The gentleman took a long, shuddering breath, chest heaving.
He had done it.
He had actually teleported Brook, the overlord of the New World, away.
The mission Lord Imu had given him was finally complete.
"No… what did you do to Brother Brook?!"
Charlotte Linlin's eyes went blood red. The instant she saw Brook vanish, her rage exploded. She plunged into a food craze, her slender body charging forward at terrifying speed straight toward the two strangers.
If she killed these two special ability users, Brook would definitely turn back up somewhere safe.
"Run!"
The tattooed man with wrinkles carved deep into his face shouted in panic. He had only been discovered by Lord Imu four or five years ago, right after he ate his Devil Fruit. Since then, he had been locked inside a training regimen until his fruit awakened.
He had almost no real combat experience.
"I'm sorry, brother. Teleporting a restrained target takes three seconds. Bringing someone along takes eight. But teleporting myself… only one and a half."
The gentleman smiled softly. The moment he finished speaking, his figure blurred and disappeared.
The next second, a massive fist punched through his fading afterimage and crashed straight into the tattooed man's face.
Bang.
His head burst like an overripe melon. Blood and bone spattered the air, and his headless body toppled lifelessly into the sea.
"Bring back my big brother Brook!"
Linlin's hair whipped wildly, her aura warping the air as strange, distorted sounds poured out of her. Her scarlet eyes swept the battlefield searching for the vanished gentleman, but he was nowhere to be found.
"Hahaha! Brook is gone. Without him, the Hell Pirates are finished!"
Figarland, laughed savagely. He wished he could grind Brook into dust. Simply imprisoning him forever was far too light a punishment for a man who had destroyed the Uranus.
But that endless, solitary confinement would not be pleasant, especially for an ambitious monster like Brook.
A heartbeat later, Figarland's laughter cut off with a scream as a demon blade cleaved toward him.
Charlotte Linlin tore across the sky, slamming into him with murderous fury.
The war erupted once more.
The Hell Pirates fought like madmen, desperate to force the World Government to reveal Brook's whereabouts.
The World Government wanted to exploit this moment, when the Hell Pirates had lost their captain, to press their advantage and crush them outright.
Linlin was not the only one who went berserk. Redfield's eyes were bloodshot as well. If not for the Five Elders pinning him down, he was certain he could have reached Brook in time.
Now, it was too late.
No one had any idea where those two strange ability users had taken him.
The renewed slaughter pushed the casualty count even higher.
Less than an hour later, Antonio stood in the command room with tears gathering in his eyes as he issued the order no one wanted to hear.
"Retreat… full retreat…"
Hiruba's Glare-Glare Fruit had locked onto a new presence on the horizon, one that made his blood run cold.
A support ship from the Holy Land, Mary Geoise.
One of the Five Elders was aboard.
And the legendary Lord Imu himself was on that warship.
Hiruba could still hear Brook's repeated warnings in his ears.
Be wary of Imu.
If they stayed, even with Brook at full power, fighting Imu and the Five Elders at once would be suicide.
"Sister Linlin! Brother Redfield! Calm down!"
Antonio's voice cracked as he screamed into the Den Den Mushi.
"Brother Brook will be fine! Imu is coming in person. We leave now! Have you forgotten about Hades and Kanna?!"
The names of their children and the future snapped Linlin and Redfield back from the brink.
They could not die here.
Brook would rise again as a king. The second generation of the Hell Pirates had not even grown up yet. They had no right to fall on this sea.
"Retreat!"
Redfield roared.
Newgate immediately unleashed everything he had left, his Tremor Tremor Fruit tearing open the ocean itself. Massive tsunamis and seafloor rifts surged up, forcing a gap between the pirate fleets and Government warships.
"I will kill you all for this."
Linlin glared at the Five Elders, eyes burning like twin suns. Then, thinking of Brook's teachings and the children waiting back home, she swallowed her fury and turned to retreat with the rest of the Hell Pirates.
"Hmph. Go ahead and look for Brook if you can."
"Shiki! With Brook gone, you're the new overlord of the New World."
The blond Five Elder, Peter, laughed loudly. The intent behind his words could not have been more obvious.
If he could not kill the Four Hell Kings today, he would use the newspapers and bounty posters tomorrow.
They would proclaim Shiki and the others as the new rulers of the New World, push their names above the Hell Pirates in headlines across the globe.
Then the Hell Pirates would tear themselves apart on their own.
"Spare me. I'm the overlord of the New World already. Brother Brook is the king of the world."
Shiki spat a mouthful of bloody foam.
Now that he had pulled back from the long haired Five Elder, Mars, his Float Float Fruit was back in his hands. He immediately began lifting and withdrawing the flying fleet.
"Are we really not going to give chase?"
"Lord Imu's latest order is to salvage every fragment of the Uranus. Not a single piece can be lost. Watch the fishmen, they may try to steal it."
After the electromagnetic chaos from the explosions finally settled, Den Den Mushi communication returned. The curly haired Five Elder, Saturn, quickly contacted the others on the front line.
Uranus could be repaired.
That was why Lord Imu was coming in person to recover its remains.
He had planned to kill Brook himself while he was here, but the man had already been delivered to the "destination" according to the original plan.
The Hell Pirates had paid dearly. Two of their sub fleets had been wiped out, their low level casualties were beyond counting, and Pluton had been destroyed.
Their captain had vanished.
The World Government's losses were just as brutal. CP0 in particular had been gutted, losing more than half of its agents and facing a major reorganization.
The Hell Pirates withdrew.
The World Government began salvaging the shattered remains of Uranus and even sent divers after the broken hull of Pluton.
On the other side, in the Valley of God, the battle had finally reached its last act.
Rocks' hair was white, his face deeply wrinkled.
Roger had repeatedly forced the secret arts of the D clan, which in turn stirred the strange poison Colonel Mullin had given him. His lifespan was being burned away with every use.
Garp, on the other hand, had broken through again and again in the midst of the fight.
His Armament Haki had reached a level rarely seen in the world. He no longer feared Rocks' terrifying Conqueror infused blows at all.
"You two will go down as sinners of the D clan…"
Rocks pointed a shaking finger at Roger and Garp. Blood spilled constantly from the corner of his mouth, staining the former overlord in red.
"You don't get to force your will onto us."
Roger's clothes hung in tatters, his body covered in wounds.
Garp looked no better. His justice cloak had long since been shredded, and his white shirt was ripped and bloody.
"I just wanted to get my crew out of here. You were the one trying to stop me."
Rocks let out a dry laugh and turned away from them, dragging his battered body toward where Wang Zhi and the God Knight, Minaro, were still locked in combat.
Roger understood that Rocks did not have much time left.
He also knew he needed to escape this naval stronghold as soon as possible.
He did not trust the marines.
So he did not move to stop Rocks.
Better to withdraw now, leave the dying Rocks to Garp and the navy.
With one last burst of strength, Rocks crashed into Minaro's battle.
He forced the God Knight back, then ordered the giantess Jennifer into her winged unicorn form and pushed Wang Zhi onto her back, sending them into the sky with a final command and a few ragged last words.
After that, surrounded by Garp, Minaro, and a ring of vice admirals, Rocks unleashed everything he had left.
He tore apart one last arrogant marine… and then his body finally gave out.
The sea swallowed him whole.
Somewhere out in the New World, the Dark Dark Fruit was reborn.
And the great devil called Rocks, once the terror of the seas, was gone.
-------------
Time flowed on. Years slipped quietly by.
After the Second God Valley War, one era ended in blood and fire.
Rocks, overlord of the New World, fell in battle. The Rocks Pirates were shattered on the spot. Another overlord, Brook of the Hell Pirates, vanished without a trace and was widely believed to have been captured and imprisoned by the World Government.
The New World soon plunged back into endless conflict.
To reclaim every last fragment of the shattered Uranus, Imu personally led Government and Navy forces back into the New World, sweeping across the seas of the World Government's member nations.
The advance did not stop there.
At their peak, Government forces pushed deep into the central belt of the New World. For a time, the once chaotic waters lay almost entirely inside the World Government's defensive perimeter.
If not for the urgent need to retrieve Uranus' fragments as quickly as possible, Imu and the Five Elders would likely have continued their advance and carved off even more territory.
During these years, the Four Hell Kings of the Hell Pirates constantly clashed with the Government over the scattered remains of Uranus and Pluton. Ambitious pirates from all corners of the sea tried to join the scramble, dreaming of seizing the power of ancient weapons for themselves.
They all underestimated Imu's resolve, and the ruthlessness of the Five Elders.
The localized war over those fragments raged across the New World for several years. Shards of Uranus changed hands again and again.
Countless pirates with grand ambitions died chasing that power.
If the Hell Pirates hadn't possessed a replica Pluton battleship, Charlotte Linlin and Redfield might never have been able to hold their borders under Imu and the Five Elders' relentless assaults.
At last, after years of hunting and fighting, the World Government succeeded in assembling all sixteen core fragments of Uranus.
They then hastily withdrew from the New World, focusing the world's resources on repairing the Uranus and restoring its power as soon as possible.
Without Uranus, Imu's grip on the world would weaken by several levels.
Once Government forces pulled back, the Hell Pirates and the great pirate crews of the New World moved in again, carving up the chaotic seas between them. Their front lines slowly stabilized against the navy's fortified defense line around the allied nations.
Under careful World Government guidance, the Four Hell Kings of the Hell Pirates were publicly rebranded as a "new generation of pirate emperors," the Four Emperors of the New World. At the same time, the Government unilaterally declared that the Hell Pirates had collapsed and split apart.
They even pushed Roger's name up onto the throne of "Pirate King," stirring up resentment and hatred toward the Roger Pirates across the entire sea.
After Rocks' death, the enraged Hell Pirates, already furious over Brook's disappearance, moved swiftly. They seized almost all of Rocks' former territory, completely occupying the central and rear waters of the New World.
Even so, the remnants of the Rocks Pirates managed to hold New Beehive Island.
The Hell Pirates did not exterminate them, instead sending out offers of recruitment again and again.
But the great swordsman Wang Zhi and the giant warrior Jennifer were too busy hunting down Captain John and making trouble for the Roger Pirates. They refused every invitation the Hell Pirates sent.
Shiki the Golden Lion was furious that Roger had helped the navy against Rocks. He began picking fights with the Roger Pirates whenever he could.
In his eyes, an overlord like Rocks should never have died under the navy's siege. If Rocks had to fall, then it should have been at the hands of the Hell Pirates, on the battlefield of monsters.
With brand new wanted posters, revised bounties, and grandiose titles for the Four Hell Kigns, the World Government fanned the flames further.
Shiki the Golden Lion, leading Kaido the Beast at his side, did not hesitate. Together, they took control of most of the New World's seas, consolidating the Hell Pirates' position as the single dominant power of those waters.
Because Shiki, Newgate, and Kaido had been the main spearheads of conquest, Redfield and Linlin arranged matters so that each of them governed an enormous swath of territory.
Compared to the other loyal cadres, Shiki had always had more ambition burning in his heart. He rebuilt his flying fleet in full and became one of the most fearsome and famous forces in the New World.
Especially during the campaign to seize Rocks' old waters, Shiki's name echoed across the world.
Charlotte Linlin and Redfield, meanwhile, had neither the time nor the mood to care about the finer details of New World management. They were obsessed with only one thing: Brook's whereabouts.
Even with Antonio's Den Den Mushi intelligence network infiltrating Marine Headquarters, not a single scrap of reliable information about Brook ever surfaced.
Yet until they received concrete proof of Brook's death, Shiki the Golden Lion refused to officially declare his independence from the Hell Pirates.
Even if Shiki did not walk away, the territory under his direct control was the largest. Half of Rocks' former realm now lay under his flag.
As the years passed with no word from Brook, Shiki spent most of his time stationed in his own seas, returning to the Sky Island base only once or twice each year.
In practice, he had built something very close to a separate "world government" of his own.
But even then, he never stopped searching for news of Brook.
He knew that only a Hell Pirates crew led by Brook could truly stand face to face with the World Government.
Without Brook, they could only be kings trapped behind the walls of the New World.
As Brook's children and disciples grew into their strength, they set out to sea one after another, scattering across the world to search for their father and master.
The life paper Brook had left them had never burned.
That alone told them he was still alive somewhere, imprisoned or sealed.
They swore they would bring him back.
The World Government and Marine Headquarters had also paid heavily for the war.
The staggering losses of men and officers left the Four Seas and the Grand Line thinly policed. Dark forces and hidden families stepped into the gap. Pirate crews surged out onto the seas in numbers not seen in decades.
During the scramble for ancient weapon fragments, underground clans in the Four Seas and the Grand Line, shadow aristocrats, and even royal families of member nations all joined the fray, lusting after the power of Uranus and Pluton.
The world's former order was gone.
Instability became the new normal.
The entire sea drifted toward a chaos that looked very much like the dawn of a Great Pirate Era.
In the midst of this turmoil, Sengoku and Black Arm Zephyr were promoted to full admiral.
Iron Fist Garp finally received the title of "Hero of the Marines."
The World Government briefly considered naming Garp the next fleet admiral, but the issue was quietly dropped for many reasons.
Garp's own refusal.
The Celestial Dragons' objections.
And the murky ties between Garp and Roger.
All of it made the notion of "Fleet Admiral Garp" unacceptable in Marie Geoise.
The Roger Pirates, taking advantage of the navy's weakened state, slipped in and out of the Four Seas many times, moving in secret as they searched for the scattered D clan.
During their wanderings, Roger began to notice something was wrong with his own body.
Far away, in Elbaf, the Giant Kingdom, in the Titan King City.
After King Odin recovered the divine artifact, the Spear of Elbaf, he had been on edge, half expecting brutal retaliation from Imu that would crush the giants once more.
Only after the news came did he finally relax.
Uranus and Pluton had both been destroyed.
Brook had really done it.
He had erased the greatest threat the ancient weapons posed to the world.
Then came word of Rocks' death, and Brook's disappearance.
The smile on Odin's face grew even broader. For the giants, all three were good tidings.
Brook's disappearance especially seemed to lighten his mood. The man's endless threats and bargaining had clearly left a deep shadow on the king.
Under Odin's orders, the kingdom of Elbaf began its own transformation, aiming to build a nation modeled after Wano.
A country that could stand openly in the sun, fully exchange with the outside world, and never again bow their heads in fear of the World Government's Uranus.
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