Chapter 545: Pluton, Fire!
The Sea Forest, usually one of the quieter parts of Fish-Man Island, was unrecognizable.
Millions of residents were pouring into it in a continuous stream, and even these vast coral thickets stretching deep into the seafloor were beginning to feel crowded. The island's military and border forces were doing what they could - they had cleared wide paths through the coral, cutting routes that ran straight to the forest's depths and channeling the evacuating population into orderly lines.
At the end of those paths, deep in the Sea Forest, was the Ark Noah.
Eight hundred years ago, Joy Boy had made a promise to the Mermaid Princess of that era: after the war was won, he would use this ship to carry the Fish-Men and Merfolk to the surface. He would bring sunlight to people who had never known anything but deep water.
That promise had gone unfulfilled. Joy Boy lost the war that mattered most, and never had the chance to keep his word. The ship had stayed behind in the Sea Forest, untouched, for eight centuries.
Until now.
Fish-Man Island was at its most desperate hour. The ship of hope that Joy Boy had left behind was finally needed.
Noah was staggering in size. Sitting in the Sea Forest, it looked less like a vessel and more like an underwater mountain range. Built to carry every resident of Fish-Man Island to the surface, it was half the size of the island itself - easily large enough to accommodate a population of five million people.
Families with children, elderly people with whatever belongings they'd managed to gather, all of them made their way up the gangplanks and into the ship's holds. Eight hundred years of disuse had left a fine layer of dust over everything inside, but no one had time to care about that. Staying alive came first.
High above in the Sea Forest's upper reaches, Jinbei hovered and watched the flow of his people moving below like a slow-moving current toward the ship. His expression was dark.
He exhaled slowly.
Fish-Man Island was always going to move to the surface eventually, once the war was won. He had known that. Everyone had known that.
But choosing to go when the time was right was a different thing from being driven out by force - from being made to abandon your home because someone had decided to destroy it. The distinction mattered.
Jinbei felt the anger and the humiliation of it settle in his chest.
He stopped looking at the people below and began swimming upward.
Higher up, Brett was still working alongside the Sea Kings, holding back the last of the falling debris.
"Jinbei."
Brett noticed him as he arrived.
"Everything is proceeding as planned. Our people are boarding Noah." Jinbei's voice was heavy. "It should take a little over an hour to complete."
Five million people. This was not a small evacuation.
"That's fine." Brett, in his dragon hybrid form, allowed himself a slight smile. "We'll buy the time. The order side of things, I'll have to leave entirely to you."
With that many people moving at once, any breakdown in organization could turn dangerous fast.
"I'll handle it." Jinbei glanced upward at the rocks still occasionally coming down from above. "I can't help much up here. But down there, don't worry about a thing."
"I know."
Brett nodded with genuine warmth.
Jinbei never let him down.
Jinbei returned below to continue directing the evacuation.
The falling debris had thinned considerably. There were limits to how much rock could come down, and much of it had already been vaporized directly by Imu's bombardment rather than falling intact. Still, the area around Fish-Man Island had accumulated a thick plateau of rubble - the island now sat at the bottom of a pit, surrounded on all sides by walls of piled stone. Without the Sea Kings still holding the perimeter, the whole thing would have collapsed inward long ago.
But the worst of the initial crisis had passed. The situation was stabilizing.
At this rate, holding until all five million people were aboard Noah was entirely manageable.
Brett thought this, and the deep sea promptly disagreed.
The water around them lurched. Somewhere far above, something was detonating with extreme force - far beyond what the earlier bombardment had produced. The shockwaves traveled through the water and hit like a physical blow, strong enough that even the accumulated rubble around the island began to shift and tremble.
The enormous bubble enclosing Fish-Man Island shuddered violently. It looked close to bursting.
In the Sea Forest below, the surging currents swept through the coral thickets and knocked residents off their feet.
Brett's teeth clenched.
Imu again, without question. The Red Line was already gone, so now he was hammering the ocean itself - drilling down into the water with shot after shot, punching the blasts deeper than before, trying to transmit enough destructive force through the sea to finish what the collapse had started.
This couldn't continue.
Even if the deep water kept absorbing the worst of it, the currents alone were close to tearing the island apart.
"Alexander!"
"Right here, brother!"
The warrior shrimp surged toward Brett immediately, Haki crackling along his claws and tail.
"What do you need!"
"Take command of the Sea Kings. Keep holding."
Brett looked upward, his voice dropping to something quieter and more dangerous.
"I'm going to go stop someone from having too much fun."
"Understood!" Alexander's nod was decisive.
He wanted to say he'd fight alongside Brett. But he was sharp enough to know that wasn't what was needed right now.
Brett kept his cloud canopy active - maintained it around Fish-Man Island to continue its protection - and then shot downward into the Sea Forest.
He came to a stop above an open stretch of water in the forest's depths.
"Pluton. I need you."
Below him, the enormous black hull sat quietly in the dark water.
A projection formed before him in the next instant.
"Ready to move at your word."