Free Web NovelChapter 610: Chapter 610
"VISTA—! Get them all out of here. DO NOT wait for me!"
Whitebeard’s roar split the battlefield like a thunderclap. Before Vista could even answer, the old man’s tremor-laced fist came crashing down again—squarely onto Elder Mars’s skull. The impact rippled into the earth with world-breaking force. Rock liquefied. Coral shattered. The seabed split open like a wound. Mars’s body was hammered deeper into the crust, further past the point where even immortal flesh should withstand pressure. The earth groaned as if begging mercy. But mercy was something Whitebeard no longer possessed. The entire island shuddered, its foundations trembling as shockwaves blasted outward. Towers cracked. Streets buckled. Entire reef formations collapsed under the wrath of a man who had stopped caring about restraint.
For the first time since the attack on Fishman Island began, Whitebeard no longer held back. He didn’t care that Fishman Island might fall apart. He didn’t care that the seabed might fracture. He didn’t care about structural integrity, collateral damage, or consequences. They had taken too much from him. His Observation Haki had felt it—the moment Otohime’s life flickered out like a candle swallowed by darkness. She hadn’t been slain by Mars or Warcury...but it was their presence, their assault, and their monstrous ambition that had brought tragedy crashing down.
And Edward Newgate’s rage threatened to consume reason itself. The sea trembled around him as he turned, veins pulsing with quake energy, eyes glowing with a murderous promise. Each step he took left spiderweb cracks spreading across the earth. Yet even in his fury, the father in him remained. He forced his thoughts into order long enough to command his sons. Vista, ears bleeding from the newborn Poseidon’s cry, staggered upright and gritted his teeth.
"Oyaji—!"
"GO!" Whitebeard thundered, slamming his foot down and sending Elder Mars another fifty meters deeper into the trench. "Get every fishman you can onto those ships! SAVE THEM! THAT’S AN ORDER!"
The sheer authority in his voice cut through the chaos, steadied the Whitebeard pirates, and lit a fire in those still conscious. Vista wiped blood from his cheek, steel flashing in his eyes.
"Aye, Oyaji! All divisions still standing—move your asses! Anyone who can still stand, anyone who can fight—grab survivors and FALL BACK!"
Whitebeard didn’t watch them go. He already knew where every life in the area was. His observation Haki stretched outward, painting the battlefield in shapes and heartbeats—like constellations carved into water. He felt Marco’s flame, faint but steady. Marco—injured, weary, half-broken—had scooped up a half-dead King Neptune and was streaking through the air toward one of the retreating ships. He felt the tremor in Neptune’s pulse, weak but persistent. Whitebeard let out a slow, furious breath.
Good.
They were alive. They still had a chance.
Whitebeard planted his bisento beside him with a boom that cracked the seabed again. His silhouette swelled—bigger, broader, and more terrible than any monster present. His bandana drifted like the mane of a hunting lion. His muscles churned with quake-light. The pressure radiating from him made the very water around him vibrate. He lifted his fist. A white sphere of destruction gathered around it—unstable, hungry. His voice dropped to a growl heavy with vengeance.
"Now... let’s finish this."
The tremor halo expanded. Elder Warcury, still reverting from beast to man, looked up with something very close to fear. And Whitebeard descended on them like the judgment of a god.
Elder Warcury crashed to the ground in a plume of shattered coral and pulverized stone, his massive Fengxi body flattening whole blocks of Fishman Island beneath him. His limbs trembled—not from exertion, but from the unfamiliar, burning pain coursing through his immortal flesh. He looked down at his colossal chest. There—plain as daylight—was a dent the size of a ship’s hull. A crater punched into his mythical hide.
Whitebeard’s punch had broken through his defense. Lightning—not natural, but crimson, crackling with lethal Haki—sizzled across the wound, countering the Elder’s regeneration. Not stopping it, but slowing it, corrupting it, making the immortal flesh struggle to knit together. Warcury’s eyes widened. Whitebeard... had harmed him. Not critically. Not fatally. But meaningfully.
And that was all it took to remind Warcury why the Elders had always been wary—terrified even—of monsters like Rocks, Roger, Garp... And Whitebeard. Those rare men who could sharpen their Conqueror’s Haki so far, so fiercely, that it began to erode the false immortality the Elders held so dear. Warcury’s lips peeled back in fury.
He roared, hooves carving trenches in the floor as he prepared to charge. But Whitebeard wasn’t giving him a chance.
"BOOM... BOOM... BOOM—!"
Each strike fell like a divine hammer. Whitebeard’s fists slammed into Elder Mars’s face, chest, limbs—again and again—driving the once-mighty Elder deeper into the seabed. Mars had already reverted to his human form, blood pouring from his nose and mouth, bone fragments littering the crater. Whitebeard’s blows came down like guillotines. Every punch radiated tremor-light. Cracks webbed violently across Mars’s skin, across the ground, and across reality.
With a savage thrust, Whitebeard drove his bisento straight through Mars’s ribcage, pinning him to the ocean floor like an insect on a board. Mars shrieked, a sound no immortal being should ever make. Blood splattered. Bone splintered. The earth buckled under the sheer brutality.
Whitebeard did not cease. Because he could see it. A black mist—a ghostly corruption—coiled around Mars’s wounds, anchoring the Elder’s soul, fighting to hold him in this world. Some cursed power. Some ancient binding. Some abomination had been placed upon them. Whitebeard snarled and threw another punch. If Mars wanted to cling to life? He would tear that life from him.
"WHITEBEARD—! YOU BASTARD—!"
Warcury, back in full Fengxi form, blurred across the battlefield, a gargantuan juggernaut of ivory and fury. The very water warped from the force of his charge, pressure rippling in concentric waves. His intent was murder. To impale Whitebeard. To crush him beneath celestial might. Conqueror’s Haki roared from both titans—black lightning, crimson sparks, and bursts of dominance that made the Sea Kings flinch mid-battle. But Whitebeard’s wrath was not merely Haki.
It was grief. It was fatherhood. It was vengeance. His Haki surged, and Warcury’s momentum faltered, crushed under an overwhelming force of spirit. Whitebeard turned—smoothly, impossibly—and swung his bisento upward.
CLANG—!
Ivory tusk met steel. A tiny human speck...holding back a mountain-sized beast. The shockwave of their clash tore trenches into the seabed and blasted pillars of water current skyward like geysers. Warcury snarled, pushing, hooves digging into the stone—but Whitebeard held him. Elder Mars, sensing an opening, began to slither free from the crater. Whitebeard didn’t even look back. He stomped. His foot—massive, crater-melting—crashed onto Mars’s face, driving the Elder straight back into the earth. Mars’s skull cracked against the stone, teeth snapping.
Whitebeard roared. A bellow that seemed to shake the ocean. He channelled everything—his fury, his grief, his power—into the bisento. Tremor energy crackled across the blade. Haki wrapped it in a mantle of shimmering white light. He heaved—and swung. The bisento’s arc carved a crescent through the water. It met Warcury’s left tusk. For a moment, everything went quiet.
Then—KRRAAAAAAAAACK—!
The tusk shattered. A pristine white mountain—the pride of the Fengxi—was severed at the root. Chunks of ivory exploded outward like comets, embedding themselves into the collapsing seabed. Warcury’s roar of agony tore across Fishman Island, shaking the very coral dome. Blood—thick, dark, ancient—gushed from the wound. The Fengxi thrashed wildly, crushing buildings, tearing trenches, its massive body slamming against the sea floor in uncontrollable spasms of pain. Whitebeard stood unmoved, his silhouette glowing with quake-light, beard flowing like a banner of war. He pointed the bisento at the wounded Elder. His voice was a death sentence.
"This ends when every last one of you stops breathing."
****
Far from Fishman Island’s collapsing dome, a vast fleet burst from the submerged caverns—dozens upon dozens of bubble-coated ships belonging to the Whitebeard Pirates and the merfolk alike. The moment they cleared the tunnels, they surged upward through the New World side of the ocean. Everyone knew that surfacing in the first half of the Grand Line—amid Marine patrol routes and the raging stormbelts—would mean instant death.
But as they ascended, as the darkness thinned and the pressure eased, the first sight that greeted them was not salvation—it was war. The abyss above their heads churned like a living storm. Titanic silhouettes—each the size of mountains—clashed violently, their roars sending currents powerful enough to toss the fleet like driftwood. Two factions of Sea Kings tore at each other with a hatred older than history.
Some, driven mad by a strange influence, lunged toward the escaping bubble-ships with jaws wide enough to swallow frigates whole. Others—those who remained loyal to Poseidon’s will—hurled themselves in between, intercepting the berserk titans with bone-splintering force. Each collision echoed like underwater thunder.
The water shook. The ships buckled. The crews clung to anything they could. The fleeing fleet had lost all sense of direction. The ocean currents were being rewritten every moment by the chaos around them, tossing the vessels around like toys. No one had time to correct their course. All they could do now was pray.
On one of the Whitebeard ships, Vista and several fishmen carefully wrapped Queen Otohime’s lifeless body in thick cloth. Their hands trembled. Tears mixed with seawater. Grief weighed so heavily that it felt impenetrable—even worse than the terror outside. Hody Jones lay restrained nearby, unconscious, but no one spared him even a glance. The collective shock had frozen their anger.
Fukaboshi knelt beside his mother’s corpse with his newborn sister tightly held in his arms, who wailed ceaselessly. His arms tightened protectively around her and his younger siblings. Even as several mermaids offered to help, he pulled back. After watching his mother die, after watching a Fishman kill his mother, he trusted no one. He held his family close as the world around them shook.
Then—the ocean stilled. Only for a heartbeat. The berserk Sea Kings that had been relentlessly attacking suddenly stopped. Their movements froze, as though gripped by an unseen force. Then, one by one, like candles snuffed out by a storm, they retreated—vanishing into the depths with not even a backward glance. Even the loyalist Sea Kings—the ones defending the ships—began to shiver violently. Their massive bodies trembled, as if crushed under an overwhelming pressure.
"What’s going on—!?" Vista shouted, gripping a railing as the ship lurched, its bubble coating almost threatening to break. They couldn’t see past the bubble’s dim glow; beyond it was only pitch-black nothingness.
Then—WHAM—!
A sudden surge of current slammed into their hull. Their ship was launched sideways, torn violently away from the main ascending fleet. Several other ships screamed past them, spinning helplessly, but within seconds the darkness swallowed everything, and the separated vessels were gone.
"Hold on—!!" Vista roared.
A massive Sea King—the one that was shepherding their ships upward—lunged forward, trying to nudge them back into the proper current. It never got the chance. The abyss below opened. A colossal maw surged upward from the darkness—lined with fangs the size of towers. It clamped down on the Sea King escort with bone-shattering force. The sea turned red. The bubbles trembled as the creature thrashed. The dying roar of the Sea King vibrated through the ship like a funeral bell. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
Before anyone could react, the defenders around them—nearly two dozen ancient Sea Kings—were ambushed. Their roars of pain echoed through the deep, only to be snuffed out one after another. The largest among them—a prehistoric megalodon the length of an island—charged in with jaws wide. It never stood a chance. Something enormous descended from above. Scales rippled. A long serpentine body coiled with divine menace.
A sea dragon—older than legends—struck. Its jaws closed around the megalodon’s skull.
CRUNCH.
The head tore free in a single violent motion. Blood clouded the water. The currents turned hellish. Within minutes, every Sea King that had been guarding Shirahoshi—every sentinel—was torn apart, shredded, devoured, or dragged screaming into the abyssal dark. The entire ship shuddered under the oppressive weight of the dragon’s presence.
"LAUNCH THE OARS—!!" Vista bellowed. "ROW WITH EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT IF YOU WANT TO LIVE—!!"
Men and merfolk scrambled in a panic, arms trembling as they fought against the crushing currents. The sea dragon loomed beneath them like the spine of a continent—its body stretching farther than any eye or mind could comprehend. But the true terror wasn’t the beast. It was the silhouette sitting upon its head. A figure shaped like a mermaid... but wrong. Ancient. Regal. Silent. Her aura was far more suffocating than the sea dragon itself. Vista’s Observation Haki clashed against her presence. He nearly choked, losing consciousness; the entire ship was rattled as the presence itself threatened to splinter the ship.
This... THIS was the source. The puppeteer. The conductor of the berserk Sea Kings. The one who had thrown the ocean itself into chaos. His voice cracked as he whispered, "...So that’s it... it’s her... she’s controlling them all..." Every person aboard—pirate, mermaid, or fishman—felt the crushing weight of that presence as they succumbed. Hope evaporated. They were fleeing something far worse than any elder, any pirate, or any war. They had wandered into the sights of a god.
Vista forced himself to stay conscious—forced his Haki to remain sharp—even as terror pressed against his mind like a vise. The sea dragon continued to circle their drifting ship, its titanic body coiling and uncoiling in the abyss. Each pass generated whirlpools large enough to swallow fleets whole. An eye, larger than the entire galleon, rolled toward them—cold, ancient, and aware. It stared not at the ship... but at something on the ship. Something small. Weak. Fragile.
A presence that, one day, might rival the corrupted queen resting upon its skull. Vista’s breath hitched. He knew. There was no escape. They would all die here. Not to the queen—but to her pet. He braced himself, ready to make the only choice left—to buy even a few extra seconds for the others. But before he could move, someone else did. A tiny figure launched across the deck, tail slapping against soaked planks. A merman child. Barely ten years old.
Fukaboshi.
His eyes were red from crying, yet burning with fierce determination. His tiny arms held his newborn sister—still wailing, still glowing faintly with the pressure of a god’s power she hadn’t yet understood. The moment Fukaboshi felt the Sea Dragon’s attention fix on Shirahoshi, he knew the legends were true. If she stayed on this ship, everyone here would die. His two unconscious brothers. The wounded. The merfolk. The pirates who had protected them. Everyone.
And so—the choice became simple. He would carry her away. Even if it meant dying alone in the abyss protecting his sister. Before anybody could scream or grab him, Fukaboshi launched himself over the railing—into the blackness below.
"NOOOOOOO—!!" Vista roared, reaching out, fingertips scraping air where the boy had been a heartbeat earlier.
The crew—those who still held onto their consciousness—froze in horror. Two princes already lay unconscious. Their queen lay dead. And now— A ten-year-old child
and an infant mermaid were falling into the jaws of an ancient monster. Fukaboshi hit the water like a stone, his small body swallowed immediately by the darkness. Bubbles trailed upward, glowing faintly as they caught the ship’s lights. Yet despite the crushing fear, he swam downward with everything he had.
For his siblings. For his family. For the people who needed the dragon’s attention far, far away from the escapees. Please live... Please... let this give them a chance... he prayed silently, tightening his grip around Shirahoshi. Her cries vibrated through the ocean, drawing the abyssal attention he needed. And it worked.
As the newborn Poseidon moved further from the ship, the Sea Dragon’s body trembled... then turned. The ship was forgotten. Its titanic head tilted downward, pupils dilating. A deep growl rippled through the water—a sound more akin to tectonic plates grinding than anything living. Then, with a speed that defied its size—BOOOOM—!!
The dragon dove. The impact sent a shockwave up the water column so violent the ship nearly capsized. The Sea Kings—what few remained—scattered in terror. Vista clung to the railing, hair whipping in the violent current. He watched helplessly as the monster pursued the brave prince’s silhouette, a tiny glow vanishing into the churning dark. Fukaboshi did not look back. He simply swam deeper, holding his newborn sister tight, willing himself forward toward death—so that the others might see the sun again.
The deeper Fukaboshi swam, the more the ocean crushed him. Every meter down felt like a mountain lowering onto his shoulders. His gills screamed. His ribs creaked. His vision blurred. But he curled his body around his newborn sister, shielding her tiny, fragile form as best he could. The darkness swallowed them both. He didn’t know how long he had been descending—seconds, minutes, an eternity—but gradually his numb limbs began to falter. His kicks weakened. His grip slackened. The pressure clawed into him like iron fingers.
Still, he held on. Just a little farther... just far enough that they won’t be caught in the dragon’s wake... But eventually—even courage has limits. Fukaboshi’s strength finally gave out. He drifted downward like a leaf sinking into a bottomless pit, Shirahoshi cradled to his chest. Her earlier wails had faded; exhaustion had claimed her. She slept soundly in his arms, unaware of the nightmares closing in. A shadow moved below.
No—not a shadow. A continent. Fukaboshi’s dimming eyes widened as the darkness itself seemed to open into a pair of colossal blue slits, ancient and cold. The sea dragon was already waiting for him, its monstrous head as large as an island ridge. It felt as if the entire ocean held its breath. Then the water stirred, parting like curtains around an unseen throne. And she appeared. Seated atop the dragon’s skull like a queen on a cathedral spire, the former Poseidon—the Ancient Mermaid Sovereign—looked down upon him.
Her presence pressed on the mind like an ancient hymn carved onto the bones of the sea. But her eyes—those eyes had long lost their warmth. They glowed a demonic crimson, twisting with Imu’s dark command. Power rolled off her like tides from a dead sun. She simply stared at the tiny speck drifting before her. The newborn heir of her throne. The one she was ordered to destroy.
The silence at the bottom of the world was absolute. Fukaboshi hovered helplessly in the void, limbs limp, lungs burning. Yet as the monstrous dragon inhaled—a sound like a canyon collapsing—and the ancient queen raised one slender hand... He felt no regret. He pressed a gentle kiss to his sister’s forehead.
If this is where I die... At least I’ll be holding you.
He closed his eyes. He faced the end with the dignity of a prince of the Ryugu Kingdom—as one who protected others, even when no one would ever know his sacrifice. The abyss glowed faintly as two Poseidons—past and future, corrupted and innocent—stood in silent opposition. The old queen, enslaved. The newborn queen, asleep. A dying prince between them. A meeting of fates deeper than myth itself.
And as Fukaboshi exhaled his last breath, the ancient Poseidon lowered her hand. The dragon opened its maw. And the darkness rushed forward. The death Fukaboshi awaited—the jaws that should have swallowed him whole—never came. One second passed. Two. A dozen. The crushing pressure around him... shifted. Not lighter. Not weaker. Just held back. As if an invisible wall had been drawn through the ocean itself. Confused and trembling, Fukaboshi dared to open his eyes. And the sight he saw was not the dragon’s maw. Not the corrupted queen. Not oblivion.
But a human. A lone human stood in the abyss, between him and the sea dragon—a tiny figure compared to the colossal titan looming before them. Yet the ocean itself bent around him. The currents parted. The darkness recoiled. The dragon’s advance stopped. Held back by nothing more than raw, overwhelming presence. The pressure rolling off Rosinante was not loud. Not explosive. Not wild.
It was quiet. Steady. Absolute. A sovereign will that did not shout—it commanded.
"You did good, Fukaboshi..." Rosinante’s voice echoed through the water, calm despite the god-beast before him. "Let me deal with this."
He didn’t turn. He didn’t even glance back at the trembling merman prince behind him. He simply stepped forward, stepping on the water like he was on land, a man walking into the shadow of a continent. Two blades slid into his hands, their steel gleaming faintly in the abyssal dark. He exhaled once.
And then—WHOOOOOM—!!!
Conqueror’s Haki exploded from him like the detonation of a submerged star. Not a flare. A domain. The water around them turned white with pressure. The seafloor quivered hundreds of meters below. Everything in a radius of miles felt that crushing, suffocating weight. Everything—except the little siblings behind him. Fukaboshi felt nothing but a warm current, as though Rosinante’s will itself shielded him. The sea dragon roared, the sound vibrating mountains. It tried to push forward, muscles like braided continents straining—but Rosinante did not budge.
His Haki did not crack. Did not waver. Did not acknowledge the god-beast. The ocean split into two realms: Rosinante’s world—calm, silent, absolute. Poseidon’s world—chaotic, violent, godlike. And the two clashed with invisible force, a collision of wills so immense the water around them vanished into nothingness. The corrupted Poseidon narrowed her crimson eyes for the first time—a flicker of surprise rippling through her ancient features. No mortal had ever pushed her back.
No mortal had ever carved space from her dominion.
But this man—this man had just forced the sea itself to kneel. Fukaboshi, barely conscious, stared in open awe. He had seen Whitebeard. He had seen the Elders who brought the fishman race to its knees. He had seen gods and monsters rip his home apart. But nothing—nothing—compared to this. A single human, standing at the bottom of the world, blades drawn, back straight, defying a god and her dragon with nothing but his will. In that moment, Rosinante was not a man. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
And for the first time since the great wail had torn the world apart, the Poseidon of the old hesitated. Because another king had stepped into her realm. And he did not bow.
