What a Rush!

A moment later, as though Whitebeard's body had absorbed all the green fluorescence, the glow gradually faded. Whitebeard emerged from that strange, crystal-clear state and returned to normal.

Seeing that Whitebeard had returned to normal and seemed none the worse for wear, everyone around him, Marco included, breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"Pops, how do you feel?"

The hotheaded Jozu was still the first to ask.

Whitebeard did not answer. He was still a little dazed. Even with all his experience, he could not quite understand what had just happened.

He stayed silent for a moment, then swept away the IV needles still stuck in his body. The towering giant, over seven meters tall, stood up, stretched a little, and slowly walked over to the ship's rail.

"Pops..."

Jozu and the others watched Whitebeard in confusion. They could not make any sense of his string of unusual actions, but they did not dare stop him, either. All they could do was watch.

Whitebeard reached the rail and breathed in the damp, refreshing air. Before, every breath had been a small ordeal, his lungs burning with pain. It was not exactly unbearable for him, but the problem was that every single breath felt that way. Now, though, it felt as if he had been given a new pair of lungs. He had never realized breathing could feel so good.

It was not just his lungs. His aging heart had regained its vitality, beating powerfully as it pumped fresh blood into every corner of his body. His muscles had lost their former stiffness, too. How could he describe it? It was as though someone who had always worn an iron suit weighing tons had suddenly found it gone one day. He was free in an instant, felt as if he could fly, and was so comfortable he almost groaned.

Whitebeard had actually felt this way when he was young. But after suffering through so many years of weakness, returning to such a perfect state felt almost like a dream, and he found himself wanting to cling to it.

Whitebeard gazed at the silver line where the distant sea met the sky, then drew a deep breath. He raised his right hand, clenched it into a fist, twisted his waist, and drew his arm back, readying a punch. A white, transparent force field appeared around his fist. Then he punched the air before him. **Boom-**the air seemed to shatter, a dense web of cracks both large and small spreading outward from his fist.

Space shook violently, with Whitebeard's right fist at the epicenter. Carried through the air, the terrifying shock wave spread into the distance.

Then Whitebeard lowered his hand. For a moment, the sea remained calm. It looked as though he had merely punched the air and nothing had happened. But how could Whitebeard possibly do something pointless? All this calm was merely the prelude to the storm.

A little while later, the previously calm sea before them suddenly seemed to boil, unleashing astonishing energy and throwing up countless waves. For a time, this stretch of ocean seemed like a slab of dense cake cut into several pieces, each section displaced from the next and tilted at a completely different angle!

The savage Seaquake kept pushing the Moby Dick farther away. Beneath the immense power of nature, the normally enormous ship seemed unsteady and adrift, able only to go where the waves carried it. Seeing this, Marco immediately shifted into Phoenix Form and took flight, while Jozu and the others had no choice but to grab whatever they could and anchor themselves to the ship. Whitebeard alone remained firmly planted where he stood, his feet seemingly glued to the deck.

The sea kept heaving and rolling. Fortunately, the Moby Dick was only on the edge of the Seaquake's range, so although it looked precarious, it was not in any real danger.

Some people, however, were not so lucky. Far away from Whitebeard and his crew, a Marine surveillance team had been leisurely going about its work. After all, this was not the vicious, volatile Kaido. Whitebeard was terrifying, too, but at least his moods were fairly stable, so the observers had not felt too much pressure. Who could have known that Whitebeard, who had been sitting there on an IV drip, would suddenly act as though he had gone mad and throw a punch in their direction? And what a heavy punch it was. The whole ocean seemed to have been hurt badly enough to roll around in agony.

The ocean rolling around was one thing. The problem was that they were still on it! As it rolled, disaster struck them. Their little boat broke apart on the spot, leaving them struggling desperately in the raging water, doing everything they could to keep their heads above the surface. If they were lucky, once the ocean "stopped hurting," it might leave them a few scraps of their boat, some little wooden planks or something...

Whitebeard had not actually been targeting them. Although he knew he was surely under Marine surveillance, he did not know exactly where the observers were. They were simply too far away. He had only picked a random direction to punch. All anyone could say was that those observers had truly rotten luck...

A moment later, the rolling sea finally tired itself out and decided to lie still. The surface returned to calm, and the Moby Dick settled steadily in place. Only then did Marco land on the deck. Aside from him, everyone aboard was soaked through and looked utterly bedraggled.

The Marine observers, however, had not been so fortunate. The violent waters had torn their boat to pieces, leaving only scattered scraps of planking on the surface. Exhausted from struggling through the frenzied waves, they lay miserably across those scraps. The fragments barely kept them afloat and allowed them a little rest. The silver lining was that all of them were still alive; they had lost no one. Better still, one of them had a Den Den Mushi on him.

Looking at the newly calm sea, Whitebeard drew in a great lungful of moisture-laden air, then forcefully breathed it out.

"Gurararara! What a rush!"

Yes, a rush. A real rush. Whitebeard had not fought in several years, and even before that, his body had already been failing him. Whenever he did attack, he had to hold back rather than use his full strength. His body could no longer bear the strain of going all out. But that punch just now had been pure, unrestrained release, an explosion of his full power. It had been so long since unleashing an attack had felt so satisfying!

Anyone who had never been so weak that they could not even withstand their own strength could never understand the emotion and exhilaration filling Whitebeard's heart at that moment. It was as if the shackles on his life had fallen away, as if he stood above the clouds, as if everything lay beneath his feet, as if he had become invincible...

What a rush! What an incredible rush!