The moment Joy Boy finished speaking, a deafening roar echoed through the heavens.
The endless darkness covering the sky suddenly split apart as a massive rift opened above. Blinding white radiance poured from within, and a pillar of solid-looking light descended diagonally, enveloping Joy Boy's body.
Lloyd narrowed his eyes slightly.
With a casual wave of his hand, spirals of darkness surged from every direction, crashing against the beam of light like towering black tides.
Inside the pillar, Joy Boy silently stared at the damaged straw hat in his hands. The hole piercing its surface reflected in his eyes, and a trace of ruthless determination flashed across his face.
Lloyd had no intention of allowing him even a moment to recover.
His pupils had already transformed into bottomless black voids, wisps of dark mist flowing from them. The Marine coat draped over his shoulders fluttered violently within the darkness, the word "Justice" standing out sharply against the overwhelming black aura surrounding him.
The contrast was striking.
His body slowly dissolved into the darkness once more.
In the next instant, the darkness filling the battlefield began to tremble violently. Massive black vortices rotated across the sky, each one forming the shape of a giant eye.
Many of the Marines below immediately recalled the battle against Roger years ago.
The same terrifying phenomenon had appeared then.
And after it descended, the Pirate King had suffered complete defeat.
But no one present understood this technique better than Joy Boy himself.
Because he had experienced it firsthand.
Back then, his consciousness had already awakened within Roger's body. However, he had been far weaker than he was now, and Roger's willpower had been vastly stronger than Luffy's current resistance.
Joy Boy had been unable to seize control.
He could only lend Roger a fraction of his own strength.
Crack... crack... crack...
The surrounding space could no longer endure the pressure of the overwhelming darkness.
Gray fractures spread through the sky like shattered glass, multiplying until they all converged around the pillar of light protecting Joy Boy.
Joy Boy's expression grew solemn.
In a low voice, he muttered,
"I waited eight hundred years for this. This time... I absolutely cannot fail again."
The white pillar surrounding him suddenly dissolved into countless particles of light.
Those fragments gathered around Joy Boy's body before igniting into brilliant white flames.
Under the burning radiance, his body gradually shrank.
Smaller and smaller.
Until, at last, he had transformed into nothing more than a sphere of white light roughly the size of a Devil Fruit.
Someone unfamiliar with the scene might have believed he had been reduced to a relic.
Hidden within the darkness, Lloyd stared at the glowing sphere.
His voice echoed from every direction.
"Great Dark Heaven."
The moment those words fell, every gray crack across the sky shattered simultaneously.
Violent spatial turbulence erupted.
The sphere of light at the center of the storm resembled a tiny boat tossed about by a raging sea. Its perfectly round form was twisted and stretched into an irregular shape by the destructive currents.
Joy Boy's voice rang out from within.
"Answer my call!!"
The next second, the sphere of light shot upward like a newborn sun.
It flew directly into the rift above.
Then it vanished completely.
As Joy Boy disappeared, the darkness blanketing the battlefield receded like the ebbing tide.
All of it gathered into a single point before Lloyd's figure slowly emerged.
His expression remained unreadable as he gazed at the place where Joy Boy had disappeared.
A moment later, he folded his black wings and descended toward the battlefield below.
Although their clash had taken place nearly ten thousand meters above the ground, the aftershocks alone had devastated most of Gott Island.
The moment Lloyd landed, Lucia immediately approached with a large group of Marines.
Lloyd merely glanced at them before issuing a simple order.
"Return to the warships."
The entire fleet quickly withdrew from Gott Island.
Only after every ship had sailed a safe distance away did the sea erupt once again.
The space above the island became unstable, and gigantic waves hundreds of meters high rose from the ocean, crashing down and swallowing the entire island whole.
After the first colossal tsunami passed, Gott Island had completely disappeared beneath the sea.
Yet the disaster was far from over.
Violent storms continued to rage.
Towering waves rose one after another.
Most terrifying of all were the black vortices that occasionally appeared in the sky, each one releasing destructive fluctuations that distorted the surrounding space.
Aboard a distant warship, Lloyd sat quietly with his arms crossed, contemplating everything that had just happened.
Lucia stood silently beside him, her gaze fixed on his profile.
After a long silence, Lloyd lightly tapped the table with a finger.
"That guy escaped again."
His voice remained indifferent.
"What exactly did he do at the end?"
Joy Boy's method of escape was bizarre.
It had almost looked as though he had returned to the form of a Devil Fruit.
Lucia spoke softly.
"Young Master, he shouldn't have gotten very far. Most of his forces were annihilated during the encirclement. There should be no one left to receive him."
Lloyd slowly shook his head.
"Not necessarily."
He looked toward the distant horizon.
"He disappeared completely. There's no guarantee he's even still somewhere within the Four Seas."
After a brief pause, he added,
"And the Revolutionary Army was never truly his force."
As he spoke, Lloyd recalled Joy Boy's final words.
"Answer my call."
Who had he been calling?
...
New World.
A brilliant sphere of white light suddenly appeared high in the sky.
It looked as though a second sun had descended upon the world.
Moments later, the miniature sun plummeted toward the earth, crashing into a vast forest below.
The glowing sphere moved swiftly through the dense woods.
Wherever it passed, the trees bent and twisted away as though they possessed minds of their own, creating a clear path for it.
Only after reaching a quiet clearing did it finally come to a stop, hovering less than a meter above the ground.
After several moments, the sphere's surface began to ripple.
Its shape gradually stretched outward, slowly taking the form of a human figure.
A familiar straw hat silhouette appeared atop its head.
Pop!
The white light scattered.
Joy Boy reappeared.
He fell onto the ground, lying flat with his limbs spread wide, staring silently at the sky above.
The glowing white pupils that had once filled his eyes had disappeared.
A gentle breeze passed through the clearing.
Slowly, he sat up.
Raising a hand, he touched the straw hat resting on his head.
His expression froze for a brief instant.
Then it returned to normal.
Sitting there alone, he quietly began speaking.
"You're awake at last, Luffy."
Luffy's voice immediately responded.
"You took over my body again? Where are we?"
"We're on the back of one of my old companions."
"The back? What are you talking about?"
Luffy paused.
Then his voice suddenly rose.
"My companions... Wait! Where are Nami and the others?! And Uncle Lindbergh? Why didn't they come with us?! Wasn't I fighting the Celestial Dragons just now?!"
Joy Boy remained silent.
He offered no explanation.
That silence itself was the answer.
Luffy's voice trembled.
"Tell me... are they... still alive?"
Joy Boy did not answer.
Instead, he spoke in a quiet, emotionless tone.
"We failed."
"We... failed once again."
"And every failure demands a price."
He lowered his gaze.
"Luffy... do you know why we've always failed?"
===
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