Luffy tried touching it with his rubber arm, but the end of his arm vanished directly into the Void. Thankfully, his rubber ability let him pull back the rest in time.
"This barrier is too dangerous!" Luffy shook his newly restored arm. "And it feels like the time inside is off somehow."
Ace carefully observed the situation within the barrier and quickly spotted the issue. "The flow of time is completely different! Look at how frequently the light around that seed is flickering..."
That was indeed the case. Time inside the barrier flowed completely differently from outside; one second within was equivalent to an hour outside. This meant that if they entered the barrier, they had to complete the activation ritual in an extremely short time, or the Lord of Nothingness outside would descend completely.
"What do we do?" Luffy stared anxiously at the predicament before them. "We have to activate the World Tree Seed, but this barrier..."
Ace fell silent for a moment, then slowly raised a hand, sensing the flow of the Watchers' power and his flame ability within his body. Having undergone the baptism of the inheritance ritual, his power had fundamentally changed.
"I have a way," Ace said, his voice becoming exceptionally firm. "But it will come at a tremendous cost."
He took a deep breath and began completely merging the Watchers' power within him with his flame ability. This was not a simple addition of power, but a total fusion at the level of life's very essence.
In an instant, Ace's body erupted in unprecedented pure white flames. Unlike the Flame-Flame Fruit's power at any previous time, these flames radiated a sacred, warm glow, as though the fire of heaven had descended upon the earth.
"This is... the Sacred Flame!" Ace felt the new power