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[Author Notes]
P.S.: Brain storage area!
P.S.: This story mainly follows the Straw Hat Pirates' route, but the author does not join the crew. Along the way, they'll collect the souls of those with great strength to forge their own immortal army. The goal is to resurrect the Rocks Pirates, recreate the Roger Pirates, and then join forces to beat up Imu.
[Start of the chapter]
Cold, salty seawater slapped Tabito's cheeks, choking him awake from the depths of darkness.
"Cough—! Cough, cough!"
He jolted upright, coughing hard, his lungs burning as if scorched. His awareness was like shattered glass—barely pieced together—yet the reflection it formed was bizarre beyond belief.
Above him: an endless blue sky. Scorching sunlight filtered through broad palm leaves, scattering mottled flecks of light. Behind him: dense tropical jungle, alive with the chirps of unknown insects. Beneath him: fine, white sand damp with the sea's tide.
Where… is this?
Shouldn't he have been in the cultivation world—his Nascent Soul shattered, body and Dao extinguished—after that "righteous" siege?
The floodgates of memory blew open, chaotic images slamming into his mind.
In his life before that, he'd been nothing more than an ordinary modern corporate drone named Tabito. After seventy-two straight hours of overtime, his vision went black. When he woke up again, everything had changed.
That place had been the cultivation world—dreamed of by countless people, and yet cruel to the bone. Everyone longed for immortality; everyone chased the Great Dao. But reality clocked him in the head with a club—his talent was so mediocre it was practically a crime.
Drawing qi (vital energy) into the body was slow. Sensing spiritual energy was dull. The orthodox sects had long since carved up resources among noble bloodlines and genius disciples. Someone like him—no backing, blunt talent—wasn't even qualified to be a servant.
The righteous path existed, sure. The problem was the threshold towered into the clouds, and he couldn't even touch the edge of it.
Just as despair was about to grind him into the bottom-tier dust of that world, he stumbled upon a fragmented demonic manual. Its opening words said: Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat all things as straw dogs. The orthodox immortal path steals the workings of heaven and earth, invades the mysteries of sun and moon—but talent binds you, and in the end it's all moonlight in water, flowers in a mirror. Only the demonic path carves a different road: no need for spiritual roots, only the true heart. Killing aura, resentment, malice—negative emotions of all living beings—these are my provisions!
Low threshold. No talent required. Only…
Slaughter and plunder.
Live on as a nobody, dragging out a worthless existence—or embrace power, even if it meant falling into the abyss?
Tabito barely hesitated. Faced with the lure of absolute strength and the pressure to survive, moral boundaries looked pale and ridiculous. He chose the latter, becoming a dark cultivator the mainstream would never tolerate.
From then on, he erased his name and walked in shadows. He secretly hunted low-tier cultivators, armies of mortal kingdoms, even engineered small-scale plagues… Wherever death, resentment, and killing aura gathered, his hidden figure could be found. He refined the souls and negative energy he collected into his natal treasure—
A soul banner he personally named the Human Emperor Banner.
"What do you mean 'Ten-Thousand-Soul Banner'? That sounds evil as hell! If I say it's the Human Emperor Banner, then it's the Human Emperor Banner—one that commands ten thousand spirits and stabilizes heaven and earth!" That was what he told himself every time he refined a new soul into it—also what he emphasized to whatever "Heavenly Dao" might be listening. As if saying it loudly enough could cover up the endless wailing and bone-deep chill that seeped from the banner.
Three hundred years of scraping by. Three hundred years of caution. He dodged countless hunts, survived near-death again and again, and finally managed to form a Golden Core. After pouring in immeasurable effort, he stumbled into the Nascent Soul stage. He'd thought—at last—he'd earned a foothold in that man-eating world, enough to breathe for a moment.
But the dark path's shortcuts always hid bigger landmines.
The heart demon born from rapid cultivation detonated the moment he entered Nascent Soul, before his realm could stabilize. In the instant his mind cracked, his aura leaked. The "righteous" cultivators who had already noticed abnormal fluctuations in the region swarmed like sharks catching the scent of blood.
A beatdown with no suspense.
The glare of treasures. The roar of techniques. The "acting on behalf of Heaven" righteousness plastered on the faces of famous sect disciples…
In the end, everything returned to darkness.
"What a… joke." Tabito wiped seawater from the corner of his mouth and let out a quiet, bitter laugh. To live, to gain power, he'd chosen the seemingly easier wicked road—only to die because of it.
But then… why could he still think? Why could he still feel the sun's heat and the sea's salt?
He lowered his head and stared at this unfamiliar body—slightly thin, skin pale from a lack of sunlight, yet brimming with youthful vitality. This wasn't the Nascent Soul body he'd used for three centuries.
Fragments of memory that didn't belong to him surged up—another young man, also named Tabito, a shipwreck survivor who fell into the sea during a storm, struggled, and finally sank when his strength gave out…
At the same time, he "saw" that he hadn't arrived in this new world empty-handed.
At his mental call, a long banner—over three meters in length—appeared soundlessly at his side, hovering in midair. The flagcloth was dark red, like it had been soaked in dried blood. The pole was pitch-black, carved with countless dense, bizarre runes. The banner fluttered without wind, black wisps coiling around it, radiating a chilling aura that made the heart clench.
It was his Human Emperor Banner—the one that had fallen with him!
The space within it was empty. The countless souls he'd collected had been annihilated in that self-destruction, scattered into nothing. Even the banner's own spirit had been heavily damaged, its glow dim, as if it might shatter at any moment. Yet it existed—and the connection to his mind was still unmistakably clear.
"Old friend… you came too?" Tabito wrapped his hand around the icy pole. A sense of blood-linked familiarity rose, and with it, a rare trace of steadiness. If it was here, then he still had capital to start over.
Then, from the original body owner's lingering memory fragments, he caught several key terms—
The Grand Line? The Marines? Pirates? Devil Fruits?
"The world of the Pirate King…?" Tabito froze, and a complicated expression crossed his face. In his modern life, he'd naturally known this anime world. A power system utterly different from cultivation—overflowing with chaos, freedom, and dreams, and just as full of slaughter and plunder!
"Heh… this is the perfect place for me." A cold curve tugged at the corner of his mouth. Chaos meant death was everywhere. And death, to him, was the finest provision of all.
Right then—
"ROOOAAAR!!!"
A savage beast's roar erupted from the jungle's edge, shaking leaves loose in a rattling storm. A massive boar-like beast—huge as a main battle tank—charged out of the trees with thunderous steps. Its tusks jutted outward, its bristles stood like steel needles, and its crimson eyes locked onto the "intruder" on the beach.
It pawed the ground, hot white vapor blasting from its nostrils, clearly treating Tabito like a tasty snack.
A normal person—even a sturdy pirate—would have their courage shattered facing a monster like this. Tabito only raised his eyes slightly, calm as still water.
In three hundred years of dark cultivation, he'd seen horrors beyond counting. This brute with nothing but strength was no different from a lamb waiting for slaughter.
He didn't even use the newly revived—still fragile—power of his spirit. The instant the boar kicked off its hind legs and lunged like a runaway war machine, Tabito shifted his footwork. His figure slid half a step to the side like a ghost, narrowly avoiding tusks that could punch through steel plate.
At the same time, he lifted his right hand and formed two fingers like a sword. Inside him, a trace of true essence—so small it was almost negligible, yet of a quality far beyond this world's energy—condensed at his fingertips. He timed the boar's post-charge opening, the moment its neck side was exposed, and stabbed forward like lightning—his fingers carrying a hair-thin wisp of dark light.
Pff.
A soft sound. Not a piercing strike—rather, frigid true essence like a poison needle instantly destroyed the boar's nerves and vitality at the neck.
The boar's charge stopped dead. Its enormous body skidded forward several more meters from inertia, then crashed onto the sand. Its limbs twitched twice… and went still. The crimson in its eyes faded, leaving only frozen fear and rage.
Tabito walked to the corpse, expression indifferent. He raised the Human Emperor Banner, and the flagcloth brushed lightly over the beast's body.
A formless suction burst from within the banner. A blurry beastly shadow—packed with feral will and unwillingness—was ripped out of the corpse by force. It let out a silent howl, then was drawn into the dark red banner and vanished. Across the banner's surface, an extremely faint bloodline seemed to flash once.
This was soul-seizing—the Human Emperor Banner's most basic, and most core, ability.
"Even if it's just an animal soul—weak and pathetic—small gains stack into a foundation," Tabito murmured. "And this island… doesn't look completely lifeless."
His gaze shifted into the jungle's depths. His spiritual sense was too weak to extend outward, but a dark cultivator's sharp instinct for living blood and qi remained. He could feel it—many vigorous presences were hidden within that forest.
"Then I'll start by cleaning out this island."
Human Emperor Banner in hand, he walked into the jungle. His figure quickly vanished into the lush green, leaving only that dark red banner flickering in mottled light—faintly visible, radiating an ominous chill.
What followed was the bloodiest day that silent uninhabited island had ever known. Tabito became the most efficient hunter imaginable. With rich battle experience, eerie footwork, and the Human Emperor Banner's suppression of souls, he began a systematic purge of the island's creatures.
(End of Chapter)
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