"Captain, a Marine second-class warship spotted due west!"
Aeridar had already received the report from the lookout atop their mast.
"Don't bother with it," he replied nonchalantly. "It's probably just a scout vessel, out here surveying the area."
This sea zone marked the entrance to the New World, well within the Navy's surveillance perimeter.
The G-1 Fortress couldn't be far off, and with the Marine Grand Expeditionary Fleet still not fully withdrawn from Fortresses G-1 and G-5, reconnaissance ships patrolling the waters were to be expected.
"Captain, we've got three possible routes. Which one are we taking?" asked Dimitri, tapping the dial strapped to his wrist.
The dial on Dimitri's wrist, a Log Pose, pointed steadily in three distinct directions.
"We're heading for Dressrosa. Time to pay Doflamingo a visit."
With backing from the White Mane Pirates via Enrod, and deals made with Bright Ward, Aeridar wasn't short on Eternal Poses to renowned locations. He even had a rare and precious sea chart from Galan.
In the unpredictable and volatile waters of the Grand Line, navigation couldn't be trusted to simple instinct.
Log Poses and Eternal Poses were essential.
And while a chart wouldn't guide a ship to its destination, it could reveal one's current location, desired course, potential hazards, and even the distribution of power in the surrounding territories.
A complete nautical chart was worth its weight in treasure.
"Doflamingo, huh... Wonder if Dressrosa has any decent swordsmen," mused Oliver, absentmindedly stroking his chin while resting a hand on his blade's hilt.
Nine pirate ships, including those of the White Mane Pirates, set sail together, veering in unison toward a single heading.
"Hehehe... Annoying little Marines, let's give 'em a parting gift," Aeridar muttered with a sinister grin, his eyes lingering on the Marine vessel behind them.
"Oi, oi, oi, Captain... what are you plotting now?" Dimitri asked, instantly unnerved by Aeridar's creepy chuckle.
"Just delivering a present," Aeridar shrugged, then turned and bolted toward the stern of the ship.
"This bastard..." muttered Arlan, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "He's up to something again."
On deck, Oliver, Gorbo, and the others watched Aeridar sprinting past with puzzled expressions, trying to guess what kind of madness their captain was about to unleash.
"Captain! Where are you going? Wait for us!" shouted Millie and Mina, chasing after him.
By then, Aeridar had reached the stern and was now standing atop one of the rear gun turrets.
Five fingers clenched into a tight fist.
It trembled slightly, and then, a pale white glow began to shimmer around it. The glow grew denser, forming into a ten-centimeter-wide pressurized aura enveloping his entire fist.
"That's...! Hey, Captain, what are you doing?!" Millie and Mina froze in disbelief.
They remembered it too vividly, the horrifying moment in Mock Town when a single blow from that fist had demolished half the town. The shattered ground, the storm-like shockwave, it had left a crater and a memory neither of them could forget.
"What am I doing? Delivering that gift, of course. Hahahaha—Now tremble!"
Madness danced across Aeridar's face. He grinned wide, and with a mighty swing, he launched the compressed fist forward.
As though the sky itself were made of glass, it shattered under the impact. Dense, web-like fractures spread across the atmosphere in front of him, ten, maybe more, spidering outward like the cracks in a smashed mirror.
"Aaaaaaah! The Captain's lost it again!" Millie and Mina screamed, running around in a panic.
A low, thunderous rumble echoed up from beneath the waves. The once-calm sea began to ripple violently. The water churned, boiled, as if the ocean itself had come alive.
A vast stretch of ocean exploded upward in violent upheaval, wave after wave stacking together into monstrous tsunamis, each one tens of meters high.
Within moments, the sunlight was blotted out entirely.
Behind the Chris Pirates' fleet, the ocean looked like it had been turned upside down. The sky darkened under a wall of water so immense, it could swallow fleets whole.
"W-What the hell is going on?!"
"Is this just how crazy the weather in the New World gets?!"
"Thank the seas it's headed the other way... If something like that hit us dead-on, we'd be fish food."
The sailors aboard every ship were visibly shaken.
Some were paralyzed with fear, while others screamed in panic, sprinting across the decks like chickens with their heads cut off.
It was a clear, cloudless day, there hadn't been a single sign of a storm, and now this monster of a wave came crashing in like an act of divine wrath. It was enough to scare a man to death.
"That bastard... don't tell me he used some kind of quake-based power..."
Arlan narrowed his eyes, staring at the monstrous wall of water. He had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what was going on.
"Is this the 'gift' the Captain mentioned earlier? Has he lost his damn mind?" Dimitri gaped at the impossible sight, waves nearly thirty meters tall barreling behind them.
"Please don't tell me... this tsunami is his doing," Oliver muttered, glancing over his shoulder toward the stern of the ship, a chill crawling down his spine.
Gorbo, Backan, and Otto all stared at the approaching calamity, mouths agape, too stunned to even form a coherent thought.
"What the hell is going on out there...?" Inside the ship, Dalt had been in the middle of one of his experiments when the sound of panicked shouting drew him to the deck. He threw open the door, and froze. Everyone's eyes were locked on the sea behind them.
When he followed their gaze, his own eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
"What the actual hell is this?!"
A tsunami, towering like a mountain, had risen right behind the fleet, like the ocean itself had been flipped upside down. The sheer scale of it was beyond terrifying. It was nightmare fuel come to life.
Meanwhile, several nautical miles away aboard a Marine warship...
"Cough—COUGH! Get us out of here! Turn the ship around, NOW!!" a panicked voice rasped hoarsely. A middle-aged Marine Rear Admiral stood on deck, frantically waving his arms and shouting at the top of his lungs.
A massive swell had just crashed down moments ago, nearly drowning him where he stood.
The warship, hundreds of meters long, bobbed like a toy boat in a child's bath, tossed up and down by the wrathful sea. Waves slammed from all directions, tossing the mighty vessel left and right as though it weighed nothing.
"MOVE! We need to get out of here, NOW!"
"Is this... is this the wrath of the Sea God?!"
"Heavens have mercy... are we gonna die?!"
"There's no storm, how can a tsunami this massive even exist?!"
On deck, hundreds of Marines scrambled in pure panic, hauling sails, lifting anchors, firing up the engines, all in a desperate bid to flee this cursed stretch of sea.
"You morons! You wanna die?! MOVE FASTER!!" a Marine officer barked, kicking one poor sailor in the rear and bellowing over the chaos.
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