"What the hell is going on?!"
"The ship's shaking! Everyone, brace yourselves!"
"A noise... from under the sea?! That loud?!"
"Damn it, Sea Kings?!"
The raging waters surged and spiraled into a whirlpool of chaos.
Caught in the pull of the current, the Chris pitched and rocked violently. On deck, chaos reigned, crew members stumbled and fell, crates of supplies toppled and crashed open. Below deck, the cargo hold fared no better. The entire ship was a mess.
Pere pere pere pere... pere pere pere pere...
Pere pere pere pere... pere pere pere pere...
"—Moshi moshi?! This is the comms room, calling the main ship, calling the Captain!"
"This is Ship Four, we... we've got a Sea King sighting!"
"Main ship! Port side! It's a Sea King—huge!"
"Captain Aeridar! Vice Captain Arlan! That thing's over a thousand meters long!"
Inside the communications room, dozens of Den Den Mushi rang out in a cacophony of urgent calls. The crew scrambled to answer them, but the torrent of incoming reports was staggering.
The comms room had been repurposed when the Grand Fleet was formed. Now it was lined wall-to-wall with Den Den Mushi for every allied pirate crew and ship in the fleet.
"...Is that an eye?!"
Standing at the second-floor entrance to the captain's quarters, Aeridar stared in stunned silence toward the deep sea off the port side.
There, deep in the abyssal dark, two enormous, softly glowing yellow lights appeared. Massive round orbs, each easily over a hundred meters wide.
They glared straight at the Chris Pirates' fleet. And behind them... an immense, barely visible form. Even the Chris, a ship well over 120 meters long, looked like a speck before this behemoth.
"This can't be a Sea King... can it?!"
On deck, Arlan, Oliver, and the others stood frozen, their faces blank with disbelief.
None of them had ever seen a Sea King of this size. Creatures this colossal weren't supposed to exist outside the Calm Belt or the deepest trenches of the sea.
"How the hell are we supposed to drive that thing off?!"
Aeridar snapped out of his shock. If they didn't repel, or kill, that monster, his dream of ruling the seas would end right here, in the abyss.
"You can't kill something that big down here... so we drive it off. But how?! Wait... Haki! Conqueror's Haki, maybe that'll work!"
With no hesitation, Aeridar leapt over the railing and dashed toward the bow.
"Arlan! Order the other ships to pull back! Dimitri, take the flagship forward, leave the rest to me!"
Firing a cannon underwater was out of the question, it would rupture the ship's bubble membrane. At 7,000 meters below sea level, a single breach meant instant death.
The crushing pressure alone was fatal, and that was before accounting for a monster of this magnitude. Even someone like Oliver, a non-Devil Fruit user, wouldn't survive.
"Wait—what?! The ship, you're serious?!"
"Captain, you can't be serious!"
"Are you actually planning to jump out there?! You're a Devil Fruit user!"
"Captain! We're seven thousand meters deep! We should just retreat!"
Cries of panic erupted across the ship. Some crew members looked ready to bolt, others were trembling so hard they nearly wet themselves.
"...Captain, you mean to... I see now."
Arlan's eyes lit with realization. He quickly grabbed a Den Den Mushi connected to the fleet.
"Retreat! Full retreat! All ships, back off from the Sea King! Leave the rest to the Captain!"
"Copy that! Hard to port, hurry! Turn us around!"
Dimitri spun the Chris into action, pulling the wheel sharply.
In the inky depths, seven or eight ships from the Chris Grand Fleet wheeled about and began a frantic retreat.
And one ship, a massive wolf-headed warship, surged forward.
The creature let out a thunderous bellow, a soundwave so powerful it churned the ocean floor into a storm of turbulence. Then it moved.
That ghostly, titanic form darted forward. In a blink, it had closed the gap, closing in on the Chris like a predator on prey.
Its gaping maw opened wide—impossibly long, blindingly white fangs glinting with menace. Each tooth was dozens of meters long. With one bite, it could easily tear through a Marine Admiral's battleship like it was paper.
"Damn it... too late!"
Standing at the prow of the Chris, Aeridar's face darkened as he watched the enormous Sea King make its move.
"No time to hesitate, we have to try!"
A faint, almost imperceptible hum seemed to ripple through the air.
Then, an invisible force surged from beneath the waves, spreading outward in an instant. The wave of power slammed directly into the massive Sea King's body.
Suddenly, as if struck by some unseen terror, the Sea King's head jerked toward the Chris. Its massive form froze in place.
In those golden, plate-sized eyes, the pupils constricted sharply, like it had just seen something far more terrifying than anything in the ocean depths.
"Shit... It's not running? Did it not work? Or maybe..."
Though the beast had stopped, its gaze remained locked on Aeridar.
The fact that it hadn't turned tail yet made his heart sink, but he wasn't done. He focused once more, channeling everything into a second, full-force release of that overwhelming, soul-piercing pressure:
The Sea King recoiled violently, its massive body twisting back as if struck. A swell of seawater exploded in its wake.
With a guttural, pained cry, it finally turned around, and fled. It thrashed away like something had just threatened its very life.
Within moments, the colossal figure vanished into the distance beneath the waves.
All across the fleet, sailors stood frozen in stunned silence, eyes wide as they stared at the vanishing shadow.
"Am I dreaming right now?"
"No way... Just two shouts and a Sea King that big ran away?"
"Is the Captain... some kind of god?"
Back on the Chris, Aeridar let out a long, shaky breath.
His shirt was already soaked with sweat. It wasn't that he feared the Sea King itself, what truly worried him was what would've happened if a fight had broken out.
The churning sea alone could've spelled disaster for the entire fleet.
Thump... Thump... Thump...
One by one, the crewmen standing at the front of the ship collapsed, their eyes rolling back in their heads. Within seconds, only Aeridar and Dimitri were still on their feet. Every other sailor lay unconscious on the deck.
"They were knocked out... by the Conqueror's Haki that leaked out just now," Aeridar muttered as he glanced around. Fortunately, none of them were hurt, just rendered unconscious.
"So this... this is the power of Conqueror's Haki?" Dimitri's eyes were wide with awe. "It's terrifying..."
"So this is what it feels like... to awaken Conqueror's Haki." Oliver sheathed his sword, nodding slowly, admiration written all over his face.
"Conqueror's Haki..." Arlan murmured, his eyes glinting with quiet envy.
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