A few minutes later.
After absorbing the incomplete, chaotic memories of the Gold-Gold Fruit demon, Chaos looked grave, though not surprised.
Just as he'd guessed, eating a demon let him take even more of its power. He could also inherit some of its savage, exhilarating memories.
Reading a lot of novels did have its advantages.
All he needed was the opening, and he could more or less guess what would happen next.
They were all cut from the same cloth.
"What's going on? What's going on?"
"Boss, how does it feel?"
Enel and the others had returned during those few minutes. They'd heard what happened from Betty and the others, and now they were all looking at Chaos.
"Your chance to become gods has arrived."
Chaos beamed.
"Really?"
Everyone was fired up, especially Archino, Crocodile, and Enel, who had the best chance of becoming gods.
"The Underworld is real. It's the world on the dark side of this planet, the Demon World where demons live. The power of every Devil Fruit comes from a demon."
Chaos had learned some of the world's truths from the incomplete memories of the Gold-Gold Fruit demon.
"So there really are demons inside Devil Fruits?"
"But what kind of beings are demons?"
"You guys got here late, so you missed it. Anyway, they're a bunch of strange-looking things."
"Boss, judging by your expression, the demons' powers inside the Devil Fruits aren't complete, are they?"
Crocodile puffed on his cigar, his powers of observation razor-sharp.
He was making the most of his intellectual superiority.
"Correct."
Chaos snapped his fingers.
"If the powers inside Devil Fruits aren't complete, and real demons exist, then eating a real demon would let us take its place and gain even greater demonic power. Then we could awaken our Devil Fruits a