Chapter 454: Crossing the Calm Belt

Above the great sea, the sky was clear for ten thousand miles, the blue waves were still, and a small boat drifted among them, stirring up ripples.

"Roar!"

Suddenly, a head that looked like a shark but wasn't, sporting bull horns, erupted from beneath the water's surface with a boom. It was immense,

resembling a small mountain, and its gaping, blood-red maw was filled with jagged teeth, intending to swallow the small boat in one gulp.

"I've been waiting for you!"

On the deck of the *Black God*, Zhang Jie, who had been lying on a lounge chair, rose instantly.

A long sword, black as ink, fell into his hand, and then, he swung it!

A massive sword Qi, hundreds of meters long, surged toward the giant beast with the sound of wind and thunder.

It was a flying slash that only a swordsman who had grasped the secret of cutting steel could unleash!

"Roar!"

The monster only had time to let out a mournful wail before its entire massive head was severed.

Countless amounts of blood sprayed from the wound, dyeing the surrounding sea red.

As the monster died, its massive body, which had been lurking in the water, winding for hundreds of meters like a small mountain range, slowly floated to the surface.

The *Black God* looked like a mere speck of dust before it, utterly inconspicuous.

"Sea King, truly a name well-deserved!"

Gazing at the giant corpse that nearly blocked his entire view, Zhang Jie felt deeply moved.

Although on the surface of the water, humans, Mink, and Tontatta tribes might become pirates,

or become Marines, or become bounty hunters, fighting each other incessantly,

in this ocean world where the sea occupies over ninety percent of the area in the *One Piece* world,

only these terrifying giant beasts, the Sea Kings, which can lurk in seas thousands or tens of thousands of meters deep, are the true darlings of the world.

The Sea King before him, nearly a thousand meters long, was already a giant beast he had never seen before, but according to records,

such a giant beast is merely a low-to-mid-level prey in the deep-sea food chain.

In the bottomless abyss of the seabed, there even sleep super-giant Sea Kings whose size is measured in units of five thousand meters!

What is the concept of five thousand meters?

Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, is only a little over eight thousand meters from sea level!

Such a giant beast doesn't need to do anything; as long as it surfaces,

just by swimming, it could stir up monstrous waves capable of submerging numerous islands!

Zhang Jie understood in his heart: "No wonder the World Government is so wary of Poseidon."

In that blank history of eight hundred years ago, which was erased by the World Government,

there were three terrifying weapons, named after Heaven, Pluto, and Sea, respectively.

Among them, besides Uranus, whose function is unknown but seems to be the Celestial Dragons' ancestral secret treasure,

Pluto is a high-tech warship capable of destroying an island with a single shot;

while Poseidon herself does not possess such powerful strength, but she used some unknown method

to sign a contract with those super-giant Sea Kings sleeping on the seabed,

enabling her to drive these terrifying giant beasts to a certain extent.

The current Poseidon, Princess Shirahoshi of Fish-Man Island, had only just awakened,

yet she was able to summon giant Sea Kings over five thousand meters in size during the Fish-Man Island incident.

This is a "power capable of destroying the world" that is even more real than Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit!

Even five thousand meters is not Poseidon's limit,

after all, who knows if there are super-super-giant Sea Kings over ten thousand meters sleeping on the seabed?

The New World has Zunesha, who is thirty-five thousand meters tall and carries an entire country on its back.

"But as for the destruction of the world and such, naturally, that savior, the Sun God Nika,

who was destined eight hundred years ago, will have to worry about it. I don't need to worry about the sky falling."

Zhang Jie shrugged his shoulders indifferently; if the sky falls, there are naturally taller people to hold it up.

Clearly, that destined savior is the undisputed tall person of the *One Piece* world.

As an ordinary person, he only needs to live his own little life well, and at most, shout '666' for the savior from behind.

'However, the creatures in *One Piece* seem to have a trend toward gigantism.'

Zhang Jie thought about his own height, which had already broken three meters and seemed to be still increasing, and fell into deep thought.

"Buzz, Master, the radar has detected a super-giant creature approaching. Shall we leave?"

While Zhang Jie was lost in thought, the intelligent system issued a reminder.

'Perhaps this is the unique charm of the *One Piece* world.'

Zhang Jie suppressed his thoughts about the mystery of the body size of creatures in the *One Piece* world.

Zhang Jie looked at the waterfall-like blood that had dyed the entire sea area red:

"It seems the blood of this Sea King has attracted other Sea Kings."

"Black God, start the propulsion system, full speed ahead to cross the Calm Belt."

Zhang Jie issued an order to the *Black God*'s intelligent system.

Well, in order to be lazy (and because he was bad at naming things), Zhang Jie directly used the name of the *Black God* for the intelligent system.

As for the Calm Belt, it is a special sea area in *One Piece* that surrounds both sides of the Grand Line,

formed by the "X" structure where the Red Line and the Grand Line intersect perpendicularly.

The Calm Belt forms a ring encircling both sides of the Grand Line, and together with the Red Line, it divides the ocean into the East, West, South, and North Blues.

and North four sea areas. The width of the sea area expands toward the North and South Poles from the intersection of the Red Line and the Grand Line,

and its lateral span forms the boundary between the Grand Line and the four sea areas, with the widest point reaching hundreds of nautical miles.

It has two major characteristics: permanent windlessness and the habitation of giant Sea Kings.

The special climate of this area, which is completely windless, makes it impossible for traditional sailing ships to navigate, and the seabed depth exceeds ten thousand meters.

The Calm Belt is inhabited by over 5,000 species of Sea King creatures,

among which mature individuals have an average body length of 100 meters, and the largest individuals exceed 500 meters,

with a population density reaching 3-5 adult individuals per square kilometer.

These creatures are extremely sensitive to the sound waves of metal hulls and will attack all passing ships.

Even for the sailing ships commonly used now, Sea Kings can keenly detect

the sound wave vibrations generated by the metal parts (such as anchors, hull structures) of ordinary sailing ships in the seawater,

thereby discovering the existence of the ships and launching attacks.

Due to the special environment of the Calm Belt, only ships with specific technologies can pass through:

First, Seastone plating: gives the ship the "ocean camouflage" characteristic, avoiding Sea King perception,

which is how the Marines navigate the Calm Belt by embedding Seastone in the bottom of their ships.

Second is to find other propulsion systems, such as steam propulsion systems, to replace sail propulsion and break through the windless environment restrictions;

the Kuja tribe achieves directional movement by domesticating giant sea snakes called "Yuda."

The actual location of what people jokingly call the *One Piece* world's triathlon, where old Lei Li is, is in the Calm Belt.

The right arm of this old but vigorous pirate, even after retiring for many years, can still swim across the Calm Belt.

However, Zhang Jie, being a Devil Fruit user, is much better off than the miserable Lei Li.

The *Black God*, using electromagnetic propulsion technology, can easily cross the Calm Belt even without wind.

The only thing to worry about is the endless stream of Sea Kings in the Calm Belt.

But Zhang Jie also has the technology to solve this: since Sea Kings can perceive metal components like anchors,

then he just needs to keep the metal components from being exposed.

Zhang Jie specifically plated the *Black God* with a layer of non-metallic, high-strength materials like carbon fiber,

preventing metal fluctuations from leaking out, making the *Black God* appear as something like a reef in the perception of the Sea Kings.

Of course, even so, it cannot completely avoid Sea King attacks;

some strange guys will come to join in the fun even if it's just a strange reef,

like the one that was beheaded by his sword Qi.

However, with Zhang Jie's strength, as long as it's not a super-giant Sea King over a thousand meters in size,

the others are just here to deliver food to him.

Even if he were really unlucky enough to encounter a super-super-giant Sea King of five thousand or even ten thousand meters, not to mention killing it,

with his intangibility ability combined with his super-high speed reaching ten times the speed of sound, self-preservation is more than enough.

Although he went straight to hard-clash with Big Mom, the Pirate Emperor, upon his debut,

leaving others with the image of a newborn calf not fearing the tiger, or rather, a reckless brute,

Zhang Jie has never been a brainless brute. Walking on thin ice,

and doing things with courage and diligence is the best summary of their way of doing things. ===== CHAPTER 455 =====