Imu's body began to swell.
A dazzling white light poured out of him, and his face twisted into a strange mix of resentment and satisfaction.
He resented Brook for refusing his offer to rule the world together.
Yet he was also delighted, because the next thought in his mind was sweet.
He could drag Brook, and everyone else, into death.
Everything Brook had built, every calculation, every victory, would become nothing.
Imu had already ruled the world for eight hundred years.
He had lived enough.
At that moment, a massive gate of Hell opened behind the bloated Imu.
"Imu! Then we go to Hell together!!"
"The Secret of the Underworld, Gate of Hell!!"
"Hell God Jin's Embrace!!"
"Dark Blockade!!"
Brook laughed wildly.
His Hell God form expanded again, several times larger, as an overwhelming torrent of high level Underworld energy erupted from him. He wrapped Imu's self destructing God of Destruction form completely, seized him in an iron embrace, and forced both of them into the gate.
A huge dark sky fell over the battlefield.
Sound vanished.
Energy vanished.
Even the world's laws seemed muted under that darkness.
The countless high energy explosives Imu had planted throughout Mary Geoise failed to detonate.
Inside the dark sky, the gate of Hell shattered in an instant and vanished completely from this world.
When the Dark Blockade dispersed, Brook and Imu were gone.
Not a trace remained.
"Brother Brook!!"
"Father!"
"Teacher!"
"Captain!"
Voices exploded in panic from every direction.
"Lord Imu!"
The remaining loyalists screamed in disbelief.
For a heartbeat, everyone stood frozen.
Had their boss really died together with Imu?
The pupils of the second generation of Hell trembled violently. They could not accept it. The Universal Government had been winning.
Why would Brook sacrifice himself now, at the moment of victory?
When Imu swelled toward detonation, they had all felt despair.
Some with future sight had even seen the coming blast, a world ending explosion that would erase Mary Geoise entirely.
They would have died.
All of them.
But Brook had taken that death upon himself and saved everyone.
Brook's women and descendants stared blankly.
Was he really gone?
Had he really left them like this?
It was unacceptable.
"Ahem."
Suddenly, a familiar voice cut through the stunned silence.
"Stop imagining things. I'm not dead yet!!"
Everyone jerked their heads toward the ruins.
There he was.
Brook.
His aura was far weaker than before, but the dark pressure still coiling around his hands remained oppressive, unmistakable.
He wasn't dead.
He had handled Imu.
And he had returned.
"Wake up," Brook shouted, voice hard. "The war isn't over yet. Capture them all for me!!"
The battlefield erupted into roaring cheers.
Their boss was alive.
Imu was gone.
That meant only one thing.
They had won.
The fighting surged again, but the remaining three Five Elders and Fleet Admiral Kong had already lost their will to resist.
Without Imu, there was no chance to turn the tide.
Defeat and death were only a matter of time.
··
Brook stood atop the ruined stone, breathing heavy.
After losing the Underworld power of the Hell God Jin, his current strength had dropped sharply. He no longer had the crushing dominance of a Hell God.
But that was temporary.
As long as he continued developing the Dark God Ers power, he would eventually reach Imu's level, and surpass it.
Jin's form had advanced so fast because it used high level Hell energy as a template and nourishment.
Now that template was gone.
"Damn," Brook muttered under his breath, eyes narrowing. "I hope another soul can survive down there."
The soul that carried the Dark God Ers power had remained in the One Piece world. Brook had completely severed his connection with Jin's soul.
So now he had no idea if that soul survived Imu's self explosion in Hell. And even if it survived, would it be hunted down immediately by the real ruler of Hell?
Dark Brook was frustrated.
He hadn't expected Imu to still have a final trick that forced him to abandon a Revive Fruit soul.
But Brook could not tolerate Imu threatening the lives of everyone in Mary Geoise, or demanding a Conqueror's faith oath to share the world.
Never.
He would never rule together with Imu.
And he would never let those people be buried with him.
So Brook had no choice.
He sacrificed Jin's soul and dragged Imu into Hell.
He did it to save everyone.
And he did it with one more hope in his heart.
That the soul might survive, and explore Hell in advance.
"I wonder," Brook murmured, eyes shadowed, "once Imu enters Hell with a living body… does he die immediately? And if he does, can his self destruction still happen?"
Brook had wrapped Imu with Jin's high level dark energy and forcibly crossed the gate of Hell.
To build a gate sturdy enough, Brook had already sacrificed every soul he had accumulated over the years.
That was the price.
And the reason Brook had stalled with Imu for so long, even getting blasted away again and again, was because he had been waiting for the right moment.
He needed to hide the body that carried the Dark God Ers soul.
During the battle, that body had been smashed into the ruins.
So the Hell God Jin, able to leave his body, continued fighting Imu alone.
To be honest, Brook never wanted to sacrifice that soul.
His original plan was to awaken both Revive and Dark power to the highest level, kill Imu cleanly, and then slowly explore the secrets of Hell.
But Imu forced this war early.
It ruined everything.
And when Imu threatened him with Mary Geoise, demanded a faith oath, and tried to force a half world division, Brook's answer could only be one thing.
No.
The world's pattern was decided the moment Imu disappeared.
Even if Brook only had the Dark Dark Fruit, he could suppress the world.
And he had far more than that.
He had women and descendants strong enough to shake the seas.
With Imu gone, the battle of Mary Geoise did not last long.
Fleet Admiral Kong was crippled and captured by the second generation of Hell.
The remaining three Elders were beaten down until exhaustion crushed them.
If they did not possess abnormal Devil Fruit abilities, they would have been killed on the spot.
And Linlin was already watching their souls like a hungry wolf.
After losing the ability of the Yomi Yomi Fruit, Brook could no longer harvest souls. From now on, all souls would be handed to Linlin, who had awakened the Soul Soul Fruit.
"We won!"
"Long live the Universal Government!!"
"The Hell Guild is invincible!!"
Shouts rolled across the Holy Land like thunder.
The main battlefield of this world war had ended.
All that remained was finishing the conquest of the Grand Line, the East Blue, and the South Blue, until world unification was complete.
··
And deep in the Underworld of this world, eternal silence was disturbed by the sudden intrusion of two figures.
Without the high level dark energy protecting him, Imu's swollen flesh began to rot rapidly the moment it touched the ghostly energy and darkness of Underworld Hell.
No living being was allowed to enter.
Then a terrifying roar shook the abyss.
Imu, screaming in agony, and Brook, who was still scanning the environment, both felt their souls tremble.
It was that familiar voice.
------------
The instant Brook felt that terrifying, high level pressure, he ran.
He fled like his soul was on fire, diving straight into a sea of drifting white ghosts.
So many had died in this war, pirates, Marines, civilians, that the Underworld was crowded today. Souls poured in like a flood.
Yet these newborn ghosts seemed to have no consciousness at all. No intelligence, no will.
They only floated forward, drawn by the pull of the Underworld Road, drifting deeper and deeper into Hell, just like Brook had when he first crossed over.
If Brook's soul had not been protected back then by the power of the Yomi Yomi Fruit, he would never have escaped the gravity of Hell.
Now, supported by the strange power of the revive fruit and high level dark energy, Brook could move freely in this place.
As for Imu?
Let him stay behind.
Let him serve as the shield.
Brook hoped Imu's life, flesh, and inevitable self destruction would draw the Underworld God's attention, maybe even stall that great terror for a few more moments.
Anything that bought time was worth it.
Because Brook was also an outsider here.
A weak invader.
His Devil Fruit power was called Hell God Jin, but that "god" was nothing more than a human made concept from the One Piece world. His form had been forged through imagination, sacrifice, and obsession, a mortal forcing divinity into shape.
In this true Underworld, the gods and unknown creatures would not recognize Brook's fake Hell God title.
To them, he was an ant wearing stolen armor.
Behind him, Imu was already breaking.
Not only had he failed to kill Brook and everyone in Mary Geoise, he had been forced into Hell like a dog being dragged into a pit.
His destructive power could no longer be stopped. And under the strange environment of Underworld Hell, his fate was sealed.
Worse still, the terrifying Underworld God was rushing toward him, and the pressure made Imu's mind collapse into pure despair.
As his flesh decomposed in agony, Imu screamed out a curse.
"Brook! You'll die miserably too!!"
Then he turned his red eyes toward the approaching terror, madness and hatred twisting his face.
"You fake god!" Imu laughed, voice broken. "That guy also calls himself the God of Hell. If you can't kill him, you're a loser! Kneel down and give him the title!"
Imu's body expanded rapidly.
Then, with a deafening boom, he detonated.
His flesh vanished completely, consumed by his own destructive power and the Underworld's ghostly darkness. Even at the moment of death, he did not forget to taunt Brook.
The explosion made the Underworld God pause.
In an instant, an enormous amount of Underworld energy poured out to suppress the burst of destructive force. It was not fatal, but it was annoying enough to make even a god instinctively avoid it, like an ordinary man stepping back from firecrackers.
With a wave of his hand, the god dispersed the remaining destructive power, seized the shattered remains of Imu's soul, and read the last memories left inside it.
"Brook? Imu? Devil Fruits? Hell God Jin form?"
His eyes narrowed.
"Isn't that my name?"
Then he understood.
"So that's how it is. No wonder that ant carried my aura and the stench of Hell."
Jin had already punished the two intruders before, back when they disturbed his sleep. After that, he had not paid them much attention.
Now he did.
"Their planet is… interesting," Jin muttered, voice calm and cold. "They can turn faith and will into rules, into abilities, letting mortals wield power like laws."
"But the application is crude. They only stole a little, and they can't even leave their planet."
Then his expression shifted.
A flicker of danger passed through his eyes.
He shot forward in the direction Brook had fled.
He suddenly remembered the tragedies of the other Underworld Hells nearby.
And that memory sharpened his killing intent.
This abnormal ant needed to die.
Now.
To follow his true authority, he did not even call himself "God of Hell" in the way mortals imagined. His proper name was Kazama Jin.
He was the god of the Western Underworld, the lower Hell of the Sangri Domain, responsible for reincarnation across dozens of life bearing planets in this galaxy.
Most of the time, he simply slept and did nothing.
As long as he completed his five thousand year term, he would be promoted to a mid tier Underworld in another star region, overseeing higher level galaxies and receiving more, and better, resources.
But the Sangri Domain's lower Hell was already unstable.
The creatures of the planets under his jurisdiction were unusually fierce, their combat power nearly comparable to the stronger galaxies managed by the mid tier Underworld gods.
Jin remembered it clearly.
A little over a thousand years after he took office, the Northern Underworld God was killed.
Another one or two thousand years later, the Southern Underworld God was sealed.
Only the Eastern Underworld remained mysterious, with no news at all.
Their superior only appeared once every five thousand years, bringing replacement gods when the shift changed. During their terms, the Underworld gods were not allowed to leave their jurisdiction.
There were still thousands of years left before the next shift, and already two Underworld gods had suffered disaster.
And there was no leader present to deal with it.
If divine restrictions had not bound him, Jin would have gone to the Northern and Southern Underworlds himself to investigate long ago.
He had tried, once.
He had paid a price to obtain a small "thing" and sent it to the Northern Underworld to gather information. He had barely received some news when his cross border action was discovered by the Underworld artifact he managed.
The punishment had been horrific.
After that, he lost contact with the "thing."
So now, Jin did not know what happened afterward in the Northern Underworld, and he did not dare send anything again to the North or South to ask.
All he knew was that the Northern Underworld God had truly fallen.
And the Underworld territory he had once guarded had been temporarily occupied by natives.
Jin wanted to personally rush over and slaughter those natives.
But he couldn't.
All he could do was wait for the superior to appear at shift change, then wipe out the indigenous rebellion in the Northern Underworld. Even if those natives were powerful, they could not beat Jin, and Jin had a superior behind him.
As for the Southern Underworld God?
Jin sneered.
That one was a fool, sealed by his own subordinates.
A waste.
He did not even care what happened to him.
Let the superior erase him later. The Underworld did not need useless gods.
With those two examples burned into his mind, Jin would not allow any abnormal native to grow.
He would not allow any clever intruder to remain.
Under the universe's brutal laws, unknown dangers must be crushed before they bloom.
Even if these ants looked weak now, they had the potential to explode in strength.
In the one or two hundred years a god slept, they could suddenly become giant, god killing beasts.
The thought made Jin's killing intent sharpen further.
Brook had stolen his power.
So Brook would die.
Jin crushed what remained of Imu's soul and chased after Brook without hesitation.
He would not allow an intelligent soul like Brook's to exist in his Western Underworld.
He had to complete his five thousand year term in peace.
Meanwhile, Brook, unfamiliar with this place, continued fleeing through the drifting ghosts, absorbing the pure dark energy of Hell as greedily as he could.
Because if he wanted to live, he needed strength.
Now.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 10–50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]
[One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Soul Land, NBA, and more — all in one place.]