"Luffy!" Ace tightly embraced his younger brother as he burst out of the passageway, his voice trembling with emotion. Years of separation, the shadow of death, the pursuit across dimensions—all the pain and despair turned into warm tears at this moment.
"Ace... It really is you..." Luffy hugged his brother back, a smile and tears mingling on his face. His ever-lively eyes were filled with incredulous joy.
However, the brief joy of their reunion was quickly interrupted by cruel reality. Ace noticed in horror that Luffy's body was semi-transparent, as though he were being viewed through a thin mist. At times, Ace could even see his own arms passing through Luffy's body, as if Luffy might vanish into the air at any moment.
"What happened?" Luffy lowered his head to look at his arm, whose transparency kept shifting, his expression confused yet alert.
"You haven't fully returned to this dimension yet," Dragon explained during a brief gap in his defense against the Five Elders' leader. "The ritual isn't complete."
At the center of the altar, Lin Ye's condition was growing increasingly dangerous. As the anchor maintaining the passageway's stability, he was gradually being pulled toward the Void. Purple Patterns had already covered over ninety percent of his skin, and his eyes had begun to emit an ominous purple glow. He gritted his teeth and held on, but every second was agony.
"Lin Ye!" Ace noticed his friend's condition and immediately understood the crisis—Luffy's return had come at the cost of Lin Ye being dragged into the Void. It was an exchange of lives.
High in the sky, the Five Elders' leader raised his hand again. An energy blast even stronger than before hurtled toward the altar. "Your efforts are futile! The fusion of dimensions is the destiny of the universe!"