In the sky, golden clouds spread downward.
Over the western sea of the ninja world, many pirates stared up at the glowing gold in the sky, their faces full of shock.
In the western seas, there was only one true sea emperor—the Golden Lion!
The Golden Lion had shown up later than most, but he wasn't quiet. Especially in the western sea, he'd already become the undisputed ruler of that ocean.
Seeing the golden light on the horizon, many pirates began to show signs of fear.
But at the same time, some pirate crews noticed Golden Lion. Especially when they saw the terrifying chakra pillar rising in the distance.
Twisting chakra shot up from the sea, piercing the clouds. The sky and ocean became even more violent under its influence.
"So this is the Dragon Vein of the New World? The point where the Dragon Veins converge—the real New World."
"Golden Lion has already entered the New World."
"Looks like the New World really is different. Even someone like Golden Lion can't fully use his power in such extreme conditions."
"Heh, that guy's really full of himself. Just to catch up to Shanks, who set off from East Blue, he deliberately chose to depart from the West Sea.
Alright boys, we're heading out too!"
At the edge of the New World, some powerful pirate crews also rushed in.
Right now, the world belongs to the sea.
"Let the World Government see our strength. Those foolish ninja and world nobles… they probably never imagined Shanks would play them like this."
"Trying to go against Shanks? That's Red-Haired Shanks—the only Four Emperors."
"Hahaha! This world, we're coming too."
These guys saw the situation clearly and stepped into the New World ahead of others.
Of course, the pirates still outside the New World weren't just waiting around. The outer edges were still the most chaotic part.
"Kill him!! He's a ninja from the Nara clan of Konohagakure! Take the Nara clan's secret techniques!"
On an island, another fight broke out.
White Zetsu had already appeared among the pirates, and even the pirates' weapons had been upgraded.
No one knew where these things came from, but everyone understood—this had something to do with Shanks.
"If you want the Nara clan's secrets, let's see if you've got what it takes!!"
"Shadow Possession Jutsu!"
"Shadow-Shadow Fruit: Shadow Web!"
The Nara clan ninja fought alongside Shikamaru. Their jutsu looked similar to Shikamaru's Devil Fruit powers—but they were completely different in nature.
Shikamaru himself looked pretty beat up, already injured.
On another part of the battlefield—
"Expansion Jutsu: Hundred Times Giant!"
Chouji suddenly grew to a massive size, bursting up from the ground. Literally ripping the earth apart with his bare hands.
Countless pirates fell into the cracks created by the uplifted ground.
"One-Sword Style: Air Slash!!"
From the shattered earth, a pirate with a sword rushed up against the flow, swinging his katana. A blade of white energy dozens of meters long tore through the air in a flash.
In the next second, as the bloodline flashed by, Chouji's massive body crashed to the ground.
At the same time, more ninja from the Akimichi clan arrived and blocked the pirate's follow-up attack.
"There are too many of them!!"
"How long until our backup gets here?"
At that moment, the younger generation of Konohagakure truly saw what this battlefield was like.
Even the older generation could see that this war was different.
Everyone had gone mad.
No—the pirates had gone mad.
Crazy pirates began attacking the ninja. Among them were those White Zetsu things, whose reversal ninjutsu could reflect any ninjutsu cast at them.
If you use ninjutsu, you're doing exactly what they want. But if you don't, you're dead.
The power gap between the Marines and the pirates was just too big.
These Marines had received top-level training, but… even ninja aren't trained to throw their lives away like this.
It wasn't just the White Zetsu who weren't afraid of death—all these pirates didn't care about dying.
And this wasn't the only battlefield. Chaos had already spread across the nearby seas.
The West Blue and South Blue were still somewhat stable, since the pirates there weren't as strong.
The real danger was in the East Blue and North Blue.
Right now, forces from the Land of Iron and Land of Thunder were under attack as well.
The flames of war had reached the sea.
After the arrival of the new era, the samurai from the Land of Iron had gotten much stronger—several times stronger, in fact.
But while they had grown, the samurai who had turned pirate grew even faster, to an insane level.
And the North Blue was different in another way—because of the Land of Snow.
The Land of Snow and the Land of Thunder sit between the East Blue and North Blue.
No one controls the East Blue, but the North Blue? That's different.
Especially the Land of Snow.
Hidan, Sasori, and Deidara were all there.
Fūjin Kazahana was fine with letting the Revolutionary Army take over his country—he'd already given up.
With the Revolutionary Army in control, the Land of Snow might even turn out better.
And the result of that? The pirates in the North Blue now had an absurd number of White Zetsu.
On top of that, they had all kinds of weapons and gear.
At that moment, a fleet was sailing toward the Land of Thunder.
Almost every ship in the fleet was damaged.
Killer Bee sat on the flagship, covered in wounds.
"Sasori the rogue from Sunagakure… Deidara the rogue from Iwagakure… those guys—are they all part of the Revolutionary Army!?"
"Damn it!!"
Looking down at his broken weapon, Killer Bee's body began to radiate Tailed Beast chakra again.
The Eight-Tails was recovering faster than expected. It had even regained its consciousness.
Maybe it was because of the Dragon Vein—or maybe something else entirely.
As for the East Blue, things there were even messier.
At this point, the number of pirates in the East Blue had passed 100,000!
What does 100,000 mean? During the Fourth Great Ninja War, the number of White Zetsu was only 100,000.
But in the East Blue, every one of those 100,000 were pirates.
"Alright, boys! Once we cross the Land, we'll reach the Land of Fire! Force those Konohagakure ninja out!"
"Hahaha! In this East Blue, aside from that Four Emperors guy Shanks, the only ruler is me—Mountain Bandit Emperor Higgs!"
With his shovel-shaped face, Higgs swung his sword.
A slash of light shot toward the Marine troops, and one of their commanders jumped forward to block the attack.
"Fall back! Get out of the Land!"
"There's too many Mountain Bandits and pirates—fall back now!"
"Reinforcements! We need backup!"
The East Blue had turned into complete chaos—
and it wasn't just the Land.
At the same time, the seas around the Land of Water were in chaos. Terumi Mei had already gone straight to the frontlines.
The one-eyed Ghost Dragon was leading a massive force in a direct attack—more than 30,000 pirates had teamed up and were pushing hard.
Both the Land of the Sea and the Land of Waves were crawling with pirates and revolutionaries, and some of the revolutionary army had already raised their banners.
Obito and Black Zetsu were moving large forces back and forth between the Land of Waves and the Land of the Sea, and they had already pushed back Konohagakure's main forces.
Some of Konoha's troops had been sent toward the Land side, while another group was heading toward the Land of Water.
A large number of ninja were stationed on the far side of the Naruto Bridge.
The battle out at sea was more intense than anything anyone had seen before.
A hundred thousand people packed into one East Blue area.
No—more than that. That hundred thousand were pirates. Add in the Marines, and the total number of people on the East Blue battlefield had passed 250,000.
That number was terrifying—more than any war the ninja world had ever seen. Even Obito and Black Zetsu didn't have the energy to think about their original plans anymore.
They had thought about it, but they never imagined it would get like this.
"We're running out of White Zetsu.
How the hell did they get so much tailed beast chakra? Now Nagato's pushing us to hurry up and get the Nine-Tails' chakra."
"That's his brother we're talking about—his own clan."
Obito was clearly frustrated. He slammed a modified chakra-absorbing device down onto the table.
It had been built using chakra armor tech from the Land of Snow. Now all the pirates in the ninja world were using these devices.
The Six-Tails jinchuriki, Utakata, had become one of the top pirates in East Blue. Roshi, the Four-Tails jinchuriki, had also become a major pirate because of who he was.
Right now, both Obito and Black Zetsu felt drained.
With so many strong enemies out there, even they had to act carefully. The world was getting more and more out of control.
"It's because Naruto is from the Uzumaki clan that he told us to move."
"And I never expected we'd run out of White Zetsu, either."
Honestly, Black Zetsu had no idea how Nagato had managed to get his hands on so much tailed beast chakra.
But now that these chakra-absorbing devices existed, getting tailed beast chakra wasn't that hard anymore.
What really caught them off guard, though, was the scale of this war—it was insane.
And for the world government and the ninja villages, the real war hadn't even started yet.
"This is just East Blue, and already over 200,000 people are involved. And all because of one sentence from that man—he can shake the whole world just like that."
"That man... is terrifying."
Obito had been through war, and Black Zetsu, even more so—he'd lived for ages and seen everything.
But even he had never seen anything like this.
In all these thousands of years, he had never seen something this insane. "Terrifying" didn't even begin to cover it.
Civilians, nobles, ninja, sages… all of them were getting dragged in.
East Blue had more than 200,000 people involved. What about the North Sea? The West Sea? The South Sea?
Altogether—700,000? 800,000? Maybe even over a million?
"That guy…"
Thinking of Shanks, for the first time, Black Zetsu felt real fear.
That terrifying man.
At this moment, in the New World, countless dragon veins were rising. The whole world began to shift, and under the massive power of these veins, it started to grow rapidly.
Power that had been dormant for thousands of years suddenly erupted. The will of the world, the energy of the world—through this great war, a new world was being born.
Shanks's ship, the Graves, was anchored just off an island near the center where the dragon veins converged.
And about 200 kilometers away, on another island, dozens of large ships had already gathered. Many sages were flying in from the sea, walking on air.
Standing on a small boat, Fukuda Kiyomu opened his eyes. In that moment, his white hair turned black again, and his withered muscles returned to life.
"Now is the time to rise with borrowed power!
We sages were always equal to the heavens. However high the sky is, that's how high I stand!"
Fukuda Kiyomu pointed to the sky. Under the overwhelming pressure of natural energy, the chaotic sky cracked open.
The strongest sage of this era—he was the sky itself.
"Shanks, we finally meet!"
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