Just as Xie Wen and the cats continued on their way, playing around as they went, a presence abruptly appeared aboard the Toot Toot Forward.
Xie Wen and the others immediately stopped what they were doing and looked over together.
A bare-chested fellow wearing a white headscarf sat cross-legged on the Toot Toot Forward's railing. Instead of the white wings unique to Skypieans, he had a ring of drums behind his back like the thunder god of Japanese mythology, and a long staff made entirely of gold rested casually across his shoulder.
He also had a pair of long earlobes that hung all the way down to his chest, looking more like braids or the drawstrings of a hood.
With such a distinctive appearance, he could hardly have been anyone else. He was Sky Island's current "god," the user of the Logia-type Rumble-Rumble Fruit-Enel.
"..."
Enel, who had originally planned to give Xie Wen and the others a little "divine shock," felt slightly uncomfortable under so many simultaneous stares. But he soon regained his usual languid-or rather, disdainful-expression.
"Yahahahaha... So you know Mantra too. No wonder you could defeat my four Priests. In that case, you can become my Priests."
Enel showed no concern whatsoever that his subordinates had been taken out. Instead, he extended an invitation to Xie Wen and the others.
"I can forgive your earlier disrespect toward god, as well as your sin of joining forces with the Shandia and that old man Gan Fall to invade God's Island, and grant you special permission to accompany me to Endless Vearth in the future. Well, Blue Sea People? This is a blessing that many sky dwellers could never receive."
From what he said, the Shandia and Gan Fall had already landed on God's Island too, and were most