The anchor core transformed into a streak of light and disappeared into the depths of the dark purple crack. The pressure on the external battlefield, however, suddenly increased exponentially. The wounded Otherworldly Demons lord went completely berserk, its remaining tentacles flailing wildly, each strike causing ripples in space and a surge in the intensity of the interference with the rules.
"Ugh!" Usopp's special Seed turned into a string of meaningless mathematical symbols the moment it left the bowstring.
Chopper's Monster Point fluctuates in size, severely disrupting his body's stability.
Even Luffy's rubber body showed signs of localized, irregular hardening or overstretching, and Nika's laughter became somewhat distorted.
"We must hold on!" Jinbe roared, Fish-Man Karate - Secret Technique: Ocean Current Shoulder Throw! He used his physical body to manipulate the chaotic energy flow around him, forming a violent vortex that temporarily halted the Otherworldly Demons Lord's frontal advance.
Luo's ROOM space was extremely unstable under the strong interference of the rules. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, yet he persisted in performing microscopic spatial surgery, diverting and deflecting the fatal attack. "Room Scan... Its energy core circulation node has been found! At the intersection of the roots of the third and fifth tentacles!"
"Did you hear that, Moss Head?" Sanji kicked away a flying Otherworldly Demons that was trying to ambush him and shouted at Zoro.
"You don't need to tell me!" Zoro unleashed three sword strikes, Demon Aura Nine-Sword Style: Asura - Piercing Might! His figure transformed into nine ghostly shadows, piercing through the dense enemy ranks and striking directly at the core point exposed by the Otherworldly Demons Lord!
Meanwhile, inside the rift, Allen's consciousness is undergoing an unprecedented test.
His spirit was attached to the core of the anchor point, traversing the bizarre and chaotic currents of rules. There was no direction, no sense of time, only countless fragments of laws that conflicted, annihilated, and were reborn. Dark purple otherworldly energy, like a leech, constantly eroded the outer defense of the light sphere, attempting to assimilate it.
"Hold on... we're almost there..." Allen gritted his teeth, relying on the memory of the "path" he had previously explored, and painstakingly guided the light sphere to avoid the most dangerous turbulent areas. He could feel that his companions outside were struggling to hold on, and every second was incredibly precious.
Finally, a relatively calm area appeared ahead. The conflicting rules here had lessened, like a brief respite in the eye of a storm. This was the "singularity" he had found!
"This is it! Anchor, start!"
Without hesitation, Allen poured all his mental energy into the anchor core!
Buzz--!
The sphere of light suddenly burst forth with an unprecedentedly brilliant light, no longer a single color, but a balanced light containing interwoven golden threads of order and silver threads of Chaos! Countless intricate rule runes seemed to come alive, flowing out of the sphere of light and rapidly merging into the surrounding cracked barriers.
The dark purple otherworldly energy, as if encountering its nemesis, emitted a sharp hiss and frantically lunged at the Light of Balance, attempting to extinguish it. But this time, the Light of Balance displayed powerful inclusiveness and transformation properties. It did not directly destroy the otherworldly energy, but rather, like weaving a net, it entangled and decomposed it, then merged into itself, becoming part of the reinforced barrier!
The crack began to vibrate violently, and the barrier solidified and thickened at a visible speed. The unsettling dark purple quickly faded, replaced by a stable, shimmering silver-gray. The crack's expansion was forcibly halted, and it began to slowly contract!
On the external battlefield, everyone felt this change.
The once endless stream of Otherworldly Demons seemed to have been cut off, their numbers drastically decreasing. The Otherworldly Demons lord let out a roar of unwillingness and despair, its body becoming unstable, the dark purple light flickering erratically, as if it had lost its foundation.
"It's a success! Allen did it!" Nami cried tears of joy as she looked at the data on the instrument showing a sharp increase in the stability of the crack.
"A perfect opportunity!" Luffy's spirits soared, and his Gum-Gum Fruit powers were no longer severely hampered. " Gum-Gum - Giant Meteor Shower!"
Countless enormous fists rained down on the Otherworldly Demons Lord like a meteor shower, and Zoro and Sanji seized the opportunity to launch their strongest attacks, completely destroying its already unstable core.
With the lord's demise and the rift's stabilization, the remaining low-level Otherworldly Demons, like rootless duckweed, were quickly wiped out.
The star field has temporarily returned to calm. Although the largest crack has not yet completely closed, it has stopped expanding, and its surface is covered with a stable silver-gray light film, with no more alien energy seeping out.
On the deck of the Thousand Sunny, Allen slowly opened his eyes. His face was as pale as paper, and he was extremely exhausted, but his eyes were filled with relief. He saw that although his comrades were all injured, they were all looking at him with victorious smiles.
"We... did it..." he said weakly.
However, just as everyone breathed a sigh of relief, another unexpected event occurred!
A ripple suddenly spread across the anchored crack in the silvery-gray light membrane, and a cold, ancient, and emotionless fragment of consciousness echoed Allen the minds of Allen (as well as the perceptive Luffy and Robin ):
[Coordinates... Record... Barrier... Newborn... Unable to be devoured... Marked... Waiting...]
The fragmented information vanished in an instant, and the crack returned to calm.
"What was that just now?" Robin's expression changed slightly.
Allen sensed the lingering consciousness, his expression grave. "It's some kind of automatic reaction from that dying dimension. It recorded this reinforced 'coordinates,' realized it could no longer devour this place, but it... seems to have marked us, or this successfully defended point, as some kind of 'anomaly' requiring further processing."
This means that the crisis has only been temporarily averted, and perhaps one day in the future, a higher-level "cleaner" from that dying dimension may come following the marker.
The road to repairing the wounds of the universe remains long.
But at this moment, the Straw Hat Pirates has at least gained valuable time.
"Let them mark me then!" Luffy grinned nonchalantly. "When they come back, I'll just blast them away!"
Looking out at the countless other cracks in the distant Xinghai that still need repair, the Straw Hat Pirates's voyage is destined to be full of challenges and adventures.