Goodbye to Laboon

"What?" Brook's bare skeletal jaw opened and closed, as if he were somewhat confused.

"I need your strength. Follow me and join the 'Hueco Mundo' organization." Yaen got straight to the point. His gentle tone left Brook no room to refuse.

"Is this an invitation to join a pirate crew? Yohohoho..."

Brook gave a strange laugh and said, "But isn't this a little too sudden?"

"No. I'm not unfamiliar with your past at all, Mr. Brook. Moria even spent nearly two years searching for you in Thriller Bark."

Yaen spoke gently.

It had to be said that Thriller Bark was simply too vast. It was shrouded in dense fog all year round, with shipwrecks drifting across the sea everywhere and countless remains of corpses scattered about. Finding an active skeleton in such an environment was almost as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.

Furthermore, after Yaen had accumulated enough Artificial Devil Fruits several years ago to awaken the "Void Soul Reaper Blade - Skull Emperor," he discovered that the Skull Emperor's ability was aging—even affecting the user's own body.

This time, after simply granting several death-row prisoners the Skull Emperor's ability, Yaen discovered that whenever they used it, their bodies would rapidly age as well.

By the way, Yaen had also tested what would happen if he forcibly stripped someone of the Void Soul Reaper Blade after granting it to them.

The result was... instant death!

Ultimately, after repeated experiments, Yaen discovered that the only person who truly seemed capable of using the Skull Emperor's power was Brook, the Revive-Revive Fruit user.

As a Revive-Revive Fruit user, Brook had died fifty years ago, yet his body had still revived even after completely turning into a skeleton.

"To express my sincerity, this is a gift I brought you for