The wind screamed past the jagged rock walls, tearing at the dense canopy of the tropical rainforest and sweeping countless emerald leaves into the air, turning them into swirling green ghosts.
It passed through reef caves eroded by the waves, and at last-
Found Boer curled in a hollow in the rock, his body wrapped in nothing but a tattered curtain, and stripped away the thin layer of warmth lingering on his skin.
Cold and exhaustion dragged Boer's consciousness into an endless abyss of nightmares.
Boer's brow furrowed tightly, and cold sweat beaded at his temples.
The muscles in his legs spasmed violently beyond his control, as though he were still running for his life.
His chest heaved, his breathing as frantic as a battered pair of bellows.
"Keep running, brat."
An icy voice sounded deep inside his mind.
In the dream, he sat helplessly slumped on the ground, watching as the pirate with pale shells attached to his head and hair as tangled as seaweed spun his blade in a beautiful, deadly flourish and advanced step by step.
He scrambled backward on his hands, sand and grit scraping his palms raw, his murmurs and curses strangled in his throat by fear.
In an instant, a bolt of ghastly white lightning split his mental world with light!
The burly pirate's figure revealed its true face.
It was the face of a corpse left soaking in water too long, its eyes and nose rotted away to nothing but gaping black holes that radiated an utterly inhuman malice.
Another flash of lightning streaked past. A chilling blade flashed upward, and his arms parted from his body, yet still clawed futilely at the ground.
He struggled, grotesquely pushing his remaining upper body into a kneeling posture.
Rage and despair became an inhuman wail. Staggering like Don Quixote, Boer launched his final charge at the pirate.
In the dream, the thunderous roar stopped abruptly. His legs were severed at their roots, and before his body could fall, an icy steel blade pierced his chest with precision.
His vision spun wildly as the dark figure tossed him into the air like a piece of trash.
His final memory was of a blade wave tearing through space toward him. The upper and lower halves of his vision began to separate, and his consciousness plunged into darkness.
Power! I want power!! His soul screamed itself hoarse before it was extinguished.
"Heh... heh... it was a nightmare..." Boer jolted awake and curled up in terror, pulling the curtain tighter around himself.
Cold sweat soaked his thin clothes, leaving them plastered against his trembling skin.
Gurgle, gurgle. The thunder in his stomach dragged him back to cruel reality.
"A hunger dream... too." He closed his dry eyes and weakly shifted deeper against the cold rock wall, as though drawing a trace of warmth from the icy stone ridge.
"Power... power..." he repeated unconsciously. The despair of that nightmare felt so real that it seared his nerves.
Suddenly, as though grasping at a last straw, fragments of memory flashed through his mind.
He cried out inwardly, Deep Blue, add points! The night wind still howled, and the darkness remained as silent as a tomb.
"Panel, appear!"
"System! System, where are you?!" he called, on the verge of despair. Only the clamor of the waves answered him.
At last, he slumped forward and pressed his forehead against the rough rock. "Damn it... why... right, the world... is just like this."
Boer did not know that while he sank into despair and hunger, the scales of fate had quietly tipped inside the backpack beside him.
The last remaining apple, mottled red and yellow, was quietly undergoing a transformation that defied the laws of nature.
Black spots rapidly seeped across its skin as though alive, spreading into intricate, eerie spiral patterns.
Jet-black, lightning-shaped spikes rose above the patterns, and dark golden vine markings wound around them like living things.
The fruit itself began to swell unnaturally, until, at last, fine golden threads at its stem twisted together into a fierce, jagged lightning emblem.
Driven by hunger-born instinct, Boer struggled to lift the curtain off himself and grabbed the backpack.
The instant his fingers touched the object inside, a sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced seized him-not the temptation of food, but a pulse originating in his soul, a cold and powerful call.
With trembling hands, he lifted out the strange object. By a faint sliver of moonlight that had happened to pierce the dark clouds, he saw what he was holding.
"This... this is..." His pupils abruptly contracted, and his breath stopped.
"A Devil Fruit... power! Is this fate's arrangement and choice?" After the tremendous shock, an almost crazed joy surged in his heart.
He carefully examined the uncanny patterns on the fruit and began to laugh softly, bitterness and resolve mingling in his laughter.
"Interesting... something to do with electricity? In this pirate world where practically everyone is illiterate, for you to choose me... it's an honor for me, and for you too!"
He hesitated no longer. Opening his mouth, he bit down hard. An indescribable "stench" spread through his mouth.
The first mouthful of flesh slid into his esophagus, but instead of entering his stomach, it "dissolved" directly into the depths of his body like a drop of water falling into the sea, beginning to merge with every cell of his being.
Perhaps because of the strength brought by the overlapping souls of two worlds, Boer found that this legendary taste was still within the limits of what he could endure.
He chewed mechanically and doggedly until even the last of the stem had dissolved completely in his mouth.
What followed was an irresistible, overwhelming wave of exhaustion. His eyelids felt as though thousand-pound boulders hung from them, and his consciousness swiftly sank into boundless darkness.
Yet his body's transformation had only just begun.
He did not know how much time had passed-perhaps an instant, perhaps an eternity.
Boer suddenly "awoke" amid an unprecedented sensory storm.
He had not opened his physical eyes, yet the true face of the entire world crashed into his perception in a way he had never experienced before!
"I see it... I see it... the real world!" Beneath his tightly closed eyelids, a trail of clear tears mingled with blood and realization trickled down.
What a magnificent, boundless sight it was!
His "gaze" turned toward the sea. It was no longer a blue body of water, but an "unceasing tapestry of electromagnetic storms"!
Every rise and fall of the waves was accompanied by the violent twisting and quivering of countless deep-blue magnetic field lines, like an invisible deity playing the universe as a lyre, plucking the strings of its laws.
The instant the waves struck the reefs, dazzling white flashes erupted-the violent, gorgeous release of immense kinetic energy transformed into electromagnetic energy.
His perception stretched upward and touched that "blazing, eternal lord of the sun"! The sun was no longer merely a source of light and heat.
It was a golden giant god pouring terrifying torrents of energy into the universe at every moment. That electromagnetic storm, brimming with vitality, inspired awe and made him feel his own insignificance.
The torrents of energy struck Earth's ionosphere, splitting and refracting to form an even, gentle, sky-blue dome of radiance over the heavens.
Beneath the dome, fluffy cumulus clouds resembled immense electromagnetic lenses and reservoirs of energy, emitting soft white halos;
While the drifting cirrus clouds were like translucent veils of energy, through which the cold and darkness of deep space showed.
His perception sank downward, touching the earth beneath his feet.
The entire island, and even the depths of the planet beyond the reach of his sight, radiated a steady, majestic dark-red glow that pulsed as slowly as breathing!
This was the background radiation jointly composed by flowing molten rock in the core and the decay of radioactive elements-the rushing current of the planet's own vitality!
Its greatness needed no words.
This was the manifestation of laws, a poem of energy, the universe's ultimate, shiver-inducing splendor hidden beneath the surface of everyday appearances!
Yet this overwhelmingly vast gift was nothing short of torture for the human perception encountering it for the first time.
An ocean of information burst through the threshold of his consciousness in an instant, like floodwater breaching a dam.
His brain could not process this sensory torrent so far beyond its capacity, and his nerves lost contact at the brink of overload.
Fully immersed in this extrasensory vision for the first time, Boer had glimpsed a corner of the world's true nature. Before he could even gasp in wonder, he felt as though his skull had taken a heavy blow, and warm blood slowly trickled from his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth.
His body stiffened, his head lolled limply to one side, and he lost consciousness completely, collapsing among the icy rocks.
The night wind still wailed.
The tattered curtain lay over his young, bloodstained body, while in the deepest reaches of his darkened consciousness, a seed called "power" had quietly taken root.
At that moment, the gears of fate began to turn.
Before you continue