The System Returns, Voice of All Things

"Hey, open your eyes."

In his daze, Lin Nuo seemed to hear someone calling him.

He forced his eyelids open and vaguely saw a huge, graceful silhouette.

Mm... I want to sleep a little longer.

Lin Nuo's mind was a mess.

"Get up!"

A bone-chilling cold swept over him, instantly waking Lin Nuo.

"Whoa!"

He sat up and looked closely, only to find himself in a pure white space.

What is this place? Why does it look familiar?

Then, Lin Nuo's attention was drawn to the person who had woken him.

It was a gigantic, beautiful mermaid with a pink fish tail and long pink hair, looking down at him with a hint of displeasure in her eyes.

"Shirahoshi?!" Lin Nuo nearly jumped up in shock. "Am I dreaming?"

"I'm not Shirahoshi." The mermaid spoke in a crisp voice. "I'm your system."

"This is the system space. Have you forgotten?"

System? Space?

Hearing that, Lin Nuo carefully looked around again.

A boundless space of pure white...

This place was exactly the same as the place he had arrived at after dying in his previous life!

"No wonder it looked familiar..." Realization dawned on him, and he hurriedly asked, "Right! I remember Imu killed me!"

"But why am I here? Did I transmigrate again?"

Shirahoshi did not answer. She merely raised a slender finger and pointed behind him.

Lin Nuo turned around instinctively.

Behind him hung an enormous screen.

It was showing a live feed of his frantic battle with Imu.

"You're not dead," Shirahoshi explained calmly. "I merely pulled your consciousness into this space temporarily."

"Your body is going berserk outside."

So that was it... Lin Nuo let out a sigh of relief, only for fresh doubts to arise. "But, System, why do you look like Shirahoshi?"

"Whoever you wish to see, that is who I will be."

Whoever I wish to see?

Once Lin Nuo understood the meaning behind those words, a thought arose in his mind.

The Shirahoshi before him rippled and changed.

Her long pink hair shortened and turned orange, her fish tail became long, slender legs, and her distinctive outfit changed into a fresh tank top and shorts.

She became Nami.

The next second, Nami's form rippled again. Her figure grew taller, her bearing became intellectual and mysterious, and her hair turned black.

Nico Robin.

"Hey," the system said speechlessly while wearing Robin's appearance, "I called you here for your second selection, not so you could play dress-up."

"Oh, right, right." Lin Nuo scratched his head.

"But what is this second selection?"

The system said nothing more and merely waved a hand.

A faintly glowing progress bar appeared out of thin air.

Lin Nuo stepped closer for a careful look and found several familiar portraits floating above it.

Rocks, Roger, Whitebeard, Ivankov, Shakky... even Kuma and Dragon were there.

Lines extended from beneath those portraits, connecting to the progress bar as though pouring energy into it. Light flowed through them, pushing the bar to the second node.

At the sight of the progress bar and its nodes, Lin Nuo remembered.

Before he had entered the pirate world from this space, the first node on this progress bar had already been filled.

Back then, the system had said something similar and made him undergo his first selection.

That was how he had gained the identity of a Lunarian.

Lin Nuo vaguely formed a guess.

He reached out and touched the progress bar.

Buzz—

Unlike when he had first transmigrated, when there had been a dazzling array of race options.

This time, only three choices lay before him.

[Second Selection: Potential Traits]

[Life Return: Freely control the body, hair, internal organs, and other organs]

[Voice of All Things: Sense the voices of special things]

[Zoro's Left Eye: Lose a certain organ, such as a hand or an eye, in exchange for mysterious power]

Looking at the three wildly different options, Lin Nuo fell into thought.

"Hey, choose already."

The system urged him, speaking with Robin's face but without the slightest courtesy.

"System bro, we finally get to meet, so why are you rushing me out like you're chasing me to my death?"

Robin pointed at the screen behind him.

"If you don't choose quickly, your physical body will either be completely assimilated by the will of the Phoenix Fruit or die first from overexertion."

"Tch, weren't you the one who dragged me in here..." Lin Nuo grumbled, his expression turning serious again.

The system was right.

This was not the time to carefully pick and choose.

He quickly weighed his options.

"Life Return" would not bring him a qualitative improvement.

With his Lunarian physique and the Phoenix Fruit, his health bar was already long enough. It would only be icing on the cake.

"Voice of All Things"... this ability was rather mystical.

In the world of One Piece, it seemed connected to deeper secrets.

For instance, sensing the Poneglyphs or Zunesha's voice...

He would put that on hold for now.

What puzzled him most was the third option.

"Zoro's Left Eye."

According to the information he knew, Zoro had lost his left eye in exchange for a powerful ability to recognize himself and understand the world.

But this was a system option, and neither its cost nor its power had been clearly explained.

He looked at Robin before him and asked cautiously, "What kind of power exactly does 'mysterious power' refer to?"

"You have to give me some kind of hint, right?"

"I don't know," the system answered immediately.

The next moment, Robin's figure twisted and reassembled, becoming the Thousand Sunny with its sunflower lion figurehead.

"I don't know because I don't know," the Sunny's lion head said, its voice carrying a hint of teasing.

"Changing into my form won't do you any good either."

Lin Nuo stared speechlessly at the talking ship with its smug expression.

His gaze shifted back to the screen behind him.

In the footage, his movements were growing increasingly sluggish, while Imu's attacks became ever more violent.

There truly was not much time left.

After several seconds of silence, he reached out and firmly pressed his hand onto the second option.

"Voice of All Things."

"Hehe, didn't expect you to be so cautious."

The Sunny's lion head looked at him with a grin, its tone somewhere between praise and mockery.

"Of course it's the safest choice." Lin Nuo smiled as well.

What if I woke up and suddenly found some important part missing from my body?

Wouldn't that be a total disaster?

"System, I still want to ask you a few questions about the specifics of this ability..."

However, the lion head ignored Lin Nuo's question.

The entire ship began to radiate dazzling light, as though it had truly become a tiny sun.

"Selection complete~ Ja ne~"

"Hey! Wait—"

Outside.

The core battlefield of God Valley.

Rocks, Roger, Whitebeard, and Garp had gathered once more.

They gripped their weapons tightly, ready to give Imu one final, vicious blow.

Kuma, who had originally been pierced through by a spear, was now hiding behind Garp.

Under the treatment of the flames Lin Nuo had scattered earlier, he was no longer in mortal danger. However, his face was pale, and he had clearly lost a great deal of vitality.

Under their watchful gazes.

The immortal giant bird, which had been passively taking blows all along, suddenly underwent a change!

It abruptly let out a piercing cry as the blue and yellow flames around its body continuously gathered and compressed toward its chest.

The next moment, it raised a massive claw toward Imu ahead and unleashed everything in one burst!

The unceasing pillar of flame tore through the air and blasted straight toward Imu!

Imu seemed to sense that this attack was different as well. Dark energy surged around him, ready to break it apart.

However, just as the pillar of fire was about to touch Imu.

It suddenly burst apart without warning, transforming into fish-like chains.

Those chains bypassed Imu's frontal defense and wound around him from every direction, instantly binding the demon tightly!

"What?!"

Rocks and the others stared wide-eyed at the sudden scene.

Mmm...

Dark energy constantly struck against the chains, causing them to flicker rapidly. They clearly could not hold for long.

After unleashing that move, the flames around the giant bird extinguished and contracted at a visible rate...

In the end, they completely vanished, revealing Lin Nuo's true body within.

Under everyone's gaze, he fell weakly from the sky...