Chapter 21 - Chapter 21: A Soul of Secrets (Bonus Chapter)

Chapter 21: A Soul of Secrets (Here your 🤗Bonus Chapter thanks for 50 powerstone🥳🩵)

Levi's perception worked differently from Observation Haki. Where Haki sensed presence, intent, and life force, Reiatsu perceived the soul itself—the fundamental spirit animating the flesh. For most people, it was a straightforward reflection. A person's soul mirrored their body and their immediate self—no deeper mysteries, just a transparent, congruent energy. The afterlife in this world was a proven fact, thanks to Brook's journey and tales. Souls were real, tangible things to Levi's senses.

But Luffy… Luffy was an exception.

As the rubber-man stood, trembling but upright within the crushing pillar of spiritual pressure, Levi saw it clearly. The soul overlapping with Luffy's body was not a simple, seventeen-year-old spirit. It carried a weight, a texture of years that had no business being there. It felt… sedimented. Ancient.

And there were shadows within it. Where most souls were clear, Luffy's held pockets of profound darkness, areas opaque even to Levi's probing sense. Staring into those depths, Levi felt a distinct, unsettling sensation—the feeling of being watched back.

So, there is a secret. A real one, Levi thought, his analytical mind whirring. Does Garp know? Or is this the work of some forgotten Devil Fruit, allowing figures from the past to choose a vessel in the present?

The idea felt both grandiose and plausible in this world of impossible powers. Was Luffy a piece on a board, moved by players long gone? Levi initially doubted anyone could plan that far ahead. But the soul didn't lie. The soul superimposed on Monkey D. Luffy was not entirely his own.

He considered the mystics—the prophecy-makers of Skypeia, the enigmatic figure of Toki. What if Toki's journey 800 years into the future wasn't a solitary accident? What if it was part of a strategy? A team, arriving at different points in time, seeding… something. Looking for the right vessel, the right place.

Their endpoint might have been Wano, a country that sealed itself from the world, guarding profound secrets connected to the Void Century and Laugh Tale. Toki finding Oden there, a man capable of reading the Poneglyphs, couldn't be mere chance. It fit a pattern of targeted convergence.

His soul perception is keen, but others, even Garp, seem oblivious… Is this the legendary 'Voice of All Things'? Even my Reiatsu can feel that… power… sleeping deep within him. Fascinating.

His internal monologue was cut short by Luffy's roar.

"EVERYONE! RUN AWAY WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE GOT! WE CAN'T BEAT THESE GUYS RIGHT NOW!"

It was a captain's order, born of stark, painful clarity. Luffy's boundless confidence had met its limit. The gap was oceanic.

"LONG LIVE RUNNING AWAY!" Usopp and Nami shrieked in immediate, harmonious agreement, already turning to flee.

With a final, grating effort, Luffy wrenched himself free from the Reiatsu pillar. It wasn't just his own strength; Levi felt it—a ripple from those deep, shadowed places in Luffy's soul, lending a surge of desperate power to his muscles.

But Levi had no intention of letting his primary target go. He took a step forward.

"Ursus Shock."

The calm, mechanized voice of Bartholomew Kuma cut through the chaos. The damaged cyborg had positioned himself between Levi and the Straw Hats. His massive palms were pressed together, compressing a terrifying volume of air into a shimmering, translucent sphere shaped like a giant paw pad. It floated forward, deceptively slow, carrying the promise of catastrophic release—a blast that had once vaporized an entire pirate fleet.

This was no longer obstruction; this was open hostility. For Kuma, it didn't matter. His final modifications awaited. His consciousness was a dying ember. Let Marine suspect. They could blame a malfunction. His purpose here was singular: create a diversion, however brief.

"Luffy! Get Zoro!" Sanji yelled, shepherding Chopper and the others. They had to trust their captain now. Staying was suicide.

Luffy, instead of following his crew, lunged toward the other pillar of light—toward Zoro. He wouldn't leave a man behind.

The shimmering "Ursus Shock" reached Levi.

BOOOOOOM—!!!

The explosion was monumental. It wasn't fire, but pure, concentrated atmospheric annihilation. A visible shockwave of compressed air ripped outwards, shredding the grove. Archiplankton trees were pulped. Stone was powdered. The very ground was scoured clean in a widening circle of devastation.

At the epicenter, the light and dust swirled.

Levi walked out of it.

A serene, full-body aura of deep blue Reiatsu shimmered around him like a calm flame. His Admiral's coat didn't have a scratch. The cataclysmic force had broken against a barrier of solidified spiritual pressure before it could even touch the fabric. He didn't speed up or slow down. His pace remained the same as he continued toward Luffy, who was now straining to pull Zoro's immobilized form from the light.

"Bartholomew Kuma!" Sentomaru bellowed, his face a mask of fury and confusion. "What is the meaning of this?!" The attack removed all doubt. The Shichibukai had turned. But why? For these rookies?

"Enough distractions," Levi said, his voice carrying an edge of finality.

He didn't attack Kuma again. Instead, he stopped and simply… expanded.

"Scatter. Barricade."

From Levi's feet, the ground itself seemed to erupt in light. Not pillars this time, but thousands—tens of thousands—of slender, piercing beams of blue-white Reiatsu, each no thicker than a finger. They shot up from the soil, the roots, the very air, crisscrossing and converging high above, forming a vast, impenetrable cage of luminous energy.

It wasn't just the grove. The technique covered a radius of thousands of meters, a forest of light sealing the entire area. From a distance, across the Sabaody Archipelago, it looked like a sudden, breathtaking, and terrifying cage of stars had descended upon the jungle.

Every resident, every pirate hiding in the lawless zones, every Marine at the port, looked up. A profound, soul-deep unease settled over the entire archipelago. The sunny, bubble-filled paradise no longer felt safe. It felt like a trap. It felt, in that moment, like the end of the world had chosen this place to begin.