Chapter 282: Dressrosa

Just as Shirahoshi stepped into the hot spring pool, she heard Uchiha Feiyu let out a soft sigh, and then a figure emerged from beneath the water.

Splash—Hancock shook her long hair, lifted her swan-like jade neck, and swallowed with a gulp, a charming and moving smile appearing on her perfect, pretty face.

Then, this Snake Princess slowly stood up from the water and embraced Uchiha Feiyu, the expression on her face becoming increasingly provocative.

"It's Sister Hancock! Tee-hee, I was wondering why I didn't see you earlier, so you were hiding under the water!"

Shirahoshi said with a beaming smile; Hancock, that love-struck fool, could be said to be the one in Uchiha Feiyu's harem who liked clinging to him the most.

During this time, even if Uchiha Feiyu was busy strengthening merfolk every day, Hancock had never avoided it, and sometimes she would even help Uchiha Feiyu push; Shirahoshi had actually felt strange earlier when she didn't see her in the hot spring pool.

"Phew, it's Shirahoshi! Uh, wait a moment, let's talk later..."

Hancock's complexion was as if stained with red rouge; she gently smoothed her damp hair and greeted Shirahoshi.

After all... Hancock often rolled around on the Shirahoshi-brand merfolk bed, so the two were, of course, as familiar as could be.

Watching Hancock bite her lip, her body trembling, her eyes unfocused, yet her hands and feet clinging tightly to Uchiha Feiyu like an octopus, Princess Shirahoshi couldn't help but sigh.

"It's nice to have a small figure... you can even get a little more affection..."

Although Uchiha Feiyu could grow to the same size as Princess Shirahoshi, if he did that, the others in the harem wouldn't be able to play along.

Having long been accustomed to group activities, Uchiha Feiyu rarely pampered her alone, preferring instead to use her as a large bed.

After a long while, Uchiha Feiyu handed Hancock, whose body was still twitching and trembling, over to the few merfolk serving him, and stepped out of the hot spring pool himself.

The cold and glamorous Lady Shari followed closely behind, kneeling on the ground like a warm seat, allowing Uchiha Feiyu to sit upon her.

"Shirahoshi, how has your ability training been going lately?"

Looking at the giant merfolk before him, Uchiha Feiyu sized her up, sensing the strength of her still-growing body and her Two-Color Haki, nodded in satisfaction, and then asked.

"I can now control Sea Kings within a range of several thousand kilometers! And I can also hear some strange sounds; if I'm not mistaken, my Observation Haki should have also entered the level of the Voice of All Things."

Shirahoshi said in a soft whisper; Uchiha Feiyu was not surprised by Shirahoshi's progress. In fact, Shirahoshi's mother, the late Queen Otohime, was a genius who had naturally awakened her Observation Haki and possessed that special characteristic.

As Poseidon, Shirahoshi could communicate with Sea Kings, and with her mother's bloodline, her talent for Observation Haki was ridiculously high; it was not unexpected that she had awakened the ability to listen to emotions right from the start and could reach the highest realm of the Voice of All Things in such a short time.

"Then, can you control all the Sea Kings?"

"Yes, Lord Feiyu, even those Sea Kings that are several thousand meters in size, I can control them completely."

"Very good. These Sea Kings can already be considered small islands; it seems the submarines I have can be retired."

Nodding slightly, Princess Shirahoshi's ability to control Sea Kings was still very useful; these massive Sea Kings had huge utility, whether used for transport, combat, or simply as resources for Uchiha Feiyu's cultivation.

Furthermore, there was one more point... Uchiha Feiyu discovered that these Sea Kings were all excellent material for believers. Although their souls were not as strong as their physical bodies, their personalities were extremely simple, and they would accept any ideas instilled in them by Shirahoshi, easily becoming incredibly devout believers.

It was precisely because he could harvest a large amount of Faith Power from the Sea Kings that Uchiha Feiyu did not use them as cultivation consumables. By comparison, although humans far exceeded Sea Kings in total base numbers, they could not be so simple when it came to faith.

For some time now, Uchiha Feiyu had invested nearly eighty percent of his Faith Power into the Buddha Fruit, and the power of this Devil Fruit was growing day by day. However, the upper limit of the Buddha Fruit was simply far higher than that of the Vampire Fruit, and as of now, there were no signs of it being completely digested.

Additionally, besides the Buddha Fruit, the Dark-Dark Fruit and the Shadow-Shadow Fruit split the remaining twenty percent of Faith Power. The Dark-Dark Fruit had infinite potential; although investing ten percent of the Faith Power caused its power to skyrocket, it was still a drop in the bucket compared to its own upper limit, though he could vaguely feel that the Shadow-Shadow Fruit was reaching its limit.

This fruit, which represented shadows, had been played with quite creatively in Uchiha Feiyu's hands, beyond the original abilities of Gecko Moria, such as summoning shadow ninja like in the world of Jackie Chan Adventures, or the shadow ninjutsu of the Naruto World.

However, while these abilities were good, they were merely icing on the cake. Currently, the greatest bonus the Shadow-Shadow Fruit provided to Uchiha Feiyu was the ability to directly summon his shadow to transform into a combat avatar with strength completely equal to the original body.

It was a bit like the Valkyrie summoned by the Amazon in Diablo; all abilities were exactly the same as the original body, minds were connected, and senses were linked. The original body and the avatar working together could unleash power where 1+1 was greater than two, which was roughly equivalent to an incomplete version of the "One Qi Becomes Three Purities."

Being able to reach this level was already quite good for Uchiha Feiyu. He had already prepared to invest all his Faith Power into the Shadow-Shadow Fruit during this period, trying every possible way to completely digest this Devil Fruit—it was just that the Dark-Dark Fruit and the Buddha Fruit were too difficult to digest, so he would digest the Shadow-Shadow Fruit first to free up a Devil Fruit slot before considering the others!

It was mainly because in the upcoming operations, Uchiha Feiyu had his eye on some Devil Fruits he really liked, so naturally, he would digest the easier ones first.

"How about this, Shirahoshi, first perform some modifications on those giant Sea Kings. These Sea Kings can easily house small ecosystems within their bodies, which is much more useful than ordinary submarines."

"With the help of these Sea Kings, it will be much easier to resist the climate of the New World or to deal with those Great Pirates."

With Uchiha Feiyu's strength, killing pirates in the New World was, of course, no problem, but if he wanted to rule in the New World, he had to have sufficient transport capacity, at least enough to maintain rule after conquering them.

A giant Sea King several thousand meters long was equivalent to a small island itself, capable of transporting at least several thousand people at once, and for the island nations of the Pirate King world, several thousand people were enough to maintain rule over an ordinary island.

The closest island when entering the New World from Fish-Man Island was Dressrosa.

This island was once the territory of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Donquixote Doflamingo. Unfortunately, after Doflamingo was conscripted by the Marine to participate in the Summit War, he never returned, becoming prey for Uchiha Feiyu.

The Summit War at that time was broadcast to the entire nation, and Dressrosa naturally had an Image Den Den Mushi; everyone saw how the pitiful Donquixote Doflamingo died, and because of this, the entire Dressrosa fell into chaos after that day.

Fortunately, Donquixote Doflamingo had participated in the Summit War alone and did not bring his subordinates, so Dressrosa still retained very powerful forces. Therefore, even though there were undercurrents, the entire Dressrosa still maintained general order.

It was just that no one knew how long this order under inertia could be maintained. If nothing else, after Donquixote Doflamingo's death, many connections with the underworld and even with the Four Emperors' pirate crews had been completely severed.

And in this sea area of the New World, without a Great Pirate as a backer, it was very easy to become meat on the chopping block and be eaten by others!

Not only that, as one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Donquixote Doflamingo could ignore the threats of the World Government and the Marine while ruling Dressrosa, but the others in the Doflamingo Family all had pirate bounties. After Donquixote Doflamingo's death, they had already reverted to their status as pirates.

If it weren't for the fact that the Marine had suffered heavy losses and had been licking its wounds, perhaps Marine warships would have already surrounded Dressrosa, because in the eyes of the Marine and the World Government, the current Dressrosa was occupied by a group of pirates.

Moreover... the Doflamingo Family was not entirely of one mind. Among them, the family's female assassin and scout, Violet, was the former second princess of the Riku Royal Family, and when Donquixote Doflamingo originally occupied Dressrosa, he had seized it from the Riku Royal Family using conspiracy and violence.

To say that Violet was loyal to the Doflamingo Family, even the least intelligent Baby 5 probably wouldn't believe it.

However, this princess was not someone to be trifled with either. After seeing the scene of Donquixote Doflamingo's death through the Image Den Den Mushi, she defected without hesitation, and when she defected, she even pulled in the Little Garden People as allies.

Naturally, the Doflamingo Family, having realized what happened, immediately pursued and killed Violet, but unfortunately, faced with Violet's Devil Fruit Ability, this kind of pursuit was basically ineffective.

Violet was a user of the Glare-Glare Fruit, and the greatest ability of this Devil Fruit was allowing the possessor to gain vision like clairvoyance. Now, Violet possessed a monstrous visual range of 4,000 kilometers.

What was the concept of 4,000 kilometers? In any case, the maximum diameter of the island of Dressrosa did not exceed 100 kilometers. With Violet's eye ability, it could be said that the entire island was completely under her surveillance.

With a full-map hack enabled, the now internally chaotic Doflamingo Family had absolutely no way to deal with the hiding Violet.

However, likewise, even though Violet had pulled in the Little Garden People as allies, she was far inferior to the Doflamingo Family in terms of strength, so naturally, she dared not provoke the Doflamingo Family, and the two sides remained in a stalemate on the island of Dressrosa.

Dressrosa, Green Bit Island.

Violet's face carried a hint of sorrow as her gaze looked toward the King's Plateau of Dressrosa.

"This time, another group of Fish-Man has come to Dressrosa and headed to the King's Plateau."

"More Fish-Man have defected to the Doflamingo Family. It's really strange, where do so many Fish-Man come from in Dressrosa?"

Sitting beside Violet was a beautiful young girl with pink hair; she frowned at this moment and asked with some confusion.

The girl carried a large sword on her back, her body curves were perfect and alluring, and beside her followed a soldier doll missing a leg.

The young girl's name is Rebecca; she is the daughter of Violet's older sister, making her Violet's niece, while the legless toy soldier beside her is named Kyros, who is Rebecca's father and Violet's brother-in-law, though he was transformed into the appearance of a toy soldier due to the Devil Fruit Ability of Sugar from the Doflamingo Family.

With the Glare-Glare Fruit ability possessed by Violet, there is no intelligence in all of Dressrosa that can be hidden from her, so even though Sugar's Hobby-Hobby Fruit can erase the impressions others have, Violet was still able to confirm the identity of this toy soldier when she observed all of Dressrosa afterward.

Violet, Rebecca, Kyros, and adding one Little Garden Person—this is the entire strength of the Rebel Army resisting the Doflamingo Family in Dressrosa...

Calling them a Rebel Army is really elevating their status a bit too much; after all, whether it is Violet, Rebecca, or Kyros, their Power Level is nothing special. In his prime, Kyros might have been no less than a top executive of the Doflamingo Family, but now that he has lost a leg and been turned into a toy, he might not even be able to defeat his own daughter, Rebecca.

The strength of the Little Garden People is not weak, but it is a pity that their brains are not very good; they belong to the type that could easily be deceived by the Doflamingo Family a hundred times over. With this rabble, let alone confronting the Doflamingo Family head-on, it is only thanks to Violet's Devil Fruit Ability that they haven't been wiped out by the Doflamingo Family.

"I heard that something happened on Fish-Man Island; those Fish-Men started a rebellion, killed the King and Prince of the Merfolk, and in the end, they were purged by the Mermaid Princess."

"That Mermaid Princess, I heard she is preparing to kill every single one of the Fish-Men! She really is ruthless... that is why it has led to a large number of Fish-Men fleeing."

"Kill all the Fish-Men... there should be several million Fish-Men on Fish-Man Island, right! Doesn't that mean there will be many more Fish-Men coming to Dressrosa?"

Rebecca said with some trepidation; Dressrosa is the island closest to Fish-Man Island and the New World, and it is also the first choice for fleeing Fish-Men.

As for the other island that is even closer to Fish-Man Island than Dressrosa, it is the Sabaody Archipelago in the first half of the Grand Line—that place is a paradise for human traffickers and the Hell that is passed down by word of mouth on Fish-Man Island; not many Fish-Men dare to go to such a place.

(End of this chapter)