Chapter 554: New Fish-Man Island
Somewhere in the world, or rather somewhere in the sky above it, an immense shape hung in silence.
The ultimate weapon, carrier of enough destructive force to unmake the world, floated as still as a mountain suspended in the clouds, mute and motionless while the gales tore around it.
On the outer deck of the craft, the broad circular platform that ran around its brim, a number of people were grumbling loudly.
They wore white suits that resembled something an astronaut might put on, with glass domes sealed over their heads. Even at this altitude, even with the wind howling past at full force, they felt no cold.
These were the Celestial Dragons, the self-proclaimed world nobles, the people whose slightest grievance had once summoned Admirals to their defense.
That, of course, was no longer the case. The Navy had defected. At this point, the Navy would likely come for the Celestial Dragons rather than protect them.
The Celestial Dragons were deeply unhappy. Mariejois, the home they had inhabited for eight hundred years, was simply gone. Their mansions and estates had been reduced to rubble. They had escaped with their treasures, yes, but they had barely settled into a temporary refuge before being forcibly herded onto this ship and lifted into the sky, where they had remained ever since.
The Celestial Dragons had always lived for comfort. Eight centuries of luxury had stripped them of any meaningful capacity for hardship. Up here, supply was already a problem. The Five Elders had promised the ship would descend to the ocean periodically to restock, but the days of limitless excess were clearly behind them for the time being.
There was not much the Celestial Dragons could do about any of it.
They could not very well defy the will of Imu, the one who had built the World Government and granted them their god-like status in the first place. They would endure. Once Imu had swept the world clean, they would reclaim their place above everything.
At the heart of the ship, in a chamber that resembled the one inside Pangaea Castle, a replica of the Empty Throne stood in the center of the room.
Imu sat upon it, robes concealing every feature as always. The Five Elders knelt on the floor below.
"So what we may be facing," Saint Mars said, his expression strained, "is four ancient weapons."
Brett had not only obtained Pluton's blueprints and begun constructing a second one. He had also recovered the original. That was not good news.
Eight hundred years ago, Imu's victory over Joy Boy had hinged in no small part on seizing Uranus before the battle began. Even the ultimate weapon would have struggled to overcome both Pluton and Uranus working together. And now Brett had two Plutons.
How were they supposed to fight that?
The Five Elders' foreheads were damp with sweat they could not quite suppress.
"Have you lost faith in me?"
Imu looked down at the five old men from the throne, voice light and unhurried.
The five men who had been called the world's highest authority for decades flinched as one, then pressed their heads to the floor.
"No. Never."
They answered almost in unison. Saint Nusjuro was quickest to add, "With you, Imu-sama, victory is certain."
"Is that so."
A quiet laugh. No apparent intent to press the matter further. "Two Plutons is certainly troublesome, but it is not unmanageable. And Uranus has not finished growing yet. It cannot demonstrate its true power in its current state."
"That said, things cannot continue the way they have. Brett cannot be allowed to track our movements as easily as before."
Imu's tone remained unhurried, almost playful. "Let us play a game of hide-and-seek with him."
"Out in a dark jungle, which is more interesting — the moment we spot their silhouettes first, or the moment they hear our footsteps before we expect them to? Don't you think?"
The Five Elders' expressions remained grave.
Whoever found the other first would be able to deliver a devastating strike before the enemy could react. Two Plutons were genuinely terrifying. But a sudden ambush from this ship would reduce even two Plutons to wreckage in an instant.
The counterargument, the one none of the Five Elders dared voice aloud, was whether any opening the enemy presented could be trusted. What if it was deliberate?
"What a frightening opponent you are, Brett."
Imu's voice carried something close to admiration. "Even Joy Boy never gave me this much trouble."
"Then, Imu-sama." Saint Ju Peter knelt below the throne and spoke carefully. "What would you have us do?"
"Search."
The smile came through in Imu's voice. "Set every nation in motion. The Blues, the Grand Line, everywhere. Hunt for any trace of the enemy."
The World Government had taken severe losses after the Navy's defection, but it remained the World Government. It still held authority over the majority of the world. Coercive authority, but authority nonetheless. When all of those member nations were mobilized at once, the resulting net would cover the entire world.
"Yes."
The Five Elders answered as one.
There was nothing else to do but follow these orders. Any other line of thinking was pointless now.
The enormous ship continued its silent drift through the high sky, so high that despite its massive size, no trace of it was visible from the surface of the sea below.
Imu and his World Government had vanished entirely from the ocean.
While they hid themselves away in the sky, the Fish-Man population had been making themselves at home on their island in the New World.
Brett and Neptune had named it New Fish-Man Island.
It was only a temporary home, but calling it a nameless uninhabited island forever seemed wrong. The Fish-Men and mermaids were living there for now. The name was fitting enough.
Construction was proceeding at a tremendous pace.
Fish-Man strength, ten times that of an ordinary human, was proving its worth. The first rough houses had already gone up across the island. Progress on land was moving quickly, and below the surface was no different. Stone chambers carved from the bedrock, structures assembled from coral, all of it gradually taking shape.
While the population worked, Brett was not idle.
He was training.
Pluton's completion was close. He could not afford to waste a single moment. Before the war began, he needed power sufficient to defeat Imu. The work of cracking Observation Killing did not pause for a day.
Meanwhile the first supply convoy from the logistics teams had arrived successfully. With adequate provisions finally flowing in, the last of the lingering anxiety in the population faded. The island felt fully, genuinely alive.
Tesoro even organized occasional concerts on the island, putting his company's performers to use, giving everyone something to look forward to beyond the work.
The wider world had settled into a strange, uneasy quiet.
The two sides that had been trading blows in the press and appearing to teeter on the edge of open war had both gone silent in terms of actual movement. The propaganda war continued, but in practice, both factions had vanished.
People across the world were startled to find that neither the World Government nor the alliance of Fish-Man Island, the NEO Navy, the Revolutionary Army, and the New Navy could be located anywhere. No one could find where any of them had gone.
Mariejois had disappeared with the collapse of the Red Line. Fish-Man Island was an empty ruin. The two sides supposedly on the verge of a world-ending war had both, at the critical moment, apparently evaporated.
The unease this created across the seas was real. If they were going to fight, they should just fight. This limbo was worse than anything definitive.
While that stillness held, Brett did not rest.
Pluton's completion was close. He could not afford to waste a single moment. Before the war began, he needed power sufficient to defeat Imu. The work of cracking Observation Killing did not pause for a day.