At an altitude of twenty thousand meters, the main deck of the Eclipse hummed with focused, efficient activity.
Rayleigh had removed his heavy traveling cloak, leaving his white-bearded frame clad in only a loose linen shirt as he held a specialized, wide-bristled brush. With measured, rhythmic strokes, he evenly spread a highly viscous, amber resin across the massive black alloy hull of the dreadnought, the compound releasing a unique, sharp organic scent into the thin high-altitude air.
"Observe the tension of the stroke closely, young man."
As his arm guided the brush, Rayleigh maintained a calm instruction for Jeno, who was tracking his movements from short inches away. "The raw resin drawn from the Yarukiman Mangrove reconfigures its molecular matrix, developing an exceptional, rubberized toughness the moment it registers contact with the atmosphere. When laying the coat, every single square inch of the surface density must achieve absolute uniformity. If your line leaves even a single fraction too thin, the crushing, unmitigated water pressure present at a depth of ten thousand meters will instantly rupture the membrane, converting everyone on this deck into loose fish bait."
"Understood, Senior Rayleigh!"
Jeno pushed his specialized welding goggles up against his forehead, his whirring eyes entirely locked onto Rayleigh's wrist angles. Rather than spending seconds detailing a text ledger, he engaged the high-resolution miniature scanner built into his right robotic arm, programmatically recording the elder's exact pressure application, stroke velocity, and the setting duration of the polymer.
A few hours of continuous application slipped past, until a massive, perfectly transparent, hemispherical resin bubble sealed the entire perimeter of the Eclipse.
"Phew... the circuit is complete. What an exceptionally sturdy chassis." Rayleigh wiped a line of sweat from his brow, his weathered eyes monitoring the protective membrane as it shimmered brilliantly under the unfiltered stratosphere sunlight.
"Is that the core equation?"
Jeno scratched his chin, walking a slow, analytical circle around the inner edge of the resin bubble. "So the baseline principle of deep-sea coating relies entirely on regulating the ductility and localized surface tension of the resin. My processors have already completed the chemical dissection of this compound."
The engineer suddenly spun on his heel, racing toward the lower cargo ramps leading to his heavy synthesis labs. "Captain, grant my workshop a two-hour window! The moment I reconfigure our internal mixing valves, this vessel will never require a manual brush assignment again!"
Rayleigh watched the mechanical fanatic vanish down the steel ramp with a trace of quiet surprise, before turning his face to look at Ace, who was currently trading light sparring forms with Sabo along the bow.
"Your manifest is truly packed with exceptional talent, kid. Do your people calculate they can integrate my lifelong maritime crafts after a single observation?"
"His processing units handle variables far past standard human imagination," Ace stopped his stance, lifting a linen towel to clear the sweat from his shoulders. "The moment his lab stabilizes the automated resin generator, there won't remain a single coordinate on this world map that the Eclipse cannot navigate."
Two hours ticked past down the clock.
Accompanied by the heavy hiss of an industrial pneumatic lock clearing, Jeno re-emerged onto the main deck plates.
"The upgrade is online!"
Jeno slapped his palm against a newly machined alloy ring collar mounted along the absolute margin of the deck rail. "I've rerouted the primary resin storage reserves directly into the micro-ventilation ports built into the hull plating. From this hour, a single toggle of the terminal switch will prompt the vents to automatically spray the compound, forming a pristine, structurally perfect coating along the entire geometry of the ship! It multiplies our previous application speed by ten, and we can replenish the density mid-transit at any altitude!"
"Yahahaha! You are an exceptional asset, Jeno!"
Sabo strode over, driving a friendly fist into the mechanic's shoulder. "This removes the requirement of borrowing a brush every time our prow targets the deep trenches."
Rayleigh inspected the newly integrated alloy ring, a soft, amused smile shifting his white beard as he shook his head. "Youngsters nowadays truly leave zero manual labor on the board for us old men to justify our wages."
He stepped toward the outer edge of the rail, his eyes tracking the dense, unbroken plains of white vapor rolling far below. "Alright, the commission has cleared its metrics, so my brush belongs back on dry ground. Shakky is likely compiling a lengthy sermon regarding my empty stool back at the bar."
"Leona, manage his descent," Ace instructed.
"Negative," Rayleigh waved his palm, dismissing the offer. "Being hoisted up to this altitude by your fruit was an interesting transit, but my own legs can handle the calculation back to the harbor. It serves as a solid window to stretch my old joints."
"Ace," Rayleigh paused on the lip of the iron railing, turning his weathered face back to look at the youth carrying the bloodline of his old captain. "The sea breeze cutting through the New World carries significantly more noise than the paradise sectors you've been navigating. Do not allow your name to be erased by the iron rule of those Four Emperors."
"Restrain your anxiety, old man. Focus on minimizing your losses at the casino tables."
Ace crossed his arms over his chest, a confident, arrogant smile settling across his features.
Rayleigh let out a short, boisterous roar of laughter, before launching his body cleanly off the twenty-thousand-meter drop. His lean, explosively powerful frame engaged a rapid chain of Moonwalk bursts through the empty air, his silhouette quickly dissolving into the white plains of the cloud sea below.
"Little Eclipse, terminate suspension," Ace ordered, stepping toward the primary helm.
"Command verified. Stratospheric hover arrays disengaged; gravity stabilization parameters locked to descent metrics. Uniform altitude reduction commencing; target coordinate: sea level."
The massive black hull of the Eclipse detached from its stratospheric anchor. Like a dark swan spreading its wings, the dreadnought cut cleanly through the upper atmosphere, sinking smoothly toward the blue plains of the ocean below.
"Wow! The hull is targeting the water directly!"
Chopper pressed his small face against the transparent lining of the starboard viewing port, his large pupils shining with absolute excitement. "This is mathematically my first entry into deep-sea navigation!"
"Correct your line of sight toward the southern sector! A Marine hull is visible!" Carina pointed a finger toward the rapidly expanding sea surface below.
Moored within the waters immediately adjacent to the Sabaody coastline was a heavy, multi-decked Marine warship. Standing along its main deck, draped in an immaculate officer's cloak marked by the text of Justice, a Vice Admiral kept his binoculars locked tightly onto the sky.
"Reporting to the Commander! An unidentified high-velocity profile is descending directly through the upper cloud deck! Tracking the paint parameters... it matches the registry of the Eclipse!"
"What?!" The Vice Admiral's face turned an aggressive shade of dark purple, slamming his binoculars down against the rail. "Those madmen possess the audacity to re-enter my port sector? All divisions to absolute combat readiness! Lock the tracking on the primary batteries—we absolutely forbid their mass from closing on the harbors!"
However, before the Marine gun crews could align their iron gears, the ventral secondary turrets of the Eclipse had already hummed into life.
"Captain, that warship is executing a target lock on our hull," Jeno noted from the primary weapons terminal, his fingers gently adjusting the precision tracking joystick.
"Return the gesture with interest; let their department register exactly what grade of vessel they are attempting to engage," Ace said calmly.
"Parameters locked! Laser cannon, discharge!"
A dark blue, hyper-concentrated thermal laser beam dropped straight from an altitude of ten thousand meters in a single frame.
Boom!
The energy beam struck the centerline of the Marine warship with surgical, pinpoint accuracy, the immense kinetic transfer instantly capsizing the heavy vessel into the swells. Sailors along the deck were hurled across the structure, jumping into the foam as the hull rolled.
"My, what a remarkably aggressive welcome party," Sabo remarked, standing adjacent to Ace's shoulder as he looked down at the swirling confusion of the Marine survivors, a light smile touching his lips.
Splash.
A soft, controlled concussion registered across the steel frames. The massive hull of the Eclipse made clean, friction-free contact with the ocean surface. Cushioned flawlessly by the surface tension of the resin coating, the vessel sustained zero violent vibration, immediately transitioning into a smooth, gravity-driven dive directly into the sea below.
The natural light of the upper air began to slowly dim away.
"Wow! Is this the actual interior of the ocean?"
Bonney directed her matte-black mechanical spider to scramble across the iron wood of the deck. Peering through the lens displays at the brilliant coral formations and tight schools of glowing fish passing the hull, she let out an excited shout through the external speakers: "Dad! Monitor the coordinates over there! There are glowing fish running along the currents!"
The giant Kuma stood silently at her flank, offering a single, slow nod of validation.
As the Eclipse continued its linear descent into the deep, the surrounding aquatic environment underwent a radical transformation.
One kilometer down.
Natural sunlight turned scarce. The brilliant azure water of the shallows gradually shifted into a deep, heavy turquoise hue.
Two kilometers down.
The light penetrating from the surface was reduced to a thin, fragile thread.
"From what depth did these monolithic roots emerge?" Enel muttered, sitting cross-legged near the prow as he monitored the exceptionally thick mangrove structures rising from the bottomless dark below, a trace of genuine surprise in his tone.
"Those are the foundational roots of the Sunlight Tree Eve—the absolute vital pipeline that sustains the Sabaody Archipelago and Fish-Man Island," Ace explained, walking over to the observation port to point toward the faintly luminescent timber. "They regulate the transfer of natural sunlight and air from the surface down to the seabed at a depth of ten thousand meters."
"Remarkably sophisticated design. I wonder what parameters forged such a structure," Enel murmured, a spark of intellectual curiosity moving through his eyes.
Five thousand meters down.
Absolute, total darkness locked the ocean.
The main deck of the Eclipse was stripped of all visibility, the turquoise water reconfiguring into a deathly, motionless ink-black void.
"Yo-ho-ho-ho... the visual data has dropped to zero," Brook whispered, the pale blue fire within his empty sockets dancing with a quiet focus. "This specific frequency reminds my spirit of the decades I spent drifting within the gray mists of the Florian Triangle."
"The darkness is total... what if an unmapped predator launches an intrusion from the blind spots?" Chopper muttered, his small frame shifting closer to Sabo's boot.
Whir!
A sudden burst of crimson Vermilion Bird fire erupted from Ace's right palm.
Though confined within the boundaries of the resin coating, the intense vital brilliance of the Zoan flames penetrated the membrane, illuminating the dark sea for hundreds of meters surrounding the Eclipse.
"Wow! Track that signature...!"
Following the expansion of the light, the crew's eyes isolated a deep-sea cephalopod—hundreds of meters in dimension—gliding slowly past the starboard plating, its mountain-like tentacles waving through the dark current. Its colossal, unblinking eyes appeared exceptionally sinister under the reflection of the red fire.
"A North Blue Kraken? The mass is substantive," Ace observed, tracking the monster as it tested the perimeter, though he maintained zero intention of initiating a skirmish. "Maintain our velocity; don't expend our hours on a common beast."
The Eclipse continued its steady, vertical descent into the deep. Along their trajectory, their lanterns illuminated the broken timber of ancient shipwrecks that had lain abandoned for centuries, underwater volcanic vents spewing dark lava into the cold water, and an array of anomalously configured deep-sea predators that had never seen the light of day.
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