Set up chapter time. It has to be, but man am I impatient.
With the tower levels from last week we will probably now have every chapter some bits of Luffy running around and some of the Kaido vs scabbard battle, while all the other major players (like 10+ characters) get put into their respective scenes/fights. This easily takes atleast 4-6 chapters..
So in chapter 999 Luffy probably gets to the top of the dome, he sees the scabbards lying there completely beaten up, Act 3 ends and chapter 1.000 will then be about some word building related info drop.
I'm like 80% sure that this is what will happen.
Sadly this week it's the least interesting stuff for me personally (Yamato/Sasaki scene). Cause I don't think that this will be the final set up for them, means they imo will not show what they got. Hopefully I'm wrong though.
Those incoming base Kaido action squences within the next chapters will be juicy though, probably that, what will carry the next chapters entirely for me, if not for some interesting stuff about Marco and BM.
Good that there is a lot Oda can work with this time, during those set up sequences. Those can otherwise be a real pain.