Rayleigh's Worldview Rebuilt

Su Yu's casual, faintly wistful voice echoed in Rayleigh's mind.

I'm almost ten thousand years old now. Almost ten thousand years old. Ten thousand years old...

For a moment, Rayleigh thought something must have gone wrong with his ears. Then he instinctively glanced at Su Yu, only to see him nod, confirming that Rayleigh had heard correctly. He really had said ten thousand years old...

Rayleigh opened his mouth. Faced with such a bombshell, his brain seemed to have crashed.

Ten thousand years! Not a hundred, not a thousand, but ten thousand! How far back did the world's history even go? Wait, did humanity even have ten thousand years of history? Rayleigh wasn't sure!

Was this really not a joke? Could humans actually live that long? Was there really a Devil Fruit that could give someone such a long life? Or was Su Yu even human?

Come to think of it, if Su Yu really had lived for almost ten thousand years, how powerful could he be? Was the aura he had unleashed just now really the full extent of his strength?

And his voice had sounded wistful just now. Wistful, my fucking ass!

For a while, all sorts of thoughts flashed through Rayleigh's mind, and shock swallowed every other emotion.

He didn't think Su Yu was lying to him. There was simply no reason to, and lying to him wouldn't benefit Su Yu in any way. So what Su Yu had said was probably true...

Su Yu considerately refrained from disturbing Rayleigh, giving him time to be shocked and then calm down. And honestly, seeing someone so stunned by something awesome about him felt pretty good! Was this the legendary art of showing off?

Still, Rayleigh was a seasoned powerhouse. Once the initial shock passed, he managed to calm down, though a trace of disbelief and surprise lingered in his eyes as he looked at Su Yu.

As far as Rayleigh was concerned, an ancient monster like Su Yu, who had lived for almost ten thousand years, no longer fell within the bounds of humanity.

"I can hardly believe it, young-Boss. To think you're already that old. I've been taking liberties with you all this time, hahaha."

Now that he knew Su Yu's true age, Rayleigh felt awkward about continuing to call him young man. Unable to think of a suitable form of address on the spot, he simply settled on Boss.

"It's fine. My actual age might be pretty high, but my mental age still matches my appearance. So you can treat me like a young man if you want~"

Rayleigh gave another wry chuckle. That day had left him with nothing but wry chuckles and shock, as though he were going to use up a lifetime's worth of astonishment in a single day. The revelations had been so overwhelming that he might find it hard to be surprised by anything ever again.

Before I knew your age and strength, I could treat you like a young man. Now that I know, how am I supposed to stay calm?

Rayleigh asked, "Boss, this might be a little rude, but I still have to ask. Are you sure you're still human?"

Su Yu thought for a moment, then said, "Actually, you can think of me as a god. In this world, I could indeed be considered one."

The main reason was that the One Piece World wasn't particularly high-level. With his current power, Su Yu could be called omnipotent here.

When Rayleigh heard the word "god," his first thought was of Sky Island's god, but that was merely the title of its ruler. His second thought was of the Celestial Dragons, those idiots who called themselves the descendants of gods. Clearly, though, Su Yu had nothing to do with either of them. So the god he meant... could he be an actual god?

Of course. He'd lived for almost ten thousand years, possibly longer than humanity's entire history. Could he be humanity's god? Had he created humans? Were Devil Fruits his handiwork too...?

Once again, all sorts of thoughts flew through Rayleigh's mind. Perhaps surviving the earlier shock had strengthened his tolerance, because this time he wasn't particularly stunned. After all, if Su Yu was a god, then everything he had done so far made perfect sense!

Though Rayleigh already believed him, he couldn't resist asking one more question.

"Boss, are you... are you truly a god?"

"Well, by my own standards, I'm not one yet. But in this world, I really can do anything. That should fit humanity's definition of a god, shouldn't it?"

Rayleigh was dazed for a moment. Indeed, if a being could do anything, then he could certainly be called a god. The young man before him was actually a god. Who could have imagined that?

If this news got out, it would probably shake the entire world!

No wonder. No wonder he could make such a bold claim and say outright that he could grant any wish. He was a god...

Then Rayleigh recalled a phrase the boss had repeated twice just now. "This world"? Why had he emphasized this world? Did he mean he wasn't from here?

So Rayleigh stuck firmly to the principle of asking whenever he didn't understand. "Boss, you said you could be considered a god in this world..."

Su Yu nodded. "That's right, this world. I'm not actually a native of this world. I came from beyond it..."

Su Yu then gave Rayleigh a thorough explanation of what a world was and told him that there were countless other worlds beyond this one.

That day, Rayleigh's worldview shattered completely...

Rayleigh suddenly felt that the world was immense, so immense that it frightened him. His own strength suddenly seemed insignificant. But then he remembered that he was only a native of this world. He couldn't even achieve absolute invincibility here, much less break through the barriers of his world and travel to others.

It was like an ant whose entire world consisted of its nest, perhaps including the little garden where that nest lay, or someone's backyard. That small patch of ground was all it could see, and the place where it would spend its entire life. Even if that little garden or backyard was no bigger than a single pixel compared to the whole Earth, even if all sorts of dazzling worlds existed beyond it, none of that meant anything to the ant.

And right now, Rayleigh was that ant. He gave another wry chuckle. Taking in such an enormous flood of information all at once had unsettled both his state of mind and his reason.

Knowing these things was no different from hearing a story. This was someone else's life, the boss's life, not his own. With that, he let it go and returned to being old Rayleigh, the coating craftsman who loved his drink.

Watching Rayleigh regain his composure so quickly, Su Yu nodded inwardly. A strong-willed man, unshaken by outside influences.