Chaos and Order - A Multiverse Fanfic

0147 The Will of the Supreme - Focus Punch!

He must speak or give up on them, this endless pain told him, screaming in his ears.

He must give them strength, words, and hope, or let them die, his prospects of reaching Pentos dying along with them.

And he must do this now.

Now! Kai thought, the pit of his stomach becoming an abyss. I must command them now!

Frozen wind surrounded him, the hateful sea drenched his long white hair, and his grip on his head and the helm tightened. Wood splintered under his feet, its musty pieces rolling away.

Kai opened his mouth, and just when the hiss was about to escape his mouth, he bit the tip of his tongue. Pain coursed through his body from head to toe, and he used this pain as an initiator. Initiator of a chain reaction of even more pain. The muscles of his throat pulled, grating over each other, and then they ripped, an audible tearing sound coming out of his mouth. All over his body, veins popped up, some kind of ethereal power concentrating on his throat.

Twin-Saber Style — Forbidden Technique...

Never had Kai planned to use this technique in such a way, for he didn't know what the result would be.

But this time, Kai was amassing all the strength in his body into his vocal cords, lungs, and stomach. All flesh, without the backing of bones. The monstrosity of the risk he was taking shook his soul.

There was no avoiding it, though.

The wrath erupted, and a boom rang out. Its origin? Kai's mouth.

... Serpent God's Wrath!

"Andrik!" Kai bellowed, a crack running down from his ear to his lungs, showering out blood. "Full of shit too, weren't you? Haha!" Another crack ran down within him, his left lung's muscles snapping like taut bowstrings. Selene ran there and sent a chilling burst, easing his pain. Still, Kai coughed out blood, painting the helm in front of him thick red.

He took out an HP capsule and popped it into his mouth.

But he might as well have not taken it for the moment the cracks healed, they resurfaced.

An Elite Ability wasn't something to be taken lightly, and fighting against it was like steering the ship upwind into this storm. Incomprehensible, daunting, and full of bewildering madness. But not impossible.

"Get up fools!" Kai roared, his throat swelling like a balloon. "Get up! Your captain commands you!"

Not one of them could see him through the water, wind, and hail, Kai knew. Yet, his voice found them all. They couldn't see the changes Kai was going through, but they could hear him, and the authority and might behind it.

The sheer Will of a sailor and an adventurer.

A Captain's Will to defy the odds.

Andrik was the first to respond to the captain's order.

The giant among men pushed himself up, took a deep breath, spat, and looked at Kai's blurry figure rippling behind the helm. "Get up, you rascals! Heard the captain's orders, haven't you? Look alive!" he shouted, his thick, log-like legs shaking, and his hands pounding his enormous chest. "What is dead may never die!"

More followed the mate, standing up one by one, finding strength even they had never thought they had as Kai sucked them dry of their deepest fears.

"Hahaha!" Kai laughed in madness, thin web-like cracks appearing all over his body. "So you still have some salt left, huh? Take the crew below the deck. Go now. Let me sing in this storm alone."