Far from the palace—beyond the glittering coral towers and the radiant lantern-lit avenues—on the shadowed outskirts of the Fishman District, the slums rested under a dim and wavering glow. Cracked seashell houses leaned tiredly against each other. Broken coral fences sagged. The once-lively streets now lay silent, shrouded by fear and the distant thunder reverberating through the ocean.

Along a forgotten stretch of waterway, more than a dozen fishman-built galleons rested in a concealed dock carved into the reef. Their hulls bore familiar markings, their design unmistakably local. To any passing citizen, they were nothing more than returning merchant ships or refugee transports fleeing the chaos gripping the island.

But in truth, these vessels carried something far darker than supplies. Inside their holds—hidden beneath crates of dried kelp and fabricated trade goods—were thousands of World Government operatives.

Cipher Pol. World government operatives. Assassins. Spies. Enforcers. Every force of the World Government that had been trained for a single purpose throughout their life. The iron-clad fist of the World Government, smuggled directly into Fishman Island by its own people.

They stepped onto the coral floor in silence, clad in dark pressure-resistant armor and outfitted with weaponry designed for underwater combat. Their masks concealed their faces, but not the intent in their movements. They moved like a lethal tide—a force not here to negotiate but to seize, kill, and destroy the island from within.

And the fishman pirates who had guided them? They watched with shaking hands, their eyes darting nervously up toward the trembling barrier. The ground trembled again.

BOOOOM!

Another impact from the Emperor Sea Kings reverberated through the depths, sending tremors across the slums. Sand trickled from the ceiling. Cracks spread across nearby coral walls. The pirates flinched.

"D-Damn it," one hissed, clutching his trident. "If the barrier collapses, we’re all dead—we need to depart before the barrier collapses; the sea is already being surrounded by thousands of seakings."

Another spat on the ground. "Who cares? We’ll get our payment. They promised gold, passage, and—"

"And what?" hissed a third, narrowing his eyes. "Freedom? Protection? You really think these humans care about us once they get what they want? Just don’t let your guard down..."

A hush fell. Not because he was wrong. But because no one here wanted to admit it. Yet greed dulled fear, and despair silenced reason.

For years now, the Fishman District had been drowning. Ever since Fisher Tiger’s departure left a power vacuum—ever since the Donquixote Family withdrew their influence—crime surged, chaos spread, and hope decayed like rotting coral.

Under the Donquixote banner? No one would have dared attempt a betrayal like this. Donquixote family had been ruthless, merciless, and overwhelmingly dominant. They did not care if a traitor was human or fishman—the punishment was the same. Equal cruelty. Equal certainty. Equal terror.

The Donquixote pirates had left a legacy carved into the bones of the guilty. Those who betrayed Fishman Island—and thus harmed Donquixote interests—were hunted down, beaten, fed to Sea Kings, or hung from the highest coral spires as warnings. Hundreds of fishmen had met such fates. Hundreds more had fled the island rather than risk stepping out of line.

The Donquixote Family did not discriminate. They ruled with a brutal logic that applied equally to all races. And for all their cruelty... their protection had been absolute.

But those days were gone. Now the Fishman District was a lawless void—a wound left festering and forgotten. The people abandoned by their leaders turned their eyes elsewhere, searching desperately for any promise of survival, even if it came from the hands of their own oppressors.

So they made a deal with the devil.

"Just help us get in," the World Government agents had said. "And you will be rewarded."

And in their fear, anger, and desperation, the fishman pirates complied. They smuggled the government’s forces right into their homeland. The ground shook violently again.

BOOOM—!!

Several of the pirates stumbled, gripping the hulls of their ships as the vibration tore through the reef.

"What the hell is going on up there?" one pirate muttered, knuckles white around his weapon. "Those Sea Kings... Are they trying to break the barrier?"

"Nonsense," another scoffed, voice wavering. "They’re guardians. They’d never—"

"Guardians?" the third pirate interrupted bitterly. "They aren’t guarding anything anymore. Something’s driving them mad."

One pirate swallowed hard, staring at the trembling dome far above. "You think... the government planned this?"

That question hung heavy in the water. Some faces paled. Some eyes widened. Some jaws clenched. Because deep inside, every pirate present had felt the same nagging suspicion. This timing was too perfect. This chaos too convenient.

The World Government couldn’t control Emperor Sea Kings... could they?

But even if they did— even if they had orchestrated this nightmare— none of the pirates intended to turn back now. They had already sold their souls. They had already betrayed their people. There was no going back.

As more operatives poured out from the galleons, weapons drawn and armor gleaming sinisterly beneath the water’s glow, one pirate whispered:

"If this were the days when the Donquixote Family ruled here?"

He shuddered.

"We’d all be dead already."

"Maybe we already are," another muttered.

The world government forces began their advance toward the Sea Forest—toward the ancient place where they were assigned their first rally point. Their boots sank softly into the sand. Their shadows rippled across the quiet town. Their presence tainted the seabed like black ink spreading across paper.

Above them, the barrier thundered again—BOOOOOOOM!—and splinter-like fractures spread across its surface. The betrayal was now complete. And Fishman Island stood on the brink of a catastrophe far greater than its people yet realized.

The Fishman pirates lingered anxiously, twitching every time the barrier above groaned. Another deep BOOOOOOM rolled across the ocean, making small stones rain from the coral walls. The Sea Kings’ assault sent tremors all the way into the slum.

Yet, despite the rising dread gripping their hearts, greed flickered brighter than survival instinct. The largest Fishman pirate captain—broad-shouldered, scarred, and stupidly confident—strode toward an Aegis Division officer who was quietly issuing tactical commands to the arriving CP0 units. The captain’s heavy footsteps sloshed through the water, utterly blind to the growing coldness in the surrounding agents’ posture.

"Oye!" the Fishman barked, thumping his chest arrogantly. "We completed our part of the deal. We brought your forces safely into Fishman Island. It’s time you paid us what you owe."

At that moment, every CP0 agent nearby turned their masked faces toward him. Blank. Featureless. Expressionless. Like a row of executioners regarding a man already dead. Even the operatives who ignored the disturbance tightened their grips on their weapons. A faint shift in the water pressure hinted at bloodlust bubbling beneath the surface.

Any man with a shred of instinct would have fled. Any creature with a hint of survival sense would have felt it. But the Fishman captain had neither. He was already counting treasure that would never exist.

The Aegis Division Director slowly turned his head, the motion eerily smooth, almost mechanical. His mask—white, polished, and utterly devoid of humanity—reflected the captain’s face back at him.

"Ah... yes. Payment," the Director said, voice calm, almost casual. "That nearly slipped my mind."

The captain crossed his arms, nodding smugly.

Behind him, a dozen of his own pirates hovered, equally expectant and equally blind to the impending slaughter. The Director tilted his head ever so slightly.

"But tell me... aren’t you curious about what we intend to do with your island?" he continued. "After all, these people are your kin."

The captain snorted loudly.

"Do I look like I care?" he snapped. "If I was worried about this stupid island’s fate, I wouldn’t have helped you sneak in, now would I? I want gold. I want passage out. That’s the only thing that matters. Now stop with the nonsense and pay me what I was promised."

A deadly silence followed. Even the distant rumble of the attacking Sea Kings seemed to quiet for a heartbeat. The Director sighed softly—an oddly gentle sound, completely at odds with the murderous aura rising from the CP0 around him.

"At first," he said slowly, "I believed scum like you might be the ideal candidates to leave alive."

The captain blinked, confused. The Director continued, raising one gloved hand.

"Our orders require us to allow a portion of your species to survive... as a living reminder to all others."

The captain’s gills twitched.

"But it seems," the Director murmured, stepping closer, "that you’re too eager to die." Before the Fishman could open his mouth to speak—

fwssshht

A flash of motion split the water. And the captain’s head drifted free from his shoulders, eyes still widening in confusion as his lifeless body toppled backward in a cloud of darkening blood. There was no time for shock.

The CP0 agents moved in perfect synchrony—like blades of a single killing machine. No hesitation. No commands. No mercy. One agent snapped a Fishman’s neck with a twist so sharp it echoed in the water. Another impaled two pirates through the chest, lifting them clean off their feet. A third spun gracefully, slicing throats in a fluid dance of steel and brutality.

The surroundings turned red almost instantly—blooms of blood unfurling like flowers in slow motion. The fish pirates couldn’t even scream. They died faster than they could understand what was happening. Bubbles escaped their open mouths, drifting upward like lost prayers. Within seconds, hundreds of bodies floated lifelessly around the dock, arms dangling, jaws slack.

Only the director remained unstained. He flicked the blood from his hand with the casualness of a man brushing off dust.

"Clean up this mess," he said, his voice returning to cool neutrality. "Burn the evidence. Leave nothing that suggests we required assistance."

The CP0 agents bowed silently in acknowledgment and immediately began dismembering bodies, gathering remains, and erasing every trace of the pirates’ existence. As the slaughter continued behind him, the Director turned toward the distant Sea Forest—toward the place where history slept and where the next stage of their operation would unfold.

"I will go ahead to receive the elders."

He stepped away, his figure shrinking into the shifting gloom of the coral shadows. Unlike the forces that arrived via galleons, the Elders would not be coming by any conventional means.

Their method of arrival was one reserved only for those who stood at the pinnacle of authority—

those whose feet never touched common soil unless the world itself needed reshaping.

The Director’s voice drifted back, cold as abyssal water: "The operation begins the moment they arrive."

And behind him, the last gurgling breath of a Fishman pirate faded into silence— the final proof of how utterly foolish they had been to trust the World Government.

****

Whitebeard felt the moment his haki’s dominance snapped like a taut rope. A single heartbeat of stillness—then chaos returned tenfold.

The soundless screech that had cut through the depths moments ago still clung to his bones, vibrating against his ribs like the echo of a dying god. The Emperor Sea Kings, momentarily cowed, were once again thrashing with maddened fury—slamming their titanic bodies against the barrier as if driven by some eldritch compulsion.

The dome groaned. Cracks spiderwebbed across its shimmering surface like fractures across an eggshell. Whitebeard did not hesitate.

He snatched up a special coral apparatus from one of Neptune’s guards—a precious device crafted by Fishmen artisans to allow Devil Fruit users to survive underwater. Its touch felt cold and faintly alive, pricking his palm with tiny pulses as the special apparatus activated.

A bubble of glimmering air expanded from the coral, enveloping his massive form until he stood within a shimmering sphere of oxygen. The moment the bubble sealed, Whitebeard felt it—

The heavy, suffocating drag of the ocean’s pressure muffling his power loosening a bit.

The sea was his enemy. A Devil Fruit user’s bane. But that would not stop him. Around him, chaos erupted.

"Marco!" Whitebeard boomed, his voice shaking the palace walls. "Lead a few divisions. Evacuate as many fishmen as you can—guide them to the port!"

Marco snapped to attention. "Aye, Pops!"

"Thatch!" Whitebeard continued, pointing across the plaza in the direction of the port where their fleet’s coating was being maintained by their coating mechanics. "Get the fleet ready. Finish the ship coating and prepare to take in refugees. As many as you can carry—human or fishman, it doesn’t matter!"

"Aye!" Thatch barked, already sprinting with his division. Then Whitebeard turned to Neptune.

The Fishman King was still trembling, his pupils tiny, his scales bristling from the lingering effect of that dreadful, unnatural screech. Even a seasoned warrior like him had been shaken to the core—whatever force commanded the Sea Kings was something far older and more sinister than any royal lineage could tame.

"Jozu." Whitebeard growled. The diamond-coated titan, the third division commander of the Whitebeard pirates, stepped forward.

"Take some men and get Neptune back to the palace. Secure the royal family. Under no circumstances is anyone from the royal family to come to harm."

Jozu slammed a fist to his chest. "Understood. King Neptune, with me!"

"Wait—Whitebeard!" Neptune tried to protest, but the Yonko did not stay to hear it.

With a thunderous crack under his feet, Whitebeard launched himself upward—slamming into the barrier like a comet of muscle and will.

"POPS!" his sons screamed in unison.

But their cries were too late. The bubble-wreathed titan was already sailing through the cracks in the barrier that had been widened by the Sea Kings’ assault. Whitebeard vanished into the dark blue beyond within a few steps—into the maw of the abyss itself.

Marco gritted his teeth, wings of flame bursting from his back. He hovered above the panicked masses of Fishmen, watching thousands scramble for safety. Under the sea, Marco was useless.

Everyone knew it. Above the sea, he was a phoenix. Below it, he was prey. He clenched his jaw.

"You heard Pops! MOVE!" Marco roared, flames illuminating the drowning city like a beacon.

Thatch and his men sprinted for the port. Jozu guided Neptune at a full run back toward the palace to secure the royal family. Fishmen screamed and fled in organized chaos, directed by a Yonko’s sons, each pushing past their limits.

The kingdom shook again. The barrier screamed.

Marco looked up. "Hold on, Pops... don’t die on us."

Whitebeard emerged into a nightmare. Darkness. Pressure. Silence.

And then—a shadow so large it seemed to swallow the sea. The Emperor Sea Kings surrounded him—dozens of continent-sized beasts, each one dwarfing islands, each one older than recorded history. Their eyes glowed blood-red, veins bulging as if some invisible force puppeteered their rage.

Even Whitebeard—a man who laughed in the face of gods—felt the weight of their presence. He was a speck. A grain of sand. An ant in a world of colossal, ancient titans. One Emperor Sea King surged forward, ignoring him entirely, its monstrous body coiling like a living mountain.

It lunged for the barrier. A strike that would shatter kingdoms. Before it could make an impact—

BOOOOOOOOOM!

A shockwave tore the sea apart. Whitebeard had moved. Faster than a creature his size should ever move underwater. The bubble dragged at him, his strength strangled by the ocean’s curse, but he still moved like a force of nature.

His right arm was coated in that unmistakable silver sheen— the trembling halo of the Gura Gura no Mi. He drove his quake-wrapped fist straight into the gaping maw of the Emperor Sea King.

A soundless explosion rippled through the beast’s skull— pressure waves tearing through bone the size of mountains. The gargantuan creature recoiled, shrieking bubbles of agony, thrashing the water violently enough to churn whirlpools miles wide.

But even in pain, the beasts did not stop. Something controlled them. Something compelled them. Whitebeard felt the tremor of that unseen force—a monstrous will echoing across the ocean floor. He planted his feet against nothing, bracing, his bubble straining under the pressure.

He could not break the bubble. He could not let the sea touch him. Even Whitebeard, the Strongest Man in the World, was powerless in the water. He would float helplessly, unable to move, unable to fight, dragged into the abyss.

Worse— if he unleashed his true might at full power here, he would rupture the seafloor, collapse the kingdom, and doom every Fishman behind him. He stood against gods with a fraction of his strength. But Whitebeard grinned through his moustache.

"Gurarara... never thought I’d be fighting sea gods in their own home..." Another Emperor Sea King lunged. Whitebeard swung his bisento in a wide arc—a crescent of pressure tearing through the water, splitting the incoming maw open and hurling the ancient behemoth back hundreds of meters.

A tidal wave exploded outward. More Sea Kings surrounded him. Dozens. Hundreds in the distance. The abyss rumbled. Whitebeard adjusted his grip, muscles bulging, veins glowing with raw haki as he prepared for the impossible battle.

"Come at me then," he growled.

"Let’s see if ancient monsters can kill Edward Newgate."

The Sea Kings roared. And the ocean itself trembled as the Strongest Man in the World fought the ancient titans in the crushing dark. The ocean floor trembled as the Emperor Sea Kings—those primordial titans whose bodies spanned valleys and whose shadows swallowed mountains—responded to Whitebeard’s challenge.

For the briefest moment, the abyss went silent. Then—

HOOOOOOOOOORRRAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!

A unified roar shook the depths, an ancient chorus of rage and acknowledgment. Their voices rumbled through the bones of the world, vibrating the seabed, shaking the decaying ruins of forgotten civilizations buried beneath the silt.

Dozens of colossal eyes, glowing like suns in the dark, fixed themselves on the single bubble-wrapped speck standing before them. Edward Newgate, Whitebeard. The man defying the gods of the deep. No longer did they crash mindlessly against the barrier as they received new instructions.

No longer did instinct—or the suppression of their instincts—drive them to break the dome. Now, all their fury, all their confusion, all the invisible commands forcing them into madness... Funneled toward the one man who stood between them and the annihilation of Fishman Island. Whitebeard braced, gripping his bisento, the quakes of his Devil Fruit humming like angry spirits around his arm as he stared up into the oceanic void.

"Gurarara... come then." And the sea obeyed.

Far from the battle at the barrier, the Sea Forest lay silent beneath the dim glow of the eternal trees, their branches swaying with the rhythm of the tides. Ancient gravestones, moss-coated and half-swallowed by coral, watched like ghostly sentinels as intruders crept through their sacred ground.

The Aegis Division leader stood before a half-faded ritual circle etched into the stone floor—lines carved so long ago that parts of it had eroded into obscurity. Strange runic symbols spiraled outward like a spider’s web, their edges choked with algae and barnacles.

To ordinary eyes, it looked like an artifact of a time forgotten. To those who understood, it was a gateway. He did not know its origin. He did not want to. He only knew this was the method chosen by the Elders.

This same circle—this cursed summoning point—had once been the stage for an atrocity.

Years ago, Elder Warcury himself had appeared here using this very ritual when he descended upon Fishman Island with the intent of exterminating the Donquixote brothers. Only Imu-sama’s sudden command had dragged him back to Mary Geoise, sparing the island by sheer happenstance.

Now, that same forgotten portal would be used again. Not by one elder—but two. Elder Warcury. Elder Mars. Descending ten thousand meters beneath the sea, bypassing every known law of nature. Aegis agents cleared the area in strict silence.

Then—the ritual circle pulsed. Once. Twice. A low hum rippled through the seabed. The dim glow intensified, bleeding into shades of black-purple—a color the sea itself seemed to recoil from. The water grew heavy. The temperature plummeted. The currents froze as though time itself held its breath. The leader stiffened.

"Stand back," he commanded, though his voice wavered behind his mask.

The runes ignited all at once.

FWOOOOOOOM!

A column of dark lightning erupted from the circle, spiraling upward like the jaws of a great beast. Tendrils of black electricity ripped through the forest, scorching coral, splitting ancient gravestones, and warping the water around it. Then came the fog.

Thick. Oily. Suffocating.

A murky black vapor pooled around the circle, swirling like smoke drawn from the lungs of a dying world. It rose and coiled, forming horns, jaws, and skeletal wings that flickered in and out of existence—a demonic silhouette trapped inside the storm.

The ground shook violently. Stone cracked. Roots tore free. The water churned as though the sea itself was rejecting what was about to emerge. The crackling lightning converged inward.

The fog folded into itself. The symbols on the ground exploded with blinding darkness—

And two shapes began to materialize at the center of the circle. First came outlines. Then silhouettes. Then bodies formed as though carved from shadows and given flesh. Elderly frames that radiated more oppressive presence than any Sea King could ever muster.

When the darkness peeled away, two figures stood fully formed—as if summoned from the deepest pit of hell. Elder Mars, his face expressionless, his cane humming with hidden power.

Elder Warcury, massive and monstrous, his breath alone warping the water with pressure.

The summoning storm faded, leaving behind a silence so unnatural it felt like the ocean refused to breathe. The Aegis leader dropped to one knee immediately.

"W–Welcome to Fishman Island, Gorosei-sama."

Warcury rolled his neck, the motion cracking with the sound of grinding boulders. Mars exhaled once. Their presence bent the sea. And in the far distance, the Sea Kings roared again—as if sensing the arrival of something even more ancient, even more terrible, than themselves.

The Elders had arrived. The purge had begun.