"Citizens of the nation, ladies and gentlemen watching at home!"
Gaz, the star commentator, had finally run out of words.
In truth, ever since the Heavenly Palace Wonderland had appeared out of nowhere, he had been struggling to speak. And now, he was completely speechless, having no idea how to describe the scene unfolding before him.
"This... this..."
Inside the Heavenly Palace Wonderland, the massive Golden Staff Shinko swung was still crackling with black-and-red Conqueror's Haki lightning.
Yet everywhere the staff had passed, nothing remained.
The rolling sea of clouds had been torn apart, the celestial light shredded. A gigantic ravine stretched endlessly through the sky, seemingly without end.
A single sweep of the staff had cleared the entire heavens.
Killingham's Swift Bird, Saint Pierre's blood mist, and Saint Fabian's flickering figure had clearly failed to withstand that single blow.
In fact, everyone watching had seen it.
The three of them had been completely obliterated by that strike.
And this time...
'Buzz!'
They didn't regenerate.
Instead, where the three of them had been standing, only three masses of pitch-black matter now twisted and writhed.
Deep within each dark mass, an indistinct mark occasionally surfaced.
It was the signature mark of the Deep Sea Covenant.
"..."
Shinko raised his hand, recalling the Golden Cudgel.
His crimson-gold eyes locked onto the three masses of dark energy.
Beneath his mask, Roy raised an eyebrow in surprise.
Of course, he wasn't surprised that he had killed the three God's Knights. Ever since Violet had warned him about them, he had already prepared for this exact outcome.
From the moment he entered the duel, one of his goals had been to take down a God's Knight.
This was the perfect opportunity, and no one was better suited to kill the God's Knights' clones than Shinko.
After all, Roy knew Shinko better than anyone.
Shinko was unique among the Twelve Zodiac clones. His defining trait was his sheer potential, just like Roy's lifelong idol, Shinko grew stronger through the heat of combat itself.
Under normal circumstances, his base strength wasn't much different from the other clones. But Dressrosa was a special case.
After racking up over two thousand consecutive victories, the power Shinko could unleash in his Battle God Stance: Great Sage Equal to Heaven had reached an absurd level.
With Conqueror's Haki Infusion, he could easily wear down the protection granted by the Deep Sea Covenant. Then, with Heavenly Palace Wonderland, he ensured they had no way to escape.
More importantly, Roy knew that almost all of the God's Knights suffered from a fundamental weakness in willpower.
They possessed overwhelming strength, immortal bodies granted by the Deep Sea Covenant, and top-tier Devil Fruit powers. But just as Marco had suspected, the moment they faced real danger, they chose to flee instead of fighting to the death like true powerhouses of the sea.
And coincidentally...
{God-Fighting Domain: Heavenly Palace Wonderland - Once an enemy within the domain feels fear or the urge to flee, the user's attacks ignore all defenses and directly inflict an Instant Death Effect.}
That's right.
The God's Knights' weakness happened to trigger the Instant Death Effect of Shinko's Heavenly Palace Wonderland.
Which was why this scene had played out.
'Just as I thought,' Roy confirmed silently.
Although the murals had revealed that combining Free Soul with Free Body could stop a bearer of the Deep Sea Covenant from resurrecting, theory still had to be tested in practice.
Now, he had his answer.
"Conqueror's Haki Infusion can break through the Deep Sea Covenant's protection. Combined with the Drums of Liberation, it can kill them for real."
The fact that the three God's Knights hadn't resurrected was proof enough.
However, what truly caught Shinko off guard were the three masses of energy floating in front of him.
Even at a distance, he could clearly sense something coming from them.
"Roar!"
"Ah!"
"No!"
"Kill!"
Greed, grief, despair, rage, pain, bloodlust...
It was as if all the malice in the world had condensed inside them.
"Come, Shinko. With power like this, why serve the Star Lord?"
"Join me. I'll give you even greater power!"
"You could become a Celestial Dragon. No... you deserve even more. I'll give you..."
Raspy, overlapping voices whispered directly into Shinko's mind.
Yet it had no effect. Within the Heavenly Palace Wonderland, Shinko was immune to negative status effects; even these sinister, unnatural temptations couldn't influence him.
Instead, his attention was drawn to the text flashing across his vision from the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia:
{Lineage Factor Source detected (Impurity - Evil Wish).}
{Touch the object to begin analysis. Analysis will purge the 'impurity' contained within.}
'That' was what truly shocked Shinko.
The lingering energy left behind by the slain God's Knights had actually triggered the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, and the information it revealed was mind-blowing.
'Just like the energy in those roots... this is Lineage Factor Origin Energy too?'
This was the exact conclusion Vegapunk had reached after Star Lord pointed him in the right direction.
Lately, Roy had been searching for a specific type of tree root. The power sealed inside it was believed to be the source of all Lineage Factors, the "Lineage Factor Origin Energy" Vegapunk had mentioned.
According to Roy's hypothesis, when this energy interacted with human desires, it produced extraordinary phenomena. Even Devil Fruits were products born from this power.
And now, the lingering energy from the God's Knights was also Lineage Factor Origin Energy.
The only difference was...
'It contains an impurity... an Evil Wish?' Shinko mused inwardly.
In that split second, pieces of a massive puzzle began falling into place.
He recalled the murals in the Abyss, where Davy Jones prayed to the giant tree, giving birth to Imu:
'"I am a sinner, the first of the cursed."'
He remembered Joy Boy's message on the Poneglyph, passed down by Vegapunk:
'"The Abyss is the source of the sea. It is the Shadow that binds the world, and at the same time, it binds everything in the world."'
Gradually, Shinko grasped an incredible truth.
'If that giant tree, the Pillar of Creation, is the source of all Devil Fruits, the tree that bears humanity's wishes...'
'If the desires people pray for can manifest into reality, even giving birth to Devil Fruits...'
'Then what happens to the impurities within those wishes?'
Because no wish is completely pure.
A desire for power brings conflict.
Grief over a lost loved one breeds sorrow.
A craving for wealth spawns greed.
A longing for youth turns into a desperate obsession with immortality.
Just as light casts a shadow, human desires can never be entirely free of malice.
So...
'The pure, ordinary wishes gather together to be fulfilled, shaping this world and giving rise to Devil Fruits.'
'While the dark, impure desires sink to the bottom of the world, becoming the shadow of the world.'
'Which means... that shadow is the Abyss.'
(End of Chapter)
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