Boldly off to this final feast—on the surface of the Grand Line, a massive ship was rising and falling quietly with the waves.
It was a behemoth that inspired awe in everyone in the New World: the Moby Dick.
Its pure-white hull was like a giant whale breaking the surface, its whale head held high, casting a heavy shadow beneath the lead-gray sky.
The sea breeze carried briny moisture across the deck, brushing past the crewmen dozing lazily there, and sweeping over the pirate flag snapping in the wind, painted with a skull and a figure-eight mustache.
Everything seemed so peaceful, as if the world had never known a single wave.
But in the next instant—
Boom!
Without warning, the hull shook violently, as though the entire sea had been seized by an invisible giant hand and then savagely twisted.
The surface of the sea suddenly bulged, and a wall of water dozens of meters tall rose from nowhere, surging and roaring as it bore down on the Moby Dick with the force to topple mountains and overturn seas.
The instant the tsunami rose, the faces of the crew on deck all turned pale.
But the towering wave had only just reared up when a vast mass of dense darkness abruptly spread like a living thing.
That darkness greedily devoured all light. In the blink of an eye, it forced the suspended seawater, along with the tremendous power contained within it, straight back down.
The tsunami that had been so menacing moments ago collapsed soundlessly back onto the sea, leaving only ring after ring of weak ripples behind.
"Zehahahahaha!"
A rough, unmistakable laugh came from the direction where the darkness dispersed.
"What's Pops losing his temper about now? You're already this old—don't go moving around too much!"
Blackbeard, Marshall D.