"Something's wrong! Look at the sea!" Mia, who was passing along the port side on her way back to her room, suddenly shouted, pointing frantically at the water's surface.
Where the sea had been calm moments before, a large patch of blood had inexplicably appeared. Along with the disturbing bloodstain, countless bubbles surged upwards from the depths. Anyone could see this situation was abnormal.
Watching the sea rapidly turn red, Bellamy's heart clenched. What the hell is this? Why hasn't my Observation Haki sensed anything?
His rudimentary Observation Haki had a limited range and couldn't perceive everything happening in the deep sea. But his intuition was screaming warnings.
"Raise the sails! Weigh anchor!" Bellamy roared. "Full speed! Get us out of this area!"
At the captain's command, everyone instantly sprang into action. Drake and Ross rushed to the bow, rapidly hauling up the anchor chain. All the sails across the five masts were unfurled, and the Sea Shark immediately caught the wind, beginning to sail back the way they had come.
Bellamy returned to the wheelhouse and snatched up the telescope. "Damn it! The bloodstain is getting bigger!"
What had started as a small patch of red had, in just a short time, expanded to threaten the entire visible sea surface. Their ship had just started moving, its speed not yet fully built up. At this rate, they would soon be engulfed by the bloodstained water.
What the hell happened down there?
Bellamy suddenly recalled the cauldron of "potion" Mia had casually dumped into the sea. His stomach plummeted.
Not good!
Creatures that ingested that potion became hyper-aggressive. Such a vast amount of blood could only mean the Sea Kings below had been affected. No other marine life could bleed this profusely.
Guessing the truth, Bellamy frantically spun the helm hard to port. "Move! Move! Move!" Below that bloody water, a massive battle between Sea Kings must be raging. If their ship got caught in the middle, they could be crushed by the frenzied beasts at any moment.
This was a horde of Sea Kings!
No matter how desperate Bellamy was, the Sea Shark was just a sailboat, entirely dependent on the wind for propulsion. If only his ship had the Thousand Sunny's Coup de Burst right now, they might stand a chance of escaping. But it seemed too late for wishes.
No, wait! There might still be time! An idea, albeit a desperate one, struck Bellamy. If he did this, maybe...
"Drake, take the helm!"
Handing control to his first mate, Bellamy sprinted out of the wheelhouse and, with a single step, reached the stern. By now, the sea surface wasn't just bubbling; gruesome chunks of fish flesh floated amidst the gore. The once-calm water churned violently. The blood spread with terrifying speed, transforming the nearby sea into something resembling a demonic abyss.
Seeing the situation rapidly deteriorating, Bellamy spun around and leaped—straight off the ship.
"Captain!"
Drake, gripping the helm in the wheelhouse, saw this and couldn't help but cry out in shock. Has the captain lost his mind?! Why would Bellamy jump off the ship now? What was he planning?
What Bellamy intended was something most people wouldn't even conceive of.
With a small jump using Moon Walk, he positioned himself perfectly just behind the Sea Shark's stern. Just as gravity threatened to pull him into the churning sea, Bellamy took a deep breath and violently thrust both hands forward.
"Finger Pistol Modification: Air-Expulsion Palm!"
Of the Six Powers, Finger Pistol was the technique Bellamy valued least. He had never seriously studied it. This Air-Expulsion Palm was a move born purely of desperation, forced out in a moment of crisis. The concept was simple: substitute manpower for a Coup de Burst. Bellamy intended to push the entire Sea Shark forward with his own strength.
Under the incredibly fierce force of his palms, the Sea Shark shot forward as if kicked by a giant, covering a significant distance with a sudden WHOOSH. Normally, it would take them several minutes of sailing to travel that far. At this rate, a few more pushes, and the ship could escape the danger zone.
However, forces act in pairs. As Bellamy pushed, the reaction force flung him backward just as violently. On land, such recoil might even enhance his next attack. But he wasn't on land—he was over the open sea!
Falling into the water meant instant powerlessness for a Devil Fruit user. Worse still, beneath this particular patch of sea, a massive brawl between frenzied Sea Kings was underway.
Falling in meant certain death!
Bellamy knew this all too well. He desperately stomped the air with Moon Walk, his steps creating visible depressions on the water's surface below. Fortunately, as a Spring-Spring Fruit user, his body absorbed a large portion of the recoil. Just as the soles of his feet grazed the water, Bellamy finally stabilized himself, nullifying the remaining backward force.
Without external forces acting on him, his proficiency with Moon Walk would allow him to easily return to the ship. He let out a breath of relief, preparing to leap back and deliver a few more pushes to get the Sea Shark to safety.
Suddenly, an instinctual shudder ran through his body. It was a feeling that only surfaced in moments of mortal peril.
What's going on?!
His Observation Haki flared instantly.
Not good!
Bellamy desperately tried to evade using Moon Walk, but his speed and reaction time in mid-air were far inferior to his agility on solid ground.
A colossal serpent, easily a hundred meters long, erupted from the sea beneath him. Its massive jaws, tens of meters wide, snapped shut, engulfing him whole. The sheer size of its mouth was overwhelming; no matter how Bellamy struggled, escape was impossible.
Aboard the Sea Shark, his horrified crewmates watched helplessly as Bellamy was swallowed by the hundred-meter-plus Sea King.
"NO! BOSS!" Ross felt his legs give out, collapsing onto the deck. "It's over… It's all over." A Sea King over a hundred meters long—that was Godzilla territory. Even on land, fighting a monster of that scale would be incredibly difficult. The targets Bellamy had planned to hunt were only around fifty meters. A beast of this size was completely outside their calculations.
"Captain!" Mia and Muret frantically covered their mouths, tears already streaming down their faces.
Drake gripped the ship's wheel, staring blankly ahead, perhaps still clinging to some desperate hope. He absolutely refused to accept this outcome. Bellamy couldn't die like this.
After swallowing Bellamy whole, the giant serpent Sea King lazily rolled over in the air and began its rapid descent back towards the sea.
Inside a viscous, slippery passage, Bellamy braced himself with all four limbs, desperately resisting the immense pressure closing in from all sides. It was a fundamental truth: the larger the beast, the greater its strength and constitution. A hundred-meter Sea King possessed power and durability far exceeding human limits. The mere involuntary contractions of its gullet were almost enough to crush Bellamy's resistance. If not for his Spring-Spring Fruit's ability to absorb force, he would have been pulverized the instant he was swallowed.
Even surviving the initial crush, corrosive, unknown fluids surrounded him, searing his skin. Worse, he was rapidly sliding downwards towards a pool of acidic stomach juices below. The very fumes rising from that acid pool caused a burning pain. The fate awaiting him if he fell into that pool was terrifyingly clear.
Yet, strangely, facing such utter desperation, Bellamy felt no trace of despair or fear deep within his heart. He didn't know when it started, but whenever he faced the crucible of death, he always experienced a strange sensation—as if only in these moments did the world truly appear vibrant and colorful. Why he felt this way, he couldn't say. Perhaps it was because only then could he shed all worldly attachments, cast off all constraints, and live purely, wholeheartedly, for his own dream.
I haven't even reached the summit of this world yet! How can I possibly fall in a place like this?!
"Gyahahahaha!!" Unbelievably, even at death's door, Bellamy could still laugh. His laughter was wild, unrestrained, as if everything in existence should bow before him.
At that moment, an incredibly domineering power silently budded within Bellamy.
Instantly, countless bolts of dark golden lightning erupted around his body. An invisible wave swept through the void. The giant serpent Sea King, caught completely unaware, was forcibly knocked unconscious.
But Bellamy's crisis wasn't over. He had reached the bottom of the passage, the crushing pressure relentlessly forcing him towards the stomach acid.
In the instant he fell from the gullet into the stomach cavity, Bellamy abruptly extended his limbs, clenching his hands fiercely in the empty air. His body almost instantaneously snapped into his peak First Gear state. The power erupting from that grip was indescribable, seemingly liquefying the very air within his fists. This tremendous force momentarily halted his descent in mid-air.
In that brief pause, Bellamy channeled every ounce of strength in his body, pouring his heart, soul, and power into his right fist.
My life will NOT end in a place like this!
Burn! My AMBITION! Refusing to accept this fate, forbidding himself to fall here, Bellamy's fighting spirit surged to its absolute zenith. The dark golden lightning crackling in the void seemed to catch fire from his will, flashing with frantic intensity.
With a hysterical roar, Bellamy unleashed a punch that seemed powerful enough to shake the very fabric of space, slamming it directly into the Sea King's stomach wall.
"SHATTER! SKY!"
An utterly overwhelming fist intent instantly flooded the colossal fleshy structure. Unseen by Bellamy, countless strands of dark golden lightning followed the path of his punch, burrowing deep within.
The massive Sea King's body, tougher than steel by several orders of magnitude, offered absolutely no resistance against this blow.
Before the incredulous eyes of Drake and the others, the giant Sea King, plummeting from its aerial leap, abruptly exploded into two halves.
Innumerable chunks of flesh and a deluge of blood rained down from the sky like a grotesque storm.
And there, walking calmly through the air amidst the bloody downpour, was Bellamy – the man they thought lost forever.
_______
+50 chapters on: patreon.com/Shinobi_Scrolls