Whether he was entirely sincere or simply violently coerced into it, Enel was officially a member of the 'Dandelion' organization.
Recalling Bardock's earlier extortion, Enel couldn't help but ask, "How exactly did you know I intend to reach the Endless Vearth? I have never mentioned that ambition to another living soul."
Bardock smirked, casually crossing his arms. "Isn't it obvious? It's because I'm a God!"
"You—!"
Enel's eye twitched violently. This bastard was absolutely ruthless. He was still actively mocking his ruined divine complex! After getting the absolute daylights beaten out of him, did Bardock really think Enel didn't understand what it actually meant to be a 'God' now?!
"Relax, relax. I just have a highly advanced intelligence network," Bardock chuckled, offering a vague, ambiguous explanation to keep up his mysterious facade.
"Lord God!"
Since Enel had already submitted to the new ruler, the four Divine Priests realized there was absolutely no point in playing the roles of stubborn martyrs. They collectively stepped forward and bowed deeply to Bardock.
Enel watched them with a highly complex expression. Although he had only ever viewed his Priests as disposable pawns, seeing his former loyal subordinates immediately pledge allegiance to the man who just beat him up left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"You four will retain your titles as Divine Priests," Bardock announced. "I won't be staying in Birka. When I leave, you will be in charge of guarding and governing this island. However, there is one absolute condition: I want a prosperous, loyal Birka. Your days of tyrannical, high-pressure rule are officially over. Robin will brief you on the new administrative protocols."
Bardock knew Enel's backstory. Enel had suffered immensely as a wingless child in Birka, constantly bullied and ostracized by the locals. When he accidentally consumed the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, he naturally exacted a brutal, terrifying revenge. While part of his current tyranny was just petty spite, it was mostly fueled by his sheer, arrogant disgust that the Birkans possessed absolutely zero ambition to return to the 'Fairy Vearth' (the Moon).
"Yes, Lord God!"
The four Priests let out a massive sigh of relief. They had fully expected to be purged as remnants of the old regime. Not only were they keeping their jobs, but this new God seemed infinitely more reasonable than Enel.
Bardock left the complex administrative restructuring to Robin. Instead, he gathered Enel and the Priests and officially passed down the cultivation methods for Armament Haki.
It wasn't until Bardock fully explained the mechanics of Haki that Enel finally understood how the Blue Sea mortal had managed to physically bypass his lightning intangibility. Enel silently vowed to himself that the absolute second he awakened his own Armament Haki, he was going to challenge Bardock to a rematch. A true God would never permanently bow to another!
A week later, the massive chasm dividing Birka had been fully repaired using cloud-crafting technology. Leaving the Priests and the Enforcers to manage the island, Bardock brought his crew—and their newest lightning-powered recruit—back to Upper Yard.
While sailing back on the White Dragon, Bardock stood on the deck and suddenly transformed into his golden-furred Monkey King form.
"Hey, Enel," Bardock called out. "Shoot some lightning at me."
Enel blinked, completely bewildered. "You're literally asking me to strike you? I've never received such a bizarre request in my entire life! Fine! 5 Million Volt: Discharge!"
Even though he had absolutely no idea what Bardock was trying to test, Enel wasn't about to pass up a free opportunity to electrocute the man who had humiliated him.
But a second later, Enel's eyes nearly popped out of his skull.
Although Enel hadn't awakened Armament Haki yet, his Mantra was advanced enough to perceive when an opponent was actively utilizing it. He could clearly sense that Bardock wasn't using Haki to coat his body. Yet, the 5 million volts of electricity completely washed over the Monkey King without causing a single microscopic burn. It didn't even make his golden fur stand on end!
Was 5 million volts just too weak?!
"Try this! 30 Million Volt: Hino (Thunder Bird)!"
Enel violently struck the drum on his back. A massive, hyper-charged bird made of pure lightning screeched through the air and slammed directly into Bardock's chest.
The blinding light faded. Bardock casually brushed a speck of dust off his shoulder.
"Impossible! How can it have absolutely zero effect?!" Enel staggered back, violently spiraling into an existential crisis.
"Just as I suspected!" Bardock grinned, powering down to his human form.
His theory was officially confirmed. During his fight with Enel's Thunder God form, Bardock had punched through the massive electrical discharge, but a significant amount of residual lightning had still engulfed his body. Afterwards, he realized he hadn't sustained a single burn, but his stamina had been mysteriously drained by a noticeable margin.
Now he fully understood the mechanics. The innate golden aura radiating from his Monkey King form actively consumed his stamina to passively neutralize elemental and energy-based attacks!
In RPG terms, his Sun Wukong form didn't just grant him an 'Indestructible Vajra Body' for extreme Physical Defense; it actively granted him absolute Magic Immunity! He was effectively a walking tank with both physical and magical immunity!
"Hey! What's with that terrified look on your face?" Bardock laughed, looking at the completely devastated Enel. "Don't panic, neutralizing your lightning actively drains my stamina. But seriously, Enel, what are you going to do if you ever meet someone who is naturally, 100% immune to electricity without draining any stamina? Are you just going to immediately surrender? Carve this into your skull: Haki transcends all!"
Bardock's harsh reminder snapped Enel out of his stupor. The lightning user's face was a mess of complex emotions. His grand plan of learning Haki to quickly overthrow Bardock was officially dead in the water. For the foreseeable future, he truly was relegated to being a subordinate.
However, Enel was still highly skeptical of Bardock's hypothetical scenario. Completely immune to lightning? Lightning was the ultimate, most destructive force of nature! Bardock's bizarre golden monkey powers were already absurdly unfair; there was absolutely no way an even more unreasonable counter existed in the world! (Somewhere in the East Blue, a certain rubber boy sneezed).
Upper Yard, God's Shrine.
When Bardock's crew returned to the Giant Jack beanstalk, the Skypiean and Shandian warriors immediately notified their leaders. Gan Fall and the Chief quickly arrived at the shrine.
As it turned out, during Bardock's absence, another batch of Blue Sea pirates had ridden the Knock Up Stream. Unlike the previous opportunists, this crew was composed of genuinely vicious, heavily armed criminals who immediately began bombarding Angel Island with naval artillery. Fortunately, the joint forces of the Skypieans and Shandians swiftly mobilized and annihilated the invaders.
The two leaders had come seeking technical assistance. They had confiscated the pirates' modern Blue Sea weaponry (cannons, flintlocks, and artillery) and wanted to reverse-engineer them to bolster the island's defenses against future invasions. Because they didn't fully understand how gunpowder weaponry worked, they hoped Robin could explain the mechanics so they could replicate the firepower using local Dials.
Robin—who had originally joined the crew strictly as an archaeologist—had somehow accidentally morphed into the crew's chief weapon's specialist and naval architect. Possessing a near-eidetic memory, she had perfectly memorized every single schematic and blueprint of the Ark Maxim that Bardock had stolen from Birka.
Since it was highly beneficial for his future Sky Island base, Bardock gladly agreed to help.
He summoned the master shipwrights from both the Skypiean and Shandian tribes. Using the memorized Ark Maxim blueprints as a foundational guide, and violently coercing Enel into using his Lightning Metallurgy to melt and reshape massive quantities of gold, they completely overhauled the White Dragon.
Before they knew it, another month had passed.
The White Dragon had undergone a radical, jaw-dropping transformation. The previously standard, wooden galleon was now a heavily armored, gold-plated flying fortress.
It was powered by a hybrid engine: it could be propelled via Enel's raw electrical output driving massive rotors, it had exactly 100 high-capacity Breath Dials installed into the hull for emergency hovering and sustained flight, and Bardock's Flying Nimbus acted as a secondary external thruster.
It was effectively a miniaturized, heavily optimized version of the Ark Maxim. If Bardock gave the order, Enel could comfortably pilot this golden galleon all the way to the moon right now.
And that was exactly what Bardock was currently conflicted about.
The moon was currently a barren wasteland, but the ancient Automata (tiny robots) buried beneath its surface were an incredibly valuable labor force. Furthermore, the Space Pirates currently occupying the ruins might drop incredibly lucrative 'gold coins' (system rewards) if he defeated them.
However, there was a massive risk. If he brought highly advanced, ancient lunar technology back down to the Blue Sea, would it provoke the World Government into launching a full-scale, all-out extermination campaign against his crew before they were ready? All signs indicated that the World Government's hidden foundation was terrifyingly deep. If Imu or the Gorosei decided Bardock was an absolute priority target, his rookie crew might not even be able to escape.
Meanwhile, far below on the Blue Sea.
Marine Captain Smoker was slowly losing his goddamn mind.
Ever since Vice Admiral Kuzan had dumped this tracking assignment on him, Smoker had been aggressively patrolling the waters around Jaya for nearly four straight months. He had arrested so many criminals out of sheer boredom that pirates were actively avoiding the island entirely.
The Marine Intelligence division had completely lost Nico Robin's trail. Standing on the deck of his warship, aggressively smoking three cigars at once, Smoker frequently wondered if the idiotic rookies had just been violently crushed to death inside the Knock Up Stream. Honestly, he was half-tempted to try and ride the geyser up to Sky Island himself just to check, but Marine Headquarters strictly forbade it due to the astronomical casualty rate.
"I'll give it two more months of patrolling," Smoker growled, crushing a cigar stub under his boot. "If I don't see Nico Robin's face by then, I'm requesting a transfer. There isn't a single damn pirate left to catch in this entire sector!"
Smoker desperately wanted to bust actual, high-profile criminals in the Grand Line, not aimlessly float around an empty ocean. This wild goose chase for Nico Robin had already wasted far too much of his time.