyone was respected, just like a proper boys' manga.
The problem came next.
Because Haki had been unleashed so violently, the ground all across God Valley had split apart, and by sheer bad luck, a crack just large enough for one person to fall through had opened directly behind Rocks's corpse.
As the final step of an awkward funeral, Solomon took one step closer with the good intention of baptizing Rocks's body so that, even in death, he might rest in the embrace of God the Father. But by chance, he stepped on a jagged stone jutting out from the earth, and his footing twisted for an instant.
Flailing not to fall, he instinctively thrust out a hand, and it struck the dead Rocks square in the chest.
Pushed by Solomon, Rocks's corpse fell straight into the crack that had opened behind him and sank into the depths of the sea below.
"Huh?"
Roger and Garp, who had been certain of victory but not completely certain that Rocks was dead, were horrified in unison.
From their point of view, Rocks had still barely been clinging to life. Before they could even give him time to leave some cool, over-the-top last words, Solomon—who had quietly supported them from the rear the whole time—suddenly stepped forward, sang some strange song that seemed to be Magecraft, and arbitrarily stole and decorated Rocks's final moment.
In short, thanks to yet another one of Solomon's trademark cowardly blunders... Rocks's end became a tedious, pretentious finish that wouldn't have been out of place even if it had been a complete mess.
"What the hell are you doing!!!!!!"
As Rocks's final moment was turned into something truly ridiculous, Kaido flew into uncontrollable rage and awakened Conqueror’s Haki for the first time in his life.
It was the moment the signature move Kaido would use for the rest of his life was born: Thunder Bagua.
Of course, Kaido was still just a brat, and his sudden charge was stopped pathetically easily by a startled Solomon, who fired a high-output flash of light at him.
Kaido, blackened and blasted out of the sky, was quickly snatched up by Linlin, who had already been going through hell taking care of the chuuni little punk, and she fled in a hurry. As a bonus, in the process, Linlin casually stuffed the Devil Fruit she had taken as spoils into unconscious Kaido's mouth.
"For a second there, I thought I smelled roast Kaido... Was I imagining it, Garp?"
"That brat doesn't matter right now. Solomon!!!!! Explain yourself!! If you don't give Roger and me an explanation we can accept, I'll never consider you a friend again!!!!"
They had worked themselves to the bone fighting, and that coward had clearly promised to stay in the rear and only provide support—yet he had shamelessly stolen Rocks's final moment!
The alliance that had transcended the camps of Roger and Garp now turned toward a newly emerged traitor.
Their killing intent, not yet extinguished, unintentionally focused on Solomon, who had somehow earned the filthy title of kill-stealing scavenger.
Panicking and trembling with fear, thinking, What do I do, what do I do, Solomon recoiled in terror and fled first without thinking about the consequences.
Solomon's second Noble Phantasm: [Temple of Time Solomon].
A space that belonged to Solomon alone, existing in an imaginary-number space isolated from the normal flow of time—a kind of Reality Marble.
Being a rational mage, Solomon decided that since his friends had lost their reason, he should avoid them for now and meet them later to explain himself or apologize. So, in full coward mode, he holed himself up inside the Temple of Time.
After that, hit by a sudden wave of exhaustion, Solomon drifted off to sleep.
And here, Solomon made yet another mistake.
In all the chaos, he forgot that the Temple of Time existed in an imaginary world, and in an imaginary world, the concept of time was not fixed.
As a result, though Solomon had only slept briefly and then awakened, many years had already passed outside since the God Valley Incident.
Thrown into panic by one mistake after another, Solomon chose escapism, true to his cowardly nature.
Because he had no desire to get hit, even as a joke, by Roger's sword slash or Garp's fist.
He missed the time when he should have apologized, and in the flow of years, he even forgot that he had ever made such a blunder in the first place.
After so many years had passed since the God Valley Incident, Garp's anger at reuniting with an old friend who had chosen to run away without even a single word of excuse was entirely justified. In fact, Solomon might have been lucky that Roger's share of that anger was no longer there to be added on top.
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