"My lord, we've entered the Calm Belt. The island has begun to slow down," Absalom reported respectfully to Luffy with a slight bow.
"Huh? That was fast." With no corpses to experiment on, Luffy had spent the past few days engaging in high-intensity sparring with Robin and Brook.
Both had made great progress. Robin had now mastered basic Observation Haki, though her range was still limited, the buffs from her equipment allowed her to sense even the subtlest shifts in space with far greater ease than most.
Brook, too, had succeeded in imbuing his weapon with Armament Haki.
Luffy's guess had been right all along, the black sheen coating Brook's skeletal hands was, in fact, a fully-formed manifestation of Armament Haki. For some unknown reason, it had permanently fused with his hand bones, becoming a constant, passive state.
The massive three-masted ship's sails no longer propelled the island. Instead, the entire landmass now drifted slowly across the sea, riding the currents.
"My lord," Absalom continued, laying a nautical chart before Luffy, "according to our latest maps, there's an uninhabited island directly ahead of us."
"It's said to be crawling with vicious beasts. Moria-sama suggests we land there to collect resources and corpses."
"How long until we reach it?" Luffy cut him off mid-report.
Charts were full of strange numbers and notations, completely illegible to someone like Luffy, who had zero navigation knowledge. He only cared about the final answer.
Absalom hesitated a moment before replying somewhat vaguely, "Possibly a month… but with the newly installed propulsion system, we might shorten it to ten days."
"That long, huh..." Luffy muttered as he stared out over the endless ocean.
Ever since his XP farming spree had ended, every day had felt painfully slow. He could only dream of returning to a life of luxury and meat feasts.
The revolution was far from over.
"Speed it up. Fire up the engines, full throttle!" Luffy ordered.
"Yes, my lord!"
Absalom bowed and left quietly.
Soon after, massive wheels were raised at both ends of the island.
Each towering thousands of meters high, the wheels were supported by enormous axles with 24 alloy spokes radiating outward like a sunburst, each tipped with paddles.
Grips extended inward from the paddles, allowing interior control. The wheels were connected to the island via a dynamic bearing system that allowed minor directional adjustments.
Forty-eight powerful zombies, animated by Sea King shadows, worked day and night without rest, pushing the handles to propel the island forward. Two more zombies steered it.
Thus, the island's propulsion system was complete.
Even in the windless Calm Belt where no sails could catch breeze, Moria's terrifying three-masted vessel glided forward without hindrance.
"Luffy-sama!!! A massive Sea King has been spotted!!! A massive Sea King!!!"
A panicked bat-zombie flapped frantically toward Luffy, its sharp voice cutting through the air from over a hundred meters away.
Luffy leapt into the air, landing next to it. "Massive? How big?"
Sea Kings were classified by size: under 100 meters were small, 100–500 meters were standard, and over 500 meters were large. The title "massive" was typically reserved for those over 1,000 meters, colossal creatures dwelling in the deepest trenches.
"Exact size unknown, but definitely over a thousand meters!" the bat-zombie answered, wings flapping furiously in midair.
"Which direction!?"
"West Blue. We've got other zombies tracking it there."
"Excellent!!"
Time was of the essence. With such a rare opportunity, Luffy wasn't about to let this Sea King slip away.
He kicked off the ground and shot into the sky.
His arms swept behind him, palms aimed eastward. Energy surged in his hands, building into a blazing mass of light as bright as the sun.
With a thunderous burst, the propulsion from the flames launched Luffy over a kilometer in seconds. Within half a minute, he had reached the West Blue.
"Luffy-sama!"
"Luffy-sama!"
Two humanoid zombies ran up to him, urgently pointing toward the horizon. "The Sea King is charging straight at us!"
Luffy followed their gaze, and sure enough, a massive shadow loomed beneath the sunlit waves, barely concealed by the surface shimmer.
Even from just its reflected silhouette, he could tell this was no ordinary Sea King, it was enormous.
Luffy's eyes gleamed, hunger flashing in his gaze as he watched the creature approach.
If the last one earned over ten thousand gold, how much would this one be worth?
The thought alone made his blood stir.
Although it was closing in fast, there was no guarantee it wouldn't suddenly turn away, better to strike first.
With a burst of flame, Luffy soared into the sky, positioning himself high above the Sea King.
His heterochromatic eyes flickered with power. Spreading his arms wide, he aimed his left palm down at the shadow below, while his right flared with blinding golden fire, flames roared skyward like a solar flare.
His left palm glowed orange, crackling with terrifying energy, blanketing the sea with oppressive force.
Sensing danger, the Sea King began to thrash, diving deep to escape, its colossal body sending towering waves crashing across the surface.
Luffy grinned, his eyes gleaming like a predator. He wouldn't give it a chance to flee.
"X BURNER!!!"
The concentrated energy in his left hand exploded downward like a roaring dragon, shaking the sky as it crashed toward the ocean.
A blinding beam of power screamed across the sea, the air itself trembling with its passage. Explosive flame ripped into the surface, parting the water with brutal force.
Boiling waves erupted as the blast struck the Sea King directly, piercing its armored hide. Its thick layers of fat only served to feed the inferno, within moments, the beast was fully engulfed, a blazing infernal wave roiling across the water's surface.
Meanwhile, two hundred kilometers away,
A massive battleship loomed on the horizon.
On deck, a rotund woman pointed toward the blazing sky. "Big Sis, look over there!"
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