Joy Boy, It Was Time for You to Disappear Too!

"Luffy!" Nami threw down the sea chart and rushed over.

Zoro's eyes were open, and his hand was on the hilt of his sword.

Sanji smashed his pot on the ground, spilling soup everywhere.

Chopper's hooves slipped as he ran with the first-aid kit in his arms.

Usopp's slingshot was fully drawn.

Luffy did not answer.

He opened his mouth, letting out a broken hiss, and then looked down at his hands.

His own hand.

He clenched his fists in a daze, then relaxed them, then clenched them again.

It was as if that hand belonged to someone else.

He looked up at the anxious faces around him, his expression full of confusion.

"I..." He opened his mouth, "I'm alright?"

Before the words had even finished...

A blurry figure emerged from behind Luffy.

The illusory figure had a blurred face, and its features were indistinct; only the outline of a human shape could be vaguely discerned.

It was forcibly ripped out of Luffy's back, as if it had been pushed out from the inside by something.

Its arms were still in a downward grabbing position, its fingers almost touching Luffy's shoulders, but it could no longer reach him.

It let out an extremely shrill scream, as if it were being squeezed out from the deepest part of its throat, even more pitiful than Luffy's scream just now.

The illusory figure struggled desperately as it lunged downwards, trying to slip back into Luffy's body before the light faded.

But before it could make a second move, a beam of crimson-gold light descended from the sky.

The beam of light pierced precisely through the phantom's chest, pinning it from mid-air to the ground.

The phantom crashed onto the rubble, pinned down by the beam of light, its limbs convulsing, its body disintegrating, shattering, and annihilating inch by inch in the light.

The Straw Hat Pirates was completely stunned.

Zoro's sword was halfway drawn and stopped in mid-air.

Sanji's foot was still on fire, but he had forgotten to kick it.

Nami instinctively stepped in front of Luffy, Robin sprouted several arms to protect his flanks, Luffy Chopper had already run to Luffy's side, looking up at the dissipating afterimage with his mouth wide open.

"What... what is this?" Chopper's voice trembled.

Usopp's slingshot was still drawn, the crosshair dangling back and forth between the crimson-gold eye in the sky and the fading afterimage on the ground. "I... I don't know, but whatever it was, was it trying to get inside Luffy's body just now?"

Robin squinted, his gaze shifting from the fading afterimage to the crimson-gold eye in the sky.

She pursed her lips.

"It meant no harm," she said, her voice calm and collected. "That eye... it's peeling something away from Luffy."

Luffy looked down at his chest, then at the slowly fading crimson-gold eye in the sky.

He tilted his head, his face full of confusion.

"So... what was that... just now?" He scratched the back of his head. "It was burrowing into my body? And then... that eye pulled it out?"

"That's roughly the idea." Robin nodded.

"Then who is it?" Luffy looked up, watching the crimson-gold eye fade away little by little until it disappeared completely into the sky.

He scratched his head, his confusion turning into a different expression, as if he found it both amusing and strange. "He helped me, right? Then why didn't he come down and say something to me?"

No one could answer him.

Zoro pushed the sword back into its sheath, but his hand did not leave the hilt.

He stared at the direction where the eye had disappeared, his brows furrowed deeply.

"To be able to project an eye onto us from this distance," he muttered, "This person's level... is beyond our comprehension."

Sanji extinguished the fire on his foot, lit another cigarette, took a drag, and the smoke ring he exhaled swayed twice in the wind before dissipating.

"Who cares who he is," he said, his tone more relaxed Zoro's, but not by much. "At least he didn't do anything to Luffy just now."

"But what exactly did he put on Luffy?" Nami couldn't help but ask. "That phantom was pulled out of Luffy's body, right? So when did it get inside?"

"I don't know," Robin said. "Maybe it was after Luffy ate the Devil Fruits, or maybe even earlier. The fact that something can remain dormant in a host's body for so long without being detected shows that it's of extremely high level."

Chopper squatted down next to Luffy, gesturing with his little hooves for a while, and finally managed to say, "Anyway, it's good that Luffy is alright."

Luffy grunted in agreement and grinned.

That smile was still her usual carefree smile, as if the close call had never happened.

He reached out and patted Chopper's head, glanced at the sky where there was nothing left, then turned back and shouted to Sanji, "Sanji! Meat!"

Sanji glared at him. "You almost had something drilled into your brain just now, and now you want to eat meat?"

"He didn't even manage to drill through." Luffy said matter-of-factly.

Sanji's lips twitched, he righted the pot, and started the fire again while cursing.

Zoro leaned back against the tree trunk with his eyes closed, but his fingers never left the hilt of his sword.

Robin and Nami exchanged a glance, neither of them speaking, but their eyes conveyed almost the same thing.

This matter is not over.

Who owns that eye?

Why did he make his move at that time?

What exactly is that phantom that was pulled out of Luffy's body?

Nobody knows the answer.

But every member of the Straw Hat Pirates knew that the crimson-gold eye they had just encountered was far more distant than any enemy they had ever faced before.

As distant as a star in the sky.

The territory of Takamagahara has begun to recede.

The crimson-gold light curtain contracted inward from the boundary, like the receding tide, gradually gathering, thinning, and dissipating.

The five pillars supporting the sky shattered from the top, turning into scattered fragments of light.

One by one, the hundreds of islands covered by the domain revealed themselves, and the sea breeze blew across the reefs and beaches, gradually dispersing the remaining Chakra waves.

The changes were most noticeable in Natsu.

The snow-white robe began to fade from the hem, with a pale purple hue spreading down from the collar.

Her jet-black hair began to lighten from the ends.

In the Nine-Tomoe Rinne Sharingan, the eighteen Tomoe disappeared one by one, eventually reverting to the Mangekyō Sharingan form.

His gaze shifted slightly, he blinked again, and his shoulders relaxed an inch.

Below, the Origin power bestowed upon the Night Owl Guard and the Uchiha clan members was also fading away simultaneously.