The Straw Hat Pirates also attempted a joint infiltration.
Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji stood back to back, simultaneously releasing their Conqueror's Haki. The three Conqueror's Haki combined, like an invisible giant hammer smashing down on the magic circle.
The shockwave barely penetrated the outer layer of black mist, but the moment it made contact with the magic array itself, an even stronger force rebounded from within the array.
The three were sent flying backward by the recoil from their own attack. Luffy rolled on the ground more than a dozen times, Zoro's sword flew out of his hand, Sanji coughed up blood. The three of them lay in the ruins, unable to get up for a long time.
"Damn it!" Sanji his fist on the ground.
"What the hell is this thing... We can't help at all." Luffy lay on the ground, his fists clenched so tightly they cracked.
Zoro picked up his sword, his arm trembling.
Within the magic circle, Roy's last trace of Conqueror's Haki Inazuma extinguished.
The black mist completely enveloped his body, leaving only a blurry human silhouette, like a statue swallowed by darkness.
Within the consciousness space, Roy's blue shield was crushed to its limit.
The light from those nineteen pairs of eyes almost burned through his vision.
His physical body was riddled with holes, and the Soul Fire was on the verge of being extinguished.
"Am I... going to end this...?"
Roy's consciousness began to blur, and the scene before him gradually faded.
Just as he was preparing to accept all of this, a very faint sound came from the depths of the black wasteland in his consciousness space.
It looked like something had cracked.
It was as if something that had been dormant for a long time had awakened.
At this moment, Roy's consciousness space was riddled with holes.
The blue shield was shattered, leaving only a thin layer, like a light bulb that had been smashed countless times, ready to go out at any moment.
The mental assault from the nineteen pairs of eyes continued relentlessly, without pause or mercy, as if determined to grind his soul to dust.
outside world,
Roy's right hand had turned completely grayish-black.
The color started at the fingertips and spread upwards along the veins, like black snakes crawling under the skin.
The grayish-black skin had completely lost all sensation, like a piece of dead matter cut off from one's own body.
The black mist continued to encroach.
With each step forward from his right hand to his wrist, and from his wrist to his forearm, Roy's control over the outside world weakened.
His left foot started too.
The numbness from the soles of his feet made him almost unable to stand, so he had to put all his weight on his relatively intact right leg.
"Is it really... coming to an end?"
Roy's voice was so hoarse that he could barely hear himself.
The light in the nineteen pairs of eyes grew brighter and brighter, and the mental attacks came crashing down like a tsunami.
His consciousness began to drift.
Fragments of memories in his brain flew past his eyes one by one, like photographs scattered by the wind.
He saw himself struggling to survive in the city, he saw the sea, and he saw his companions.
"I can't fall here."
Roy gritted his teeth, and the power of the Soul-Soul Fruit once again squeezed out a sliver of strength from the depths of his soul.
The blue flames flickered in the wind, seemingly about to go out, but never quite died out completely.
He can hold on for a while longer.
But only for a short while.
The sky above the consciousness space was completely covered by darkness, swallowing up even the last glimmer of light.
Just as Roy thought he was about to be completely swallowed by darkness,
Thump!
A sudden heartbeat came from inside my body.
It was clear, it was heavy, like something had slammed into his chest.
Thump!
A second sound followed immediately.
It was louder and more urgent than the first sound, like a war drum being struck from the depths of the soul.
"Thump! Thump! Thump thump!"
My heartbeat grew faster and faster, more and more violent.
It was as if another heart had awakened inside his body.
Just as the black mist was about to erode Roy's heart, in the very center of his chest, where his third heart was, an unprecedented power was pounding wildly.
That was the place where the Dark-Dark Fruit resided within him.
At this moment, the fruit seemed to be drawn by something, and after sleeping in this darkness for so long, it finally awoke.
With each heartbeat, a thick plume of black smoke erupted from Roy's body.
The black smoke billowed from his chest cavity like a volcanic eruption, first coming out in small wisps from his heart, then increasing in volume and intensity, until finally exploding from all over his body like black smoke.
The gray-black mist that was originally eroding his body retreated rapidly as if it had encountered a natural enemy when it came into contact with the newly formed black smoke.
The grayish-black patches on Roy's right hand faded rapidly, and the numbness that had caused him to lose sensation gradually returned.
The invading black mist, faced with the black smoke of the Dark-Dark Fruit, fled in disarray like Nezumi before a cat.
Meanwhile, within the space of consciousness,
Roy was panting heavily, cold sweat trickling down his forehead and dripping onto the ground at his feet.
He felt like a drowning person, being pulled back from the depths at the last moment before being swallowed by the sea.
"This is... the power of the Dark-Dark Fruit?"
Roy looked down at his hands.
Black smoke billowed from his skin, like a brand new suit of armor covering him.
Those smoke signals were different from the black mist of the magic array.
The black mist surrounding the magic circle was cold, decaying, and reeked of rot, as if it were rising from a corpse.
The black smoke released by the Dark-Dark Fruit is also pitch black, yet pure and violent, like a flame that has lost its color after burning to its limit, carrying a primal, unadorned desire for destruction.
This destructive urge is not evil.
It simply wants to devour everything.
Black mist, light, sound, energy—everything.
Inside the magic circle, Roy's skin, which had been invaded by the black mist, also began to change.
The grayish-black patches peeled off like charred paper, revealing intact skin underneath.
The Haki color rekindled, though still faint, it was no longer completely devoid of sparks.
Roy's eyes snapped open.
Two beams of pure black light shot out from the pupils, and the black mist within the magic circle seemed to have been touched by something terrifying, frantically scattering in all directions.
Black smoke billowed from Roy's seven orifices, from every pore, from every inch of his skin.
These smoke plumes, like black Tatsumaki, swirled around him, shredding and swallowing up any black mist that tried to approach.
The black mist within the magic circle began to stir.
They wanted to pounce again, to suppress this uncontrollable force.
But no matter how they surged, they could not break through the black smoke barrier.
Two forces, though originating from the same source, were completely different and were violently attacking Roy.
Like two unseen ferocious beasts tearing at each other, every second a large amount of black mist is swallowed or dissipates.