The island where Ron was.
Tap, tap, tap...
Inside the rolling smoke, fine grains of sand and stone continuously fell from midair, hitting the ground with crisp little sounds.
At the end of the smoke, only half of Gunshigu's body remained. Below her waist, her two legs lay alone among the broken stones. Thick black mist continuously surged from the wound, as if suppressed by some force and only able to repair and reshape itself bit by bit at an extremely slow speed.
Ron stared at that half of a body, then looked at the black mist struggling to creep. His eyes flickered slightly, and he spoke in a low voice. "Looks like... in this world, senjutsu chakra can suppress Imu's immortality just like Conqueror's Haki."
After a pause, Ron grew doubtful again. "They say seawater and Seastone restrain Devil Fruit users... If I throw her into the sea, can her immortality still recover?"
Because his curiosity was extremely strong, Ron used senjutsu again and blasted Gunshigu's body until only half a leg remained.
Then he grabbed that half-leg and ran toward the shore.
Only, before he could reach the coast, the clouds in the sky began rolling and expanding at a visible speed, as if an invisible hand were smearing ink across the entire sky.
Purple lightning ripped and churned between the clouds, releasing heavy rumbles.
Ron stopped, his brows tightening violently. He had seen this sight before. When Imu descended last time, the sky had looked like this too.
"Is this... the main body descending?" Ron muttered. Then he quickly tossed the pale, long leg in his hand onto the ground and used a small Tailed Beast Bomb coated with senjutsu chakra to blast it into a cloud of black mist.
He did not linger. He turned and was about to transform into the golden Nine-Tailed Fox and withdraw. But at that instant, he remembered that Linlin was still on this island.
"Fine. Who told me to take her Devil Fruits? A person should have integrity," Ron murmured. Then he quickly changed direction and sped toward the town.
At the same time, in the center of the town.
A huge pentagram formation was slowly lighting up in the area where the fake Ron stood.
Complex ancient inscriptions circulated along the outer ring of the formation. Mysterious numerical symbols were engraved inside the star array, and faint ghostly light rippled from the depths of its lines like veins waking from sleep.
Suddenly, purple-black lightning fell from the sky, one bolt after another, striking precisely at the center of the formation.
Wherever the lightning passed, the surrounding buildings instantly exploded into fragments. Flying dust and broken stone interwove into a gray curtain.
Only the pentagram formation remained unharmed, radiating an eerie light amid the ruins.
Inside the formation, five enormous black shadows condensed.
They twisted, struggled, and stretched. Their outlines kept changing in the dim light, as if searching for their own shapes.
Soon, five pairs of scarlet eyes lit up gloomily in the darkness, like five pairs of gazes opening from the abyss.
Blue flames crawled and danced along the edges of the ruined buildings, illuminating the surroundings like hell.
Boom!
With a dull thunderous sound, the five figures fully took shape.
A skeletal horse.
A sandworm.
A warthog with four tusks.
A serpent-bodied creature with a bird's head, wings, and talons.
And an enormous spider.
Black flame clouds coiled around their bodies.
These were precisely the beast forms of the Five Elders' Devil Fruit abilities.
"I sense Gunshigu's position," the skeletal horse said in a low voice.
"Then what are we waiting for? Use this chance to completely erase that threat," the spider said as its long legs slowly shifted.
As that voice fell, they moved at the same time. Five enormous figures howled toward the same direction.
Ron naturally sensed their appearance immediately. After all, with bodies that huge, anyone who was not blind could see them.
"Five monsters? Could they be... the Five Elders?" Ron murmured, not too concerned. He had not transformed into the golden Nine-Tailed Fox, so his position would not be exposed for a while.
But as he ran, Ron realized something was wrong. He even deliberately looped around in a different direction. In the end, he reached one conclusion.
He had been locked onto!
"Amazing," Ron cursed, the corner of his mouth twitching. "Target lock, huh?"
Immediately, Ron did not hesitate. He turned a corner and ran toward the town.
Before long, among a stretch of ruins, Ron saw a familiar figure.
"Linlin!"
Ron shouted.
Linlin was standing under a half-collapsed roof, searching for Ron as well. When she heard that shout, she turned her head, and a trace of joy instantly brightened her face. "Ron, you bastard, where did you run..."
Before the words "off to" could leave her mouth, her gaze passed over Ron and saw the five enormous figures chasing from far behind him.
Smoke and dust surged under their feet, and each step made the ground tremble faintly.
Her smile instantly froze. Then she turned without hesitation and ran, cursing as she fled. "Bastard, what did you drag over here?!"
Ron ran beside her, yet there was even a trace of a smile on his face. "Don't be scared, Linlin. Those things aren't faster than me."
Before his words even fell, an incomparably huge golden Nine-Tailed Fox rose from the ground. A chakra arm then extended rapidly and accurately grabbed Linlin around the waist, pulling her inward. In the next instant, Linlin had been dragged into the space inside the golden Nine-Tailed Fox.
"Are you crazy?!" Linlin steadied herself and planted her hands on her hips irritably. "Can you shake them off first and then meet up with me?"
As soon as she finished, her expression changed slightly. She looked behind Ron, where a cloud of black mist was silently condensing.
"Hey, Ron. What's that cloud of black mist hanging behind you?"
"Black mist?" Ron turned his head suspiciously. The instant his gaze touched that cloud of mist, he sensed extremely intense malice.
He had not even had time to react.
Boom!
The black mist swelled violently as if detonated. Strange black tentacles shot out from within the mist and stabbed into Ron's body.
"Domi Reversi!"
A voice that belonged neither to Ron nor Linlin appeared inside the golden Nine-Tailed Fox.
Ron felt no discomfort in his body. In the next instant, a sound rang out in his mind.
[Ding... External access request detected. System has denied access.]
...