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In two separate spaces—one real, one virtual—Jin "devoured" Tot Musica simultaneously.
An intense collision of will and reality erupted between the two Awakened fruits. Waves of immense power pulsed outward.
The sky, the island, the very sea itself warped and twisted, a chaotic mess like a child's frantic scribbles. Reality and the virtual world bled into one another. The ocean churned, tilting and pouring into the void. Massive Sea Kings were crushed in an instant.
No normal human body could have withstood such a clash—it would have been annihilated by the Spacetime distortion.
But Jin was different. He had been tempered by his journey through spacetime, possessing a natural resistance and an affinity for its power.
And he had the demonic carrier, a formidable ally providing an endless wellspring of support.
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In the real world.
After swallowing the version of Tot Musica that had once been Uta, a black "smoke" began to pour from Jin's every pore.
Countless songs and melodies fused into a terrifying cacophony of shrieks, noise, and roars.
It thrashed and writhed within him, twisting his body, trying to assimilate him, to turn him into a monster just like it.
His body swelled to a colossal size—dozens of meters tall. His arms flickered, one moment a piano, the next a flurry of musical notes.
An Awakened Paramecia fruit assimilates everything around it into its own "property."
Including people.
Take the Gomu-Gomu Fruit, for example. Under the influence of its Awakening, even Kaido had been "rubberized," turned into a living jump rope.
The Sing-Sing Fruit was now trying to do the same to Jin.
But Jin was wielding the power of his own Awakened fruit—the Munch-Munch Fruit. He was a living black hole, devouring and reshaping reality itself.
At the same time, he used the Calm-Calm Fruit to create a zone of silence, compressing the music, containing its "infection."
And in this moment of crisis, his Armament and Conqueror's Haki, both unconsciously unleashed, wrapped around his body like a raging fire, suppressing the Devil Fruit's power.
To have the courage to face a "demon"—to have the sheer audacity to try and swallow it whole—was that not, in its own way, a form of indomitable will? A belief powerful enough to bend reality?
Of course, that audacity was fueled by the confidence that came with his third evolution.
THUD... THUD...
Bearing a terrifying power, Jin began to walk. With each step, the ground cracked and the island shook.
With his immense willpower, he maintained a fragile balance.
Finally, he reached the demonic carrier.
And in an instant, the pressure on him lessened.
"Woooooooooom..."
The carrier's boiler burned a massive amount of soul crystals. The steam that billowed out was a brilliant gold.
The boiler, the engine, the cabins, the deck, the conning tower...
Everything was connected by an invisible force.
They began to "burn."
They slowly turned transparent, dissolving into nothingness.
The ship was devouring itself.
Finally, a torrent of golden flames poured from the walls and railings, flowing into Jin's body and transforming into a surge of spiritual energy.
It was like a cool rain on a parched soul.
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In the virtual dream world.
Robin, Carina, Nami—everyone stared, wide-eyed, at the king who had swallowed the "demon."
Even Kuma found it unbelievable. He had heard the ancient legends, of a fruit's "demon" possessing its user. He had never heard of a user devouring the "demon."
It was terrifying.
Was he even human?
'No...' Kuma thought. 'Of course he isn't human. He's a god. And only a god can defeat a demon.'
What he was witnessing... was it not a miracle?
As they stood there, dumbfounded, golden flames began to lick at Jin's body.
The flames surged, consuming the black smoke and the grotesque images. In an instant, he was a living torch.
And the fire was spreading, consuming the entire space.
But strangely, it wasn't hot.
It didn't harm them.
In fact, it soothed their frayed nerves.
The golden flames were so brilliant, they made him look like the sun, like a lighthouse guiding ships through a storm.
And the virtual space around them was transforming, taking the shape of the island.
"Woooooooooom..."
A deep, whale-like cry echoed from the void. It was approaching, fast.
"A ship!"
Kuma and Robin knew that sound all too well. It was the "roar" of the Empress.
It was entering the virtual dream world.
How was that possible?
To cross from the real world into a virtual one... it was the stuff of the most terrifying legends of the sea.
"Look! Over there! What is that...?" Nami gasped.
In the sky, a ball of golden light, like a meteor, was plummeting toward them, threatening to shatter the very fabric of this space.
It was getting closer.
"It's going to hit us!"
But it never did.
The fireball stopped, hovering a dozen meters off the ground, held aloft by the golden flames.
The Kilo-Kilo Fruit.
At that moment, the two-thousand-ton demonic carrier weighed only a single kilogram. To make it float was effortless.
Robin, Nami, and the others were already numb with shock, but when they saw the massive shadow within the golden flames, their jaws dropped.
The silver warship was a thing of beauty, every line a perfect golden ratio, wreathed in shimmering golden flames.
Was that really the Empress?
And even more unbelievably... there were two kings.
Chains of golden fire shot out from the demonic carrier, wrapping around the virtual Jin.
With a heavy groan, the two "Jins"—the soul and the body—were pulled together, becoming one.
Then, the chains wrapped around Kuma, Robin, Nami, Carina, Tashigi, Gordon, and Uta, who was being protected by the others, and pulled them all back to the ship.
Robin realized that another "her" was lying on the deck, along with the bodies of Nami and the others. She was smart. She understood instantly. Those were their physical bodies, brought from the real world into the dream.
She could also hear music playing from the ship's speakers. She didn't recognize the language—it sounded a bit like the dialect of Wano—but she understood the melody.
In fact, she had heard the king speak in that strange language more than once. It was clearly a complete linguistic system. She had been secretly trying to learn it.
As she was pondering this, the chains pushed her back into her own body. Her eyes snapped open.
Nami, Kuma, and the others all woke up as well.
They stood up and saw that their own bodies were also wreathed in golden flames. They felt a strange sensation, a mixture of burning heat and soothing coolness. The flames were protecting them, keeping their physical forms from being eroded by the Spacetime distortion.
Only Uta...
She was still unconscious.
"Woooooooooom..."
The demonic carrier roared again.
It was setting sail.
It became a streak of light, following the anchor points it had left on its way in, and pierced through the boundary between reality and illusion.
It was like a submarine surfacing from the dark depths.
But the chains still stretched back into the virtual space, pulling, dragging...
The virtual Elegia and the real Elegia slowly began to merge.
And when the merger was complete, the sun rose.
The entire island vanished from the sea, sinking into a shadow, swallowed by the gaping maw of the carrier.
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