This novel is finished, and I have posted all the advanced chapters on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395
No one had expected the Mountain Ancestor to wake. The chaos it unleashed had lasted less than a day, but in those few hours, the world had been broken in ways that defied description.
At the center of that colossal upheaval, the sea had been scoured clean of life. For those who lived on the land, creatures never meant to weather the true fury of the deep, the toll was nothing short of a massacre.
…
The New World. An uncharted stretch of ocean.
On the deck of the Thousand Sunny, Nami let out a ragged whimper. Her eyes fluttered open, the world spinning as she dragged herself back to consciousness.
"Are we... are we still alive?"
"I don't know," A voice rasped beside her, heavy with a hollow sort of shock. "But this might actually be Hell."
Nami forced her head up. Several of the others were already awake. They were standing by the stern, silhouetted against a sky that looked bruised. A large section of the railing had been splintered into jagged teeth, and the crew stood there, paralyzed, staring into the distance.
Confused and trembling, Nami struggled to her feet.
It was then she noticed Luffy. He was gripping what remained of the stern railing with such white-knuckled intensity that the wood groaned. Blood was seeping through the fresh bandages on his left hand, staining his entire arm a garish crimson. Every tensed muscle in his forearm was working to tear the wound further apart.
"Luffy, your hand…"
The words died in her throat. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks, and the air seemed to vanish from the world.
"What... is that?"
The surface of the sea was gone. In its place was a carpet of debris so dense it choked the horizon, masking the color of the water. As the Sunny drifted sluggishly with the tide, the mass followed, a silent, macabre procession trailing in their wake.
It wasn't wood. It wasn't wreckage.
It was bodies.
The old, the very young, the strong, and the frail. They were tangled together with the carcasses of the sea, shattered Sea Kings, fish, birds, and beasts of the land, all heaved together into a floating continent of the dead that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Nami's knees gave out. She hit the deck hard, her hands flying to her mouth to stifle a sob.
"What happened? How is this possible?"
"The tsunami," Sanji answered. His voice was flat, devoid of its usual spark. An unlit cigarette hung forgotten from his lips. "The Sunny is built from Treasure Tree Adam, designed to ride the crest of any wave, and even she was nearly snapped in two. Anything else... any island in the path of a surge like that... there was never a chance."
"Shut up!! Just shut up!!"
Luffy's roar shattered the silence, but he wasn't looking at Sanji. His head was bowed, his eyes burning with a raw, feral fury.
"What's the point of apologizing now? You let her use your power for this! You could have fought back!"
The crew went still. They knew who he was screaming at. They could feel the weight of Poseidon, Shirahoshi, in his words. No one moved to interrupt; they simply stood in the shadow of his grief.
Luffy took a shuddering breath, forcing the rage back down into his chest.
"Sorry," He muttered, though it wasn't clear if he was talking to his friends or the sea. "I didn't mean to take it out on you." He paused, staring at the horizon. "I'll be there soon. Just wait a little longer."
He turned back to the deck, his expression hardening into that of a captain.
"Nami. Can you tell where we are?"
The waves had spared the ship, but they had hurled the Sunny into the unknown. Without Nami, they were a ghost ship lost in a graveyard.
"I... I've got it. I'll check the charts." Luffy's voice acted like an anchor, pulling Nami back from the brink of hysterics. She wiped her eyes, took one last, pained look at the wake of corpses, and hurried toward the cabin.
"Wait," Zoro's voice cut through the air, sharp and alert. "Look over there. Is that guy still breathing?"
In the midst of the carnage, a massive shape was bobbing in the swells. He was built like a fortress, his skin scarred by a lifetime of battles, but even a warrior's frame looked small against the scale of the disaster. The sea had shown him no mercy, battering him against the debris until he was motionless.
"That skin tone... that build..." Sanji squinted through the haze. "A Fish-Man? Hey, moss-head, you sure? He looks pretty gone to me."
Zoro didn't snap back. His hand rested grimly on the hilt of Wado Ichimonji. "I'm sure. I can feel the breath in him. Just barely."
"He's fading fast," a new voice added.
Robin had emerged from the hatch, her face pale as she clutched her head. As the bridge between the crew and the Revolutionary Army, the one helping Luffy navigate the final path toward Raftel, she recognized the figure instantly.
"Wait... isn't that Jinbe? The Knight of the Sea?"
In truth, Robin knew the preparations Jinbe had made were likely in vain. Once it became clear that only those who could hear the "Voice of All Things" stood a chance of reaching Shirahoshi, Luffy hadn't needed a single word of persuasion. He had chosen to go alone.
It wasn't about the One Piece, or his dream, or the title of King. He simply couldn't stand by and watch the world bleed out.
Robin watched as Jinbe's broken body drifted closer. She understood the weight of the message he carried, a silent plea from the Azure Dragon, but seeing him like this made the politics of the world feel desperately small.
"How did he end up here?" She murmured, her brow furrowing. "He set off long before us. Could the surge have..."
She didn't finish the thought. As Sanji braced himself to dive into the corpse-choked water, Robin's eyes sharpened.
"Cuatro Mano... Clutch!"
Dozens of arms bloomed from the wreckage near Jinbe, weaving together into a living chain that latched onto his massive frame. With a coordinated heave, the floral limbs began to haul him toward the hull.
"Sanji-kun, help him up!"
"On it!"
Sanji vaulted over the railing, hooking his arms under Jinbe's shoulders and heaving the Fish-man onto the deck. The heavy thud of his body hitting the wood sounded like a tolling bell.
"Chopper's still out cold, but I'm raiding the medical locker," Zoro grunted, already sprinting toward the galley.
Robin knelt beside the unconscious warrior. Jinbe's breathing was a shallow, wet rattle. His hand was clamped shut in a death grip, even in unconsciousness. Gently, she pried his thick fingers open.
Her breath hitched.
"So that's why..."
In her palm lay a tiny, soaked pink shoe. A small, delicate fabric flower was still pinned to the side, though it was stained with brine and silt. It was a child's shoe, something that belonged to a girl who should have been playing in the sun, not lost to the abyss.
Robin looked at Jinbe, her heart aching for the "Sea Hero." He had tried to save them. Even when the world was ending, he had reached for the smallest among them.
"Save him," Luffy said.
His voice wasn't loud. It wasn't angry. It was utterly hollow, stripped of all emotion, which was far more terrifying. To those who had sailed across the world with him, that tone meant one thing: the fire in his heart had turned into a white-hot executioner's blade.
Luffy stood, his gaze fixed on the distant, jagged horizon where the Mountain Ancestor had risen. He tightened his fists until his knuckles popped.
"This ends now."
…
While the Sunny drifted through its graveyard, a fleet of a different kind arrived at the Adrian Trench. The Marines, fueled by a cold, desperate thirst for vengeance, moved under Akainu's iron command.
"Drop them," Akainu barked.
At his word, heavy metal canisters plummeted into the dark water.
These weren't depth charges. They were hollow, jagged things, biological harbingers. Once the seals corroded, they would bleed a virus into the currents that could turn the entire ocean into a dead zone.
Earlier, the Vice Admirals had agonized over the collateral damage. But as Akainu looked out over the barren, grey sea, he knew those concerns were gone. The tsunami had already done the unthinkable. There were no civilians left to protect. There was only the enemy.
Deep below, Poseidon, her strength slowly returning in the cold dark, snapped her eyes open.
That scent... that rot...
"A virus? Here?" Her mind raced in a panic. "How did they get past the Mountain Ancestor so quickly?"
She knew the geography of the Adrian Trench better than anyone. It was a fortress, but with those canisters sealing the middle layers of the ocean, it was becoming a tomb. If she didn't move now, she would be suffocated in her own sanctuary.
"I have to break for the surface!"
With a powerful thrust of her tail, she surged upward, a silver streak against the black.
"Fleet Admiral! Something's coming up fast!" A lookout screamed.
Akainu didn't flinch. He watched the water boil and churn. In his mind, this was the monster who had awakened an ancient terror to wipe out the world's fleets.
"Is this her final play?" He growled, teeth bared.
The sea exploded. A massive, breathtakingly beautiful mermaid breached the surface, sending a wall of white spray a hundred feet into the air. To any other man, she would have looked like a goddess. To the Marines, she looked like the devil.
"Hmph. Akainu," She spat, her voice ringing across the waves.
She was wounded, burned by the deep-sea vents and exhausted, but she still held the pride of a king. She looked at the lone Admiral with disdain, confident that he couldn't stop her on the open water.
Then, she saw the cannons.
They weren't loaded with shells. They were rigged with the virus canisters, aimed directly at her path. Her heart plummeted.
"You're insane!"
She didn't wait for a response. She dove, desperate to put distance between herself and the poisonous fog.
"To kill a monster, you have to become one!" Akainu yelled, wiping a bead of cold sweat from his brow as he signaled the fleet to give chase. "Don't give her a second to breathe! Hunt her until there's nothing left!"
(End of Chapter)