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The bottom of the canyon was pitch black, with stifling heat in the air.
The churning hot spring water emitted a foul smell, forcing Rowen to tear off a piece of his sleeve and cover his nose with it to alleviate the discomfort.
Not far away, a body lay sprawled on a protruding rock, resembling a torn sack. Falling from this height, the difference between the water surface and the concrete ground was minimal. Rebeke's female student had half her skull smashed in, leaving behind an eyeball dangling from its socket, drifting along with the current.
"It seems there's nothing out of the ordinary..."
With the light from the electric current, Rowen scanned the river and reached the same conclusion as before.
"Hmm? That's not right!"
Suddenly, Rowen noticed something and, after a moment of thought, transformed into a streak of lightning, darting to the starting point of the river.
"As expected!"
Before him was a steep cliff, where the hot spring river flowed from west to east.
But here's the problem!
"This river has no inlet?!"
Years of flowing water had smoothed the rocks beneath the surface, allowing slight illumination to reveal the riverbed. However, beneath where there should have been an inlet, there was no water flowing in. The entire rock face was plainly sealed off!
"This isn't a river, it's a reservoir!"
Rowen concluded in shock.
Through observation, he confirmed it!
The water flowed in two layers, one above the other, with the upper layer flowing from west to east and the lower layer from east to west, endlessly repeating the cycle.
If he hadn't descended to the bottom of the canyon and discovered that the female student's half-broken skull had drifted from upstream, Rowen wouldn't have noticed this at all.
This was an endless cycle of water flow, trapped in a location at the bottom of the canyon with no exit or entrance, endlessly repeating.
If this scene had appeared in a technological society, a simple water circulation device could have explained it.
But it appeared in the desert Underground of the One Piece World, existing for over 300 years, making it impossible to explain scientifically.
Where did the force driving its movement come from?
And why did drinking the river water cause people to mutate?
Thinking about this, Rowen made a decision that seemed unreasonable to ordinary people.
"Hmm..."
Carefully pursing his lips, Rowen suppressed the discomfort, swallowing the river water in his mouth.
"Darn it, it's bitter and acrid!!"
"Huh? What is this power?"
Suddenly, Rowen felt a surge of heat in his abdomen, as if his internal organs were burning. The intense heat quickly spread throughout his body, tingling and numbing, as if millions of tiny insects were crawling through his veins, making him extremely restless.
At the same time, like his previous experience with Awakening his Devil Fruit power, an inexplicable sense of brutality began to grow.
"Get out of me!"
Bang!
Ordinary people would have been powerless against such a change, but for Rowen, who had mastered Life Return, trying to control him with an external force was simply laughable.
He promptly took control of his body to expel the foreign substance, with black tendrils appearing on the surface of his skin, but instead of spreading wildly, they were concentrated and gathered towards his mouth.
"Haa... Spit it out!"
When all the black substance was squeezed into his mouth, Rowen opened his mouth and spat out a puddle of blackish slime into his palm.
Watching the sticky substance in his palm wriggling, trying to return to his body, Rowen grimaced slightly.
"No wonder Rebeke mutated so quickly. After hundreds of years without spreading out, the stuff in the water must be close to saturation."
Through his own experiment, he discovered that the river... the water pool indeed had a problem.
Inside it lived a unique parasite that was invisible to the naked eye.
When people swallow them by drinking the water, they would continuously absorb the host's energy and accelerate their reproduction, thus achieving the goal of controlling the host.
However... talking about toxicity without discussing dosage is just being a scoundrel!
There's also a density issue here.
The reason those workers didn't mutate directly was probably because there weren't many parasites in the water at that time, but there were too many people drinking it.
This meant that the number of parasites left in each person's body was negligible, and it would take a long time for them to slowly reproduce and eventually complete the mutation.
But now, after being sealed in the Underground for over 300 years, the parasites reproduced on their own, resulting in an astonishing density of parasites in every drop of water, which is what made Rebeke succumb so quickly.
Including the flow of the water, it was also because billions of tiny parasites were swimming in the same direction. It was more accurate to say that the stuff in here was not water but a group of water-like parasites.
"This world is truly full of wonders!"
Rowen sighed deeply.
The world he had encountered, despite being high-end in terms of strength, was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the entire Sea.
The mysteries of the Sea were endless, with nothing unimaginable, only yet to be discovered.
The only regret was...
Zi Zi!
Bang!
Rowen waved his hand, unleashing a thunderbolt, the blue arcs flashing incessantly, directly turning a swath of "water" into gray dust.
The high temperature of the electric current roasted the transparent parasites saturated with water, turning their bodies into ash. A large number of corpses piled up together, finally bringing the first speck of dust to the clean and transparent waters.
"What's the use of this so-called Lord of the Nether River?"
Feudal superstition is unreliable!
Rowen clicked his tongue in annoyance.
He was still looking forward to a showdown with the Lord of the Nether River, only to be told it was just a bunch of bugs.
Feeling tricked, Rowen lifted his Dragon Crescent Sided Halberd and plunged it downward with force.
Clang!
With a single thrust, the earth shook, and the mountains split!
The painted pole, wrapped in Thunderlight, banged as it struck the bottom of the water flow, followed immediately by a terrifying tremor.
Buzz! Buzz!!
Crimson light slowly seeped out from the cracks, like the glow of the setting sun, illuminating the dim Underground world.
Then...
Bang!
A large surge of magma erupted, colliding with the Nether River, instantly filling the air with scorching hot steam.
A large number of parasites were directly roasted into ash by the magma, and the orderly flow of the river instantly turned chaotic, playing the swan song of life.
After the magma replaced the Nether River, Rowen snorted coldly before turning and leaving the scene.
Marine Headquarters, Marineford.
Buru Buru... Buru Buru...
"Hey, Vice Admiral Comil, what's up?"
Inside the office, Sengoku picked up the receiver, speaking quickly.
The situation in the New World was escalating, and he was under immense pressure.
The Gorōsei (Five Elder Stars) still believed that Big Mom would eventually retreat, but Sengoku, based on decades of experience in conflict, concluded that this time Big Mom was truly relentless and determined to break through the Marine's defenses!
Fighting was inevitable.
What an incredible opportunity it was to completely dismantle one of the Yonko, Big Mom's pirate crew.
But as the war dragged on, it wasn't the loss of personnel that was the most pressing issue, but rather the loss of funds.
With every artillery shot fired, it was as if they were hurling away piles of gold!
The firepower advantage of the Marines was entirely bought with their funds.
Every day, the value of the cannonballs expended in combat was worth a fortune. Every night, when he saw the expenditure reports, Sengoku felt as if his heart was bleeding.
If they continued like this, the meager reserves at Headquarters would be depleted in no time.
Though Comil presided over the G-2 branch and wasn't directly involved in the fighting, he understood that Sengoku was currently in dire straits. So, he quickly composed himself and said, "Fleet Admiral, Rowen has unearthed a treasure!"
"What does his treasure have to do with me?!" Sengoku wished he could hurl the teacup lid at him, impatiently retorting, "Am I supposed to rob him of his money?"
If he did, he was sure there would be mutiny the next day.
Marines didn't have regulations mandating the surrender of personal gains. Most soldiers enlisted not to uphold justice, but to secure a livelihood for their families.
Pushing back against Sengoku's frustration, Vice Admiral Comil, remained unfazed. With a smirk on his chubby face, he suggested, "We can't rob him, but we can borrow!"
"Fleet Admiral, we're talking about thousands of tons of gold! I'm sure Rowen wouldn't mind lending us a bit."
"Pfft!!!"
"Cough, cough, cough... How much?!" Sengoku sprayed a mouthful of tea in shock, eyes wide open.
(End of this chapter)