Suggestion-Suggestion Fruit

Night fell. Siswal's royal palace stood atop a hill at the center of the island, overlooking the entire city.

Rain followed the two envoys up the steps. The guards along the way stood ramrod straight, torchlight dancing across their faces and illuminating those identical smiles. There was not a single unnecessary sound; even their breathing followed an eerily uniform rhythm. Walking among them, Rain felt the air around him grow cold. This was not a land of the living, but more like a display case filled with oversized dolls.

The heavy bronze-plated doors swung open, revealing a red-carpeted corridor leading straight to the main hall. The envoys stopped outside the doors, bowed, and gestured for him to enter.

Rain stepped onto the carpet. The doors slowly closed behind him, shutting out the faint sound of the wind outside.

The main hall was dimly lit. Pale violet flames burned in the wall sconces, giving off a cloyingly sweet incense scent. A soothing, low cello melody echoed overhead. There was no musician in sight; the sound seemed to come from resonant pillars hidden within the walls, secretive and pervasive.

Beyond the empty hall, the throne sat high above.

The man seated upon it wore a dark crimson velvet coat, its collar open to reveal his shriveled chest. His eye sockets were deeply sunken, dark circles heavy beneath his eyes. Holding a glass of red wine, he looked down at Rain from above. A pirate with a bounty of eighty-five million Beli—"Dreamweaver" Odel.

Below the throne steps lay a bloated middle-aged man dressed in an extravagant gold-threaded robe. He clutched a rag in his hand, his rear raised as he painstakingly wiped the smooth marble floor inch by inch. He worked with great care, and when he looked up, his face wore Siswal's distinctive standard smile.

He was the nation's original king. Once the ruler of a country, he was now like a house dog begging for scraps and wagging its tail.

Odel swirled his wineglass, and the red liquid traced an arc along its inner wall.

"Welcome to the Elysian Court, traveler from afar. I am the master of this country, 'Dreamweaver' Odel." Odel's voice was hoarse, carrying undisguised arrogance.

Rain stopped ten paces from the stairs. His gaze swept over the king on the floor before finally settling on Odel's face. "I took the money. But I don't like this kind of atmosphere for a meal. If we're talking business, get to the point."

"Young people are always impatient." Odel chuckled, rose from his throne, and spread his arms wide. "What do you see? Look at this country. No crime, no sorrow, no quarrels. Every citizen is immersed in eternal happiness. This is the perfect world that countless kings and pirates dream of."

Rain's gaze remained calm. "All I see is a bunch of puppets who can't even cry."

"That is because you do not understand the power of a smile." Odel descended two steps, his eyes gradually turning fervent. He walked to a candelabrum and stared at the flickering violet flame.

"In the New World, I witnessed real monsters." Odel's voice dropped, carrying a faint, barely perceptible tremor. "The skies there always rained fire, and the sea could split open at any moment and swallow entire fleets. In those waters, human lives were cheaper than seaweed. The Haki of the Emperors of the Sea could even shatter a person's sanity. I lost every one of my crew there, leaving me with nothing but despair."

Odel turned around and stared fixedly at Rain.

"Then, when I escaped, I heard an ancient legend. In the future, there would be someone who could bring laughter to the world. According to the legend, he was destined to become the Pirate King. As long as I could keep enough people smiling and gather that intangible laughter into fortune, I would become the new Joy Boy. Siswal is merely the first step in building my empire of laughter."

Looking at Odel's face twisted by excitement, Rain felt only disgust. He had thought he would be facing a calculating, far-sighted ambitious man. Instead, he had found a deranged madman.

"Are you done?" Rain sighed and slipped his hands into his cloak pockets.

Odel's smile stiffened.

"I thought a pirate who came back from the New World would have something more constructive to say." Rain raised his head and met Odel's eyes. "You call those laborers whose nerves you've locked away, who have even lost their sense of pain, 'laughter'?"

"That is merely the price of laughter," Odel retorted coldly.

"Stop flattering yourself, Odel." Rain's voice turned cold as well, tearing apart the other's disguise word by word. "You're not chasing some legend at all. Those monsters in the New World broke your spine and scared you out of your wits, so you tucked your tail and fled back to Paradise like a beaten dog."

Rain took a step forward and stared into Odel's suddenly constricted pupils.

"People know danger because they can feel pain; they know joy because they know sorrow. By cutting off their senses, you've done nothing but create piles of flesh. You're afraid of real powerhouses, so you hid on this closed-off island. You use your Devil Fruit ability to control these unarmed civilians and force them to smile at you, all to hide the fear in your heart. You're no savior. You're just a pathetic wretch without the courage to face failure."

"Shut up!" The muscles at the corners of Odel's eyes began twitching, and red wine spilled from his glass onto the back of his hand.

"What, did I hit a sore spot?" Rain refused to yield an inch. "Using fake smiles to bolster your courage—only trash like you could enjoy playing such childish games. And you dare compare that garbage to the legendary Pirate King? Aren't you ashamed?"

The air in the hall seemed to freeze.

The king lying on the floor and scrubbing it was still smiling, as though he could not hear the tension between the two men at all.

Odel stared at Rain without blinking. A few seconds later, he suddenly drew a deep breath. The rage on his face swiftly faded, replaced once more by that hypocritical smile.

"What a sharp tongue." Odel casually threw his wineglass to the floor, and the sound of shattering glass echoed through the hall. "I originally thought that someone strong like you would understand my greatness. Since your mind is so stubborn, I can only help you wash that brain of yours myself."

As Odel's words fell, the environment within the hall began to change subtly.

The candle flames on the surrounding walls suddenly shifted from pale violet to ghostly blue. The cloying incense in the air became rich and pungent, rushing straight into the brain through every breath. Meanwhile, the once-soothing cello melody abruptly accelerated, turning into an oppressive rhythm like a beating heart.

Rain frowned. Just as he was about to use the Rock-Rock Fruit's ability, he suddenly felt a wave of dizziness wash over his mind.

"Have you noticed? Too late."

Odel's voice became elusive, as if it were coming from every direction at once. His pupils dilated, and rings of pale violet ripples emerged in the whites of his eyes.

Paramecia, Suggestion-Suggestion Fruit.

This was not simple hypnosis. Odel had perfectly fused the frequency of his voice with the hall's specially made incense and musical sound waves. It was a full-scale invasion targeted at the human nervous system. From the moment Rain entered the hall, this invisible net had already been spread.

Rain's vision began to blur. The walls of the hall seemed to turn into some kind of soft-bodied creature, constantly twisting and writhing. He tried to raise his right hand, but when the command from his brain reached his muscles, it became incomparably sluggish. Though his hunter's instincts were screaming warnings, his body's physiological response to the drugs and sound waves could not be fully eliminated.

"Let down your guard."

Odel's voice carried an irresistible magic, like invisible threads forcibly drilling into Rain's mind.

"This world is full of suffering. Why be a hunter living on the edge of a blade? Stay here and cast aside those troubles. As long as you smile, all pain will disappear."

Illusions began invading Rain's subconscious. He seemed to see the peaceful little town in the West Blue where he had once lived, a house piled high with gold coins, and even hear someone gently whispering in his ear, urging him to stop resisting and sink into this comfort.

Watching Rain stand there with his body swaying slightly and his eyes gradually losing focus, Odel finally let out a triumphant laugh.

"That's it. No matter how strong your body is, as long as you're human, inside my Elysian Domain, your brain can only obediently obey."

Odel walked down the stairs step by step, heading toward Rain. As long as he completely crushed Rain's psychological defenses, he could use his Fruit ability to issue absolute commands and gain the strongest guard dog.

Inside the hall, the music grew more and more frantic, while the incense scent reached its peak. Rain's head gradually lowered, and he seemed to have completely fallen into the dream Odel had woven.