"What kind of new technology is this?" Pica's high-pitched voice squeaked, cutting through the awed silence.
He tilted his massive stone head, his gaze fixed intently on the glowing, pulsating vine.
"Object fusion? Why haven't we heard of this before?"
"Interesting… Fufufu. It seems Vice-Captain Ron has been holding out on us," Doflamingo purred, a dangerous curiosity in his voice.
"Is this for sale too?"
Their words, spoken in the relative quiet, naturally didn't escape the sharp ears of the nearby Whitebeard Pirates.
The commanders stood silently to the side, their faces etched with expressions of pure, unadulterated disdain.
Ace, a fiery smirk playing on his lips, lifted his chin slightly and glanced sidelong at the Donquixote Family.
"This," he said, his voice dripping with mockery, "is one of Ron's cutting-edge projects. It's not available for sale yet. So, even if you wanted to buy it, you couldn't."
"Exactly," Jozu added, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
He folded his massive arms, looking down on them as if they were ignorant ants.
"Selling you lot Devil Fruits is already a favor. Don't get greedy."
The Donquixote Family members were left utterly dumbfounded by these words, their eyes widening in disbelief.
This was unheard of!
Who would have thought the Whitebeard Pirates possessed a technology capable of fusing Devil Fruits with inanimate objects?!
The revelation exploded in their minds like a bombshell.
They couldn't wrap their heads around it.
Devil Fruits, long believed to grant abilities only to living beings, could now merge with things? Since when could an object "eat" a Devil Fruit?!
Their gazes instinctively turned toward Doflamingo, looking for answers, for context.
However, at that moment, Doflamingo's own mind was reeling.
Devil Fruit object fusion technology? But how? It defies all known logic!
He had never encountered anything like this, not in the darkest corners of the underworld, not even in the secret reports he'd acquired on Vegapunk's research.
But now… now he had witnessed it firsthand.
He felt the questioning stares of his crew. With a subtle, almost imperceptible shake of his head, he signaled for his executives to watch their words and avoid inviting trouble.
They nodded and turned their attention back to the impossible transformation.
At the heart of the colossal vine, the process was accelerating.
The vibrant, glossy green sap that had poured from the crushed fruit was flowing in a strange yet mesmerizing manner.
The translucent liquid, seemingly brimming with boundless vitality, seeped into the thick, resilient bark.
As it did, intricate golden patterns—the same swirling sigils that had been on the artificial fruit—began to spread across the surface of the vine like magical circuitry, glowing with a soft, internal light.
The interior of the once-ordinary plant transformed into a mysterious vortex of energy, continuously drawing in the power carried by the sap.
Almost simultaneously, the entire colossal vine shuddered violently, as if struck by a powerful electric current.
The tremors started small, like ripples across a lake's surface.
Then, the shaking intensified
A deep, resonant thrum echoed up from the roots, a sound that wasn't just heard but felt, a low-frequency heartbeat that vibrated through the cloud-soil and into the very bones of everyone standing there.
It was as though the earth, or in this case the sky-island itself, were roaring in a slow, powerful fury.
Yet, the people showed no trace of fear.
Instead, their eyes brimmed with astonishment and fervent anticipation, fixed unblinkingly on every subtle change in the colossal plant.
Their gazes sparkled with a shared, childlike curiosity, as if they were all witnessing the birth of a miracle.
"We did it!" one of the Skypieans suddenly shouted, breaking the silence, their voice trembling with barely contained excitement and joy.
"I wonder what ability Vice-Captain Ron fused into the vine!" another chimed in, their tone brimming with a burning curiosity about the unknown.
"This is so exciting!" the surrounding crowd echoed, their faces alight with exhilaration.
Meanwhile, a wondrous transformation was quietly unfolding.
Tender green buds rapidly sprouted from the vine's once-smooth surface, bursting with an impossible vitality.
The moment they appeared, these buds stretched and grew with audible cracks and groans, swiftly becoming slender, delicate vines.
The newborn vines twisted and turned like sinuous green dragons, spreading wildly, weaving themselves together at an incredible speed. In no time, they had formed a dense, living network atop the colossal vine, a vast green canopy that completely obscured the sky above, filtering the sunlight into a dappled, emerald glow.
Soon after, at the branching points, lush green leaves sprouted like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, clustering so densely together that they resembled a verdant masterpiece painted by nature herself.
And then, the entire world began to move.
The already towering vine now surged upward as if infused with a boundless, divine strength.
Those standing on the apex felt a strange sense of vertigo as the very ground beneath their feet began to rise, lifting them higher and higher into the heavens.
Like a tireless green giant, it shot straight into the sky, past the sea of clouds, its end no longer visible to those on the islands below.
Not only that, but the vine's main trunk expanded wildly.
Its originally thick stem had now swollen to at least four or five times its original size, becoming a veritable landmass in its own right.
Even more astonishingly, the vine's root system was rapidly spreading outward.
The ground on Angel Island, miles away, trembled violently.
New, massive roots, thick as ancient sea kings, burst from the cloud-soil, burrowing deep and anchoring the two sky islands together with an unbreakable, living bond.
Everyone watched in stunned silence, their eyes filled with awe and disbelief.
Gazing at the massive, pulsating vines beneath their feet, an inexplicable emotion welled up in their hearts.
Some couldn't resist stomping on the new vine structures, trying to test their sturdiness.
Yet, the vines didn't budge an inch; they felt as solid and unyielding as bedrock.
"Is this still a vine?" Bellamy whispered, his voice cracking. He had just had his worldview shattered by the existence of the City of Gold, and now this.
"It's… it's practically man-made land!"
Doflamingo, however, saw something more.
He ran a hand over the surface of a nearby root. It felt like wood, but there was a faint, rhythmic thrumming beneath the surface.
It was alive.
He looked at the vast, interconnected network, the living bridge, the ever-growing fortress.
'He didn't just fuse a fruit with a plant,' Doflamingo thought, a cold, profound dread mixing with his awe.
'He created a sentient, self-repairing, ever-growing fortress.'
A chill ran down his spine as the final, terrifying realization hit him.
'He didn't make man-made land… he created a new, living kingdom.'