The device buzzed as it suddenly got pulled into the ethereal hands of Hell.
And at that moment when the physical and meta-physical touched.
BUZZZZZ
Acca defused with Instinct at that moment. He closed his book—he needed to witness this clearly.
The white light being emitted from the device onto Haki's body suddenly shifted.
The light bent towards Hell, it rained all over his body, illuminating him under its light.
[DEVOUR]
Hell Dave's intent was clear as day to anyone who dared to witness this scenario.
He opened his mouth and the air was being sucked into it. It seemed like a miniature phenomenon of a black hole at best. Nothing to write home about.
PA!
Haki's headache intensified by a thousandfold instantaneously and he bled from all seven orifices.
There was no free meal in this world.
"The devouring force is obviously not enough to swallow the device that was generating a negative gravity value of -9,800,000,000,000," Even under this, his facial expression didn't falter even for a bit. It seemed he'd been through worse.
"Hell, stop," Haki commanded.
"HMPH!!! Why, giving up so soon? Haven't we gone through worse?" Hell snarled at Haki.
"More like haven't you put us through worse," Kevide gave Hell a side eye from inside Haki.
"Come," Haki beckoned towards Hell. He has Hell, after all. Hell moved towards him and started shrinking. He didn't notice it before, but what little he had swallowed from the whiteholification had expanded his "state of being" even further. So when he condensed his form to fit Haki's frame, he was looking significantly more real than before.
HUM
Hell submerged himself into Haki once more and he appeared somewhere in Haki's mind, a place where he had never seen before, but it felt all too familiar, like he had dreamt about it.
"Is this… Haki's mind space?"
He walked into the space and found the others inside. Their form was very faint, like they were going to disperse at any moment.
"Hell!" One of them shouted, and he recognized the voice. It was Acca.
"Tell me everything you see, quickly!" Acca was frantically looking at Hell at the moment. He couldn't move to take action as this space was different from Haki's imagination. This space was real.
Haki saw all this and decided to be efficient for once. Everybody inside him was him, and he was everybody. They were the same person. So he directly "downloaded" all the information into Acca's construct. As Acca received all these through code, one could see his head tilted back with a scary smile on his face.
"HOolYYY!!! This guy is a maniac," the one speaking was Heavenly Dave, who had now been separated from his better half. Best case scenario? No one knew.
"In Haki's mind space, the rest of us exist as seedlings of existence. Possibly constructs for a more advanced spirit or intent as our brother here has achieved," he went back to his refined self and gave a summary of his deduction while pointing to Hell at the end of his speech.
"Meaning… we also have the chance to exist in reality?" Kevide had sparkles shining in his eyes. He was one of the most complex characters of Haki. Today he was Batman, tomorrow he was Tommy Shelby, and next tomorrow he was… Mickey Mouse…?
Haki left them to continue their discussion as always. He had other thoughts right now.
He raised his hand into the air and waited for a while…
"Hell, try seeing if you can manifest your abilities without coming out, aim to use me as a vessel."
Hell nodded. He tried copying Haki and just raised his hand too inside the mind space, but nothing happened.
"You might need to call him out like you used to before he was a real being."
Haki thought for a while. It was easier before, all he needed to do was actively or subconsciously imagine he was being possessed by Hell or vice versa and it would happen.
WHOOSH
It seemed the process was the same, but something was different…
When Hell Dave surged, Haki's form darkened to obsidian, only his white eyes were glaring through, emitting light like a White Hole. He had become the physical manifestation of a version of himself. He had become HELL DAVE.
His presence alone caused the air to distort around him. It was all so fascinating for him. One moment he was still on the realm of push-ups, and in the next he had sort of evolved naturally. This was probably one of those paths one had to follow blindly. He was just lucky to be him… if that made sense…
"I am me. No one else could have been me." Haki's resolve strengthened, if that could still be possible at this point…
"Hell, I never said we were giving up…" Haki's obsidian face split into an ear-splitting grin. "Let's get even more powerful, shall we…"
This time around, he called someone stronger than himself to assist him in his ordeal.
The Clone.
Honestly? It was a real question as to who was the clone here, since Haki was weaker than it.
He tried to repeat the process of devouring the Gravitational Potential Energy from the Octahedral Device again.
"Devour," Haki stretched his arms out, but nothing happened.
"Hold on," Hell called out from within. "Try to feel it for yourself. It's more like—"
[DEVOUR]
Haki let Hell teach him how he used this ability the previous time. They spent the next 76 hours that way. The vocal cords of a human couldn't make such a sound.
After many failed attempts:
"DEvoUr"
"devOUR"
"DevoURE"
Acca finally found certain patterns and differences. Haki was not necessarily meant to talk. He was meant to intend.
And intend he did, because afterwards:
[DEVOUR]
ZHROOOM!
The air twisted around his hands as the lumen from the octahedral disk was being absorbed into his hand.
A prompt appeared in front of him:
[You have absorbed energy]
[You have absorbed energy]
As he absorbed energy, he asked, "Who configured my neural lattice to game mode?"
Acca (looking sideways): "Whistle"
The headache came again—but this time, they were ready.
A clone emerged behind the cross-legged Haki and gently placed a hand on his back.
He was healing him with his bloodline powers.
This clone was the closest thing Haki had to magic in his arsenal.
Haki's mental state was caught in a relentless loop of healing and destruction, A Recursive loop...