Luffy tried touching it with his rubber arm, but the end of his arm vanished directly into the Void. Luckily, his rubber ability allowed him to retract the remaining part in time.
"This barrier is too dangerous!" Luffy shook his newly restored arm. "And I feel like time inside it is somehow wrong."
Ace carefully observed the situation within the barrier and quickly discovered the problem. "The flow of time is completely different! Look at the frequency of the light flickering around that seed..."
It was true. Time inside the barrier flowed completely differently from the outside—one second within was equivalent to an hour outside. That meant that if they entered the barrier, they had to complete the activation ritual in an extremely short time, or the Lord of Nothingness would fully descend upon the outside world.
"What should we do?" Luffy looked 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 extended his hand, sensing the flow of the Watchers' power and his flame ability within his body. After being tempered by the inheritance ritual, his power had undergone a fundamental transformation.
"I have a way," Ace said, his voice becoming exceptionally resolute. "But it will require an enormous price."
He took a deep breath and began completely fusing the Watchers' power within him with his flame ability. This was not a simple stacking of power, but a total fusion at the level of life's very essence.
In an instant, Ace's body burst into pure white flames unlike anything seen before. Different from any previous use of the Flame-Flame Fruit's power, these flames radiated a sacred, warm glow, as though heavenly fire had descended into the mortal world.
"This is... Holy Flame!" Ace