Ryokugyu's deep-sea expedition meets defeat; the Empire sets its strategy for the first half!

The news that Fish-Man Island had formally joined the Hua Empire sent shock waves across the entire sea that did not subside for a long time.

For eight hundred years, this island ten thousand meters beneath the sea, a vital chokepoint linking the Four Blues, the Grand Line, and the New World, had been a crucial node in the World Government's control of sea routes. Now that it had fallen into the Hua Empire's hands, not only had the World Government's control over the first half of the Grand Line been severed at the waist, but the Hua Empire's military reach had also officially extended into the second half.

Meanwhile, Fish-Man Island had long since shed its former gloom and fear and become an entirely different world.

At Coral Hill's harbor, thirty main warships of the Hua Empire stood in neat formation. The Empire's black dragon flags fluttered in the breeze inside the deep-sea bubbles, and the muzzles of the Sky Island shell main cannons gleamed coldly, firmly sealing off the island's entire harbor approach. Inside the harbor, merchant vessels came and went without pause. Caravans from the Four Blues brought grain, cloth, and ironware to trade for Fish-Man Island's coral, pearls, and seafood. The once-desolate port now rang with voices and bustled with activity.

In the military camp west of Ryugu Palace, Gan Ning was bare-chested, swinging the Twin Halberds in the Martial Arts Training Ground. He unleashed his Admiral Candidate-level pressure without restraint as the Kyogre Fruit's ocean power flowed around him. Pale blue mist condensed into two water dragons that coiled and roared with each swing of his halberds. Every sweep stirred violent tremors in the surrounding seawater, even sending ripples through the Seastone defensive barrier around the training ground.

Half a year of garrison duty and