Blue—endless, boundless blue.
Tabito sat astride the broad, icy back of the tiger-shaped corpse puppet, drifting on this open ocean for a full half month. Looking around, the sky was a clear blue, the sea a deep blue, and aside from the occasional seabird skimming past and fish leaping from the water, there was nothing else. The initial novelty had long since been replaced by tedium and irritability.
He thought back to his previous life in the cultivation world. Even though he'd been hiding and on the run, at least he'd had a clear goal—gather resources, raise his cultivation. But out here on the vast sea, there was no direction, no coordinates, and even a scrap of land to set foot on had become a luxury. The tiger-shaped corpse puppet's ability to stride the waves was certainly miraculous, but its "sailing" depended entirely on Tabito's will… and Tabito himself was, without exaggeration, a hopeless sea-route idiot.
"I need to find a navigator," Tabito murmured, staring at the distant line where sea met sky. The thought had grown clearer and more urgent with each passing day of these two weeks.
His future target was the Grand Line—where strong fighters gathered like clouds and secret treasures carpeted the ground—and even, ultimately, the New World! Even in the original owner's fragmented memories, it was a place steeped in legend.
The Grand Line was a mysterious ring-shaped sea where magnetism, weather, and currents were all a total mess, encircled by the Calm Belt. Without professional navigation techniques and a Log Pose, you couldn't take a single step forward. If you wanted to cross the Calm Belt, you either needed the kind of special warship the Marines had, with Sea-Prism Stone embedded along the bottom, or you needed the guts and skill to climb the Red Line and pass through Reverse Mountain's miracle waterway.
All of that required an excellent navigator. Otherwise, even if Tabito had power that reached the heavens and shook the earth, he'd end up trapped spinning in circles around East Blue's "beginner village," keeping company with those trash-tier Pirates who did nothing but bully civilians. That ran completely counter to his ambition of returning to the peak.
Fortunately, these half a month hadn't been a total loss. During the journey, he'd run into several Pirate ships that didn't know what was good for them. Their vessels were ramshackle, their crews sallow and thin; rather than vicious Pirates, they looked more like a bunch of poor wretches driven to desperation. But they'd chosen the path of plunder—and after they met Tabito, they could only blame their own bad luck.
Tabito didn't even need to lift a finger. With a single thought, he had the tiger-shaped corpse puppet pounce and slaughter, and those feeble Pirates collapsed in disarray. The Human Emperor Banner swept over them—terrified, unwilling, venomous souls were forcibly torn out one after another and sucked into that dark-red banner.
All told, he'd harvested fifty or sixty grudging spirits—low quality, but better than nothing. The space inside the Human Emperor Banner was no longer as empty as when he'd first arrived; threads of faint baleful aura and resentment began to coil and breed within.
That day, the sunlight was still scorching, the sea calm and flat. Tabito sat cross-legged on the tiger's back with his eyes closed, circulating his art as he drew in the banner's thin negative energy, while also using his weak spiritual sense to probe the surroundings.
Then he snapped his eyes open.
The sea ahead looked empty—nothing could be seen with the naked eye. But the instinct he'd tempered across two lives—especially through three hundred years as a demonic cultivator—sent back an extremely faint signal.
Ahead… there was an "anomaly."
Something massive, yet almost perfectly blended into the environment.
'A concealment method? A Devil Fruit ability?' Tabito's heart stirred. Not only was he not wary—he was interested.
With a flicker of thought, black light flashed in his hand, and the ten-foot Human Emperor Banner was already in his grasp. He gave his wrist a shake, and the dark-red banner cloth moved like a living thing, rapidly gathering and winding around the pole. In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a pitch-black, cold-glinting, mysterious iron greatspear—its tip faintly marked with blood patterns—appearing in his hand. This was the Human Emperor Banner's other form, and also the close-range weapon Tabito had relied on most in his previous life.
Without the slightest hesitation, Tabito held the spear one-handed and swung it in a casual horizontal slash toward that "empty" stretch of sea.
Chi! Chi! Chi!
Three half-moon blades of gray-black qi—condensed to an extreme, compressed from pure baleful aura—ripped through the air with piercing shrieks and slammed into the void.
BOOM!!! BOOM!!! BOOM!!!
Three deafening explosions rang out in succession, blasting sky-high columns of water from the surface. Immediately after, as if an invisible curtain had been torn apart by force, a colossal object lurched into view amid warped light and shadow—appearing right before Tabito's eyes!
It was a huge ship with an exaggerated design. The bow was like a vicious shark with its jaws gaping wide. The hull wasn't wood, but some kind of material that gleamed like metal. Even more eye-catching, both sides of the ship were studded with dense, massive gemstones of every color, reflecting a dazzling, luxurious brilliance under the sun that made one's head spin. The whole ship reeked of nouveau-riche showmanship—yet it also carried a ferocity that couldn't be underestimated.
And on the main mast, the Pirate flag snapping in the wind was even stranger: a skull with thick lips, and behind it, the crossed "bones" weren't swords at all, but a shovel and a hoe.
"This is… what kind of deity's crew is this?" Tabito frowned slightly. His memories of the Pirate King world were "old almanac" stuff from hundreds of years ago; many details had already blurred. With a Pirate flag this distinctive, he genuinely couldn't match it to a name right away.
But that didn't stop him from judging the situation. A Pirate ship. Luxurious. With a Devil Fruit user aboard (most likely the one using the concealment method)…
In his eyes, that was nothing less than a plump, well-fed "fat lamb" delivering itself to his door.
Especially when he considered what kind of special corpse puppet a Devil Fruit user's soul might produce, Tabito's gaze instantly turned scorching hot. Free supplies and experimental materials sent straight to him—how could he possibly let them go?
…
Rewind a few minutes, to before Tabito's attack.
In the lower decks of this lavish ship—the "Jeweled Shark"—inside the dark, damp engine room.
Dozens of prisoners in tattered clothes and gaunt faces were pushing a massive turbine device like slaves, providing propulsion for the Pirates partying above their heads. The air was thick with sweat, mildew, and despair.
In the crowd, two figures stood out. Even with coal ash smeared on their faces and ragged work uniforms on their bodies, their natural looks were impossible to hide. One was a girl with neat, short purple hair and a tall, slender frame. Even while straining to push the heavy turbine, her movements carried a unique sense of rhythm—this was Carina. The other was a girl with bright short orange hair, fair skin, and a chest that was already beginning to show its promise—this was Nami.
They'd started as strangers, but after setting their sights on the ship's owner—the "Most Vicious Treasure Hunter in History," Mad Treasure, who had a bounty of 60 million Beli—and the massive hoard of treasure he'd collected, they'd teamed up as a star thief duo. Unfortunately, the operation had gone wrong. Treasure noticed them during the theft. Not only did they fail to steal anything, they ended up as captives, tossed into this lightless engine room to serve as human engines.
For days, the two of them had clenched their teeth and endured, while secretly searching for a chance to escape.
"Nami, we've got to find a way—" Carina lowered her voice, but she didn't finish.
Suddenly—
RUMBLE!!!
The whole ship jolted violently, as if something enormous had slammed into it. Immediately after, a shrill tearing of metal rang out from overhead. A huge crack—like lightning—split straight through the metal wall of the compartment. Scorching sunlight and sea wind surged in at once, chasing away part of the gloom!
Nami and Carina whipped around in shock. What filled their eyes was the torn-open hull, the vast sea beyond, and…
A mysterious figure holding a black greatspear, riding a ferocious tiger-shaped monster, standing upon the sea itself!
The scene didn't just stun Nami, Carina, and the prisoners in the engine room—it threw the Treasure Pirates on deck into extreme panic as well.
"W-what the hell happened?!"
"The ship—! The ship got split open!"
"Is it a Sea King?! No—there's someone up there!"
Screams, footsteps, and the clatter of falling objects erupted into chaos.
(End of Chapter)
If I see that this fanfic has support, I will upload 20+ chapters to Patreon!!
[[email protected]/Zukooo]
[Thanks for your support!]