Under Redfield's ruthless control, the Night King—Barrow—crashed down onto Dragonstone, battered and sparking with static. Had Redfield struck a moment later, the coward would've been blown straight into the sea.
"Lord Redfield! I surrender! Please—no more lightning! I'll die, I swear! I'm willing to join the Hell Pirates! I'll be your attack dog! Just stop frying me!"
Barrow wheezed and trembled as he sprawled in the mud. Seeing Redfield refrain from killing him outright, he assumed the Hell Pirates wanted to recruit him—and a flicker of hope ignited in his heart.
Tch. What the hell is this old geezer playing at? Trying to scare me into submission? You think I won't remember this, Redfield? Just wait until I get stronger. One day, I'll make you pay for today's humiliation…
A flash of lightning danced in front of him. The silhouette of Redfield emerged from the sparks, indifferent and cold as ever.
"Sir! I swear I want to join! Let me serve you loyally!" Barrow groveled without shame, crawling on his knees toward the Redfield. He kowtowed furiously, though his eyes brimmed with venomous resentment, masked by a face of fear.
Redfield stared at him silently, unmoved by the pathetic display. Barrow kept groveling, and when he received no reply, his inward cursing grew louder.
You smug bastard! Just you wait—
"Crackle."
With a flick of his wrist, Redfield summoned a Lightning Spear and, without warning, drove it through Barrow's right hand, pinning him to the ground.
"Still cursing in your heart?"
Barrow convulsed violently. Lightning crackled through his body, roasting him on the outside and tenderizing the inside like an overcooked roast. Redfield didn't let up—in fact, he increased the voltage, watching coldly as the so-called Night King was reduced to a twitching wreck.
"Lord Redfield! I didn't mean it—I didn't curse you! Honest!" Barrow's eyes rolled back, and a deep fear crept into his gut. Can… can he read my thoughts?!
Damn it! I should've turned into a shadow bat and escaped when I had the chance! Now I'm nailed here like a bug!
"No regret?"
A second Lightning Spear pierced his left hand. Barrow let out a howl of agony, his entire body seizing up.
"Screw it! If I'm dying anyway, I'll go out fighting!"
"Shadow Surge!"
Barrow summoned a flood of shadows that engulfed him, swelling his body into a monstrous giant. With a roar, he tore himself free from the lightning spears.
"Shadow Javelin!"
Dozens of spear-like projections burst forth from the shadows, aimed straight at Redfield.
"Shadow Clone!"
"Shadow Bat!"
Barrow didn't stick around to check if the attack landed. He conjured two doppelgangers to distract his foe, then turned into a swarm of screeching shadow bats and bolted for the Dragon Tomb.
Hell Pirates, my ass! You psychos tried to kill me the moment I landed! I'll go join the Rocks Pirates instead—at least they don't electrocute recruits! You people are insane! You should be begging someone like me to become a commander!
"You're not going anywhere."
"Hundred Million Volt: Thunder Grid!"
A colossal net of pure lightning formed in the air, sizzling across the sky and catching the swarm of bats mid-flight. Barrow's form reconstituted under the pressure—his real body exposed and helpless.
With Observation Haki honed to an extreme, Redfield never lost track of him. Not for a second.
"Mercy! Please! I'll be your slave! I'll lick the deck if you want—just don't kill me!"
Barrow's voice cracked with desperation. This time, even he knew there was no escape.
"Split Mind."
A thunderclap echoed as Redfield flashed in front of him, lightning arcing from his body. His feet gleamed with Armament Haki.
"Brook once said: 'Speed is power.' Have you ever seen the speed… of lightning?"
"BOOM!"
Redfield's kick landed like divine judgment, sending Barrow crashing into the stone ruins of Dragonstone. A cloud of dust swallowed him whole. Whether he lived or died was irrelevant.
Moments later, the Hell Pirates' flying fleet descended on the island.
Brook stepped down and gestured toward the Golden Lion. "Take Daenerys and a squad. Suppress the rebel generals of Westeros. I'll handle the tomb."
He'd just finished a call with Rayleigh on the Den Den Mushi. Apparently, Roger had once helped him locate a cache of dragon eggs here.
Dragon eggs. On Dragonstone. Could they really still hatch?
A few dragon mounts wouldn't be bad, Brook mused. But he didn't hold his breath. Daenerys herself said no dragons had appeared in her kingdom for centuries. These eggs might just be fossilized souvenirs.
Besides, Roger's crew never took the dragon egg aboard their ship. So where did that burgundy-marked egg in the future come from?
Brook furrowed his brow. What did the Roger Pirates really find here? Why avoid me?
When he saw their fleet steer away from his own, he didn't chase them. But the thought lingered.
Is there really a "Will of the World"? Did Roger sense something?
He clenched his fists.
The prophecies… the riddles... Toki traveling eight hundred years. Zunesha and the Sea Kings waiting for someone. Madam Shyarly's vision of Poseidon's rebirth. The Poneglyphs…
Everything pointed toward some inevitable fate.
Even Roger and Oden had claimed they arrived "too early," that hope lay twenty years in the future.
A script… is that all this world is?
Even Roger—Pirate King himself—couldn't change the ending.
Brook's expression hardened.
"To hell with fate," he muttered. "If losers like Nika and Joy Boy want to keep reincarnating and playing hero, let them. I'm not waiting around."
"Even if you return as Straw Hat Luffy, even if you become Kozuki Momonosuke… I'll end you."
"When I finish building eight—no, ten Plutos... I'll declare war on the World Government and Im!"
He marched into the ancient tomb, fire in his eyes.
Following Rayleigh's directions, Brook located three massive dragon eggs resting deep within the crypt. One golden, one dark green, one light blue—each five to six meters tall, with a rough, scale-like texture.
No burgundy-inked egg like the one Roger's ship supposedly held. These were a different batch.
Brook activated his Soul Life Detection ability. A faint response… so faint it was practically gone. The life force inside these eggs was on the verge of extinction.
"Dead… almost."
"Such enormous eggs…" murmured Stussy, stepping beside him. "The mother must have been seventy or eighty meters long at least."
She touched one gingerly. It was ice cold.
Her Observation Haki detected nothing. No heartbeat. No stirring will.
Only silence.
Just stone.
Just death.
-----------------
"There haven't been any dragons in Westeros for hundreds of years?" Brook raised an eyebrow as he stared at the mysterious eggs nestled in the ruins of the Dragon Tomb. "So these things have been buried here for over a century?"
That they hadn't rotted or crumbled was proof enough of the dragon eggs' incredible vitality.
"Didn't the Targaryens ever try to hatch them again? What a waste!" Brook scoffed. "Leaving them in the dark like this for so long... no wonder their vitality nearly faded away. Why stash them in a tomb instead of incubating them?"
He turned to the blazing sun Homie beside him.
"Prometheus! Burn these dragon eggs for me!"
The massive sun-face blazed with renewed energy. Once Charlotte Linlin's most powerful Homie, Prometheus now answered only to Brook. Since Linlin had pledged her loyalty and the Revive-Revive Fruit could overpower any Homie, her creations treated Brook with the same reverence they once gave her. So long as Linlin's life wasn't in danger, they obeyed Brook without question.
"Ooooh! Brother Brook, you gonna roast dragon eggs? I want a taste too!" Charlotte Linlin drooled openly, licking her lips. "I've never eaten dragon eggs before!"
Stussy, ever the voice of reason, stepped forward and raised a hand.
"Brother Brook, wait! This is reckless. Shouldn't we let Dr. Vegapunk study them first? He might figure out a way to hatch them. Just burning them like this… it's a waste of a miracle."
She quickly blocked Prometheus from roasting the other eggs, allowing only one to be tested.
"Besides, who knows if they're even edible? They might be spoiled or completely dead after all this time. Just thinking about eating that is… ew."
Brook ignored the back-and-forth between Linlin and Stussy. His eyes stayed fixed on the single egg roasting in Prometheus' flame.
According to Antonio's intelligence, the Targaryens had once believed in a legend about the "Unburnt"—members of their bloodline immune to fire. But for nearly a century, no one had dared test it. With the dragons gone, so too had the powers of the Targaryen line faded. Their blood couldn't awaken, and fire brought only death.
But that old legend got Brook thinking. What if these eggs required intense flame to incubate? Maybe they needed constant burning, like phoenix eggs or fire spirits. Leaving them in a tomb wasn't just neglect—it was a slow execution.
Were the Targaryens just fools?
What happened to the legacy of the Dragonblood Clan? The legend of the Unburnt? Surely a century wasn't enough time to lose all that knowledge.
Unless... someone erased it.
A terrifying force might've wiped out not only the dragons, but the Targaryen's heritage too, leaving them with nothing but broken memories. But if someone had that kind of power, why leave the eggs at all? Why not steal them?
Brook narrowed his eyes.
"Could it be... someone used an ability like the Child Fruit on this kingdom? Did the royal family lose their knowledge somehow? Or forget it entirely?"
Whatever the case, it didn't matter right now. What mattered was that under Prometheus' flame, the dragon egg's life force was changing—it was growing.
Brook's eyes lit up.
"It's working…"
He considered throwing it straight into a volcano. Would that speed things up? Or maybe he should ask Vegapunk to build a high-temperature incubator?
"Alright, Prometheus, that's enough."
The blazing sun retreated as Brook waved his hand. He turned to Linlin and Stussy.
"Each of you carry one egg. We're taking them back to Golden Island."
But something nagged at him. At this rate of development, wouldn't it take decades to hatch?
That thought sent a shiver down his spine. Who had time for that?
Then inspiration struck.
"The Ripe-Ripe Fruit…" Brook's mind raced. "Momonosuke aged twenty years in an instant using that power. If we could awaken its full potential…"
His eyes gleamed with ambition.
"If Manmixue of the dwarf tribe can finish developing the Ripe-Ripe Fruit, we could mass-produce dragons! Add Vegapunk's cloning tech to the mix and…"
He nearly cackled. "With a dragon army, conquering the world would be child's play!"
He quickly checked himself.
"No. Don't get carried away. Devil Fruits follow the law of energy conservation. You can't create something from nothing. All power comes at a cost…"
Still, the possibilities stirred his soul.
"Forget transporting them one by one. Shiki!"
Brook suddenly changed plans. "Just lift the entire dragon tomb and bring it back to Sky Island!"
Why waste time? If the Shadow-Shadow Fruit worked on these dragon corpses, they could become invaluable assets—undead monsters with the power of ancient dragons.
"Guess Daenerys Targaryen won't mind!" he laughed.
Brook turned to leave the cave, eager to return later for a full exploration. But outside, another surprise awaited him.
Redfield strode toward him, dragging a bloodied, half-conscious figure behind him—the Night King Barrow.
He tossed the defeated enemy at Brook's feet.
Several guards quickly slapped seastone cuffs and shackles on him.
"Lord Brook," Hiruba, the sharp-eyed sniper from the Hell Pirates, stepped forward. "There are still a lot of zombies left on the Desperate Iceberg. Some of them are Ice Giant zombies. Should we collect them?"
Brook smirked.
"Of course. Anything useful—grab it."
Elbaf Giants. Ice Giants. Dragon corpses. The beginnings of an undead legion. Brook could already picture it—his enemies crushed beneath a tide of terror.
The Hell Pirates would be unstoppable.
Once you gain momentum, the world bends to your will. That's how monopolies work—expanding until they become the very shadow of history.
Without wasting another second, Brook leapt onto Hera, the somersault cloud, and took to the skies. Charlotte Linlin joined him atop Thundercloud Zeus. Stussy unfurled her wings, and Redfield transformed into lightning and flashed after them.
The war in Westeros was heating up.
The rebellion of the Seven Generals had split the kingdom into seven territories, each declaring themselves king and waging war.
But their squabbles meant nothing now.
Because the golden figure descending upon them would bring only despair…
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