Pluto's orbit. The battle entered its thirtieth minute.
The number of Void Soldiers had surged from a few dozen to several hundred.
A black swarm poured endlessly from the three motherships like locusts, completely surrounding Luffy and the other two.
"Do they ever end?!" Luffy punched apart a Void Soldier, but three more immediately lunged at him. "How many of them are there?!"
Zoro slashed apart two Void Soldiers, but his blades were already coated in black fluid. Every attack drained his willpower, yet the number of Void Soldiers showed no sign of decreasing.
"This won't work. At this rate, they'll wear us to death." Zoro panted heavily.
Ace was in the worst shape. Not only could his flames not harm the Void Soldiers, they became food for them instead. Whenever he unleashed Fire Fist, the surrounding Void Soldiers grew more active, and their bodies became more solid.
"Damn it!" Ace was entangled by five Void Soldiers at once, feeling his life force rapidly drain away. "My attacks are healing them!"
Even more terrifyingly, all three of them could feel Pluto's life force rapidly fading.
The light of this fringe planet had weakened until it was nearly invisible, and the blue-white radiance across its surface was going out bit by bit.
"I... I can't be saved anymore... Run..." Pluto's consciousness had grown so weak that its words came in broken fragments. "Don't let them... catch you..."
"We'll never give up!" Luffy roared, though his voice could not travel through the vacuum and could only be conveyed through consciousness. "Lin Ye never gives up, and neither will we!"
He forcibly broke free of the Void Soldiers' entanglement and charged toward Pluto.
But dozens of Void Soldiers immediately blocked his path, forming a purple wall.
"Move!" Luffy threw a full-powered punch, but