Your laughter is nauseating.
Allen's words were like cold awls, piercing through the truth beneath Doma's comical mask. After a brief moment of fear, Doma's face revealed the humiliation and anger of having his truth exposed, his fixed smile twisting into a ferocious arc.
"Disgusting? What do you know!" Doma's voice lost its pretense, becoming sharp and fanatical. "This is the ultimate art! To gather the insignificant, fleeting joy of the tiny individual into eternal, immortal energy! This is sublimation! This is evolution!"
He suddenly waved his hand, pointing to the pulsating Emotional Energy collector. "Look at this power! So pure, so powerful! Soon, it will fill the final scale! At that time, the will of 'that' slumbering beneath the ritual pedestal—the ancient demon god who governs 'pleasure' and 'feast,' the ' Lord of Feasts,' Baburon —will return to the world with the aid of this ultimate offering of joy!"
" The Lord of Feasts... Baburon?" Allen's gaze swept over the ancient stone platform, its patterns now faintly glowing from the energy gathering above. His senses penetrated deep beneath the platform, and he indeed felt a sealed, vast, chaotic, and greedy will. It craved not destruction, but an eternal, all-consuming "feast" and "pleasure," until it turned the entire world into its feast!
"That's right!" Doma opened his arms wide, as if embracing a great future. "After Lord Baburon awakens, he will lead us into an eternal era without sorrow or pain, only endless revelry! And I will become the messenger of this new era! As for you ungrateful insects..."
A cruel smile spread across his face as he pressed a button on the control panel.
"Let your souls be the final appetizer offered to Lord Baburon! The ultimate emotional bomb—'A Joy and Sorrow Intertwined '!"
Buzz--!
The entire control room, and even the entire Hall of Laughter, was enveloped by an extremely strange mental force field! This force field was not a single emotion, but rather it forcibly mixed together two completely opposite emotions, extreme ecstasy and profound sorrow, like a blender, and frantically poured them into Allen's mind!
This is Doma's trump card, enough to cause any being with a weak mind to have their consciousness collapse and their soul to be torn apart in an instant!
However, Allen simply stood there quietly, without even the slightest fluctuation in his eyes. The emotional storm that could drive an ordinary person mad was shattered and vanished without a trace when it touched the " Absolute Silence " domain constructed by the Power of Zhulong on the periphery of his soul, just like a wave crashing against a reef.
"Is that all?" Allen said calmly, as if he were merely brushing off some dust.
Doma's sinister smile froze completely, his pupils contracting in utter shock. His ultimate emotional attack, the weapon he was renowned for, capable of even influencing the minds of the strong, had... had absolutely no effect?!
"It seems your 'feast' is destined to never begin."
Allen stopped wasting words. He raised his hand, not pointing at Doma, but directly at the huge Emotional Energy collector and the ancient stone platform beneath it.
It's time to end this twisted feast.
Doma's ultimate emotional attack was like a stone thrown into the sea, failing to shake Allen in the slightest. The twisted, maniacal laughter on his face froze completely, replaced by a fear as if witnessing Abyss. The power he relied on to maintain everything, even the power he thought he could use to become a god, was so vulnerable in the eyes of his opponent!
"No... this can't be! You're a monster!!" Doma screamed hysterically, trying to activate other self-destruct or defense programs on the console.
But Allen didn't give him another chance.
In his raised palm, there was no dazzling light, nor any violent surge of energy, only an extreme stillness gathering. It was not physical stillness, but rather the conceptual meaning of "end" and " Return to Nothingness ". Torch Dragon, who controls light and darkness and time and space, was now using the power of laws that leaned towards "darkness" and "end".
He gently pressed the collector that was constantly pulsating and gathering a massive amount of Emotional Energy, and the ancient stone platform beneath it that began to tremble violently, as if it had a premonition of something.
There was no sound, no explosion.
Starting from his palm, an invisible, absolute ripple of "silence" spread out.
The vibrant, surging Emotional Energy, upon contact with the ripples, vanished silently, like words erased by an eraser. It wasn't dispelled, nor purified, but rather its very existence was directly negated, returning to nothingness.
The enormous Emotional Energy collector, a complex construct made of countless intricate crystals and pipes, abruptly halted the surging energy flow within it. The entire structure seemed to have undergone billions of years in an instant, its colors dimming and its patterns blurring. Then, like a weathered sand sculpture, it quietly collapsed, turning into a pile of grayish-white powder devoid of any energy response.
Immediately afterwards, that "silent" force touched the ancient stone platform below.
"Buzz--!"
The stone platform let out a final, unwilling cry, its shimmering patterns desperately lighting up in an attempt to Resistance, to communicate with the sealed will of the demon god beneath the earth. A terrifying aura, filled with endless greed and hedonistic desires, suddenly seeped out from beneath the stone platform, causing the entire control room and even the entire island to tremble!
"Lord Baburon!!" Doma cried out hoarsely, as if grasping at the last straw.
However, this dying struggle was meaningless in the face of Allen's power of law, which contained the meaning of "ending".
Silence rippled across the stone platform.
The mournful cry from the stone platform abruptly ceased, the shimmering patterns instantly extinguished, and the demonic aura attempting to break through the seal seemed to be choked, letting out a silent wail before being forcibly suppressed back into the depths of the earth. Furthermore, the ancient seal was further reinforced by Allen's power at this moment, becoming even more unbreakable, as if covered by a layer of eternal "silence."
Baburon, the Lord of Feasts, once again fell into an even deeper slumber, one that was almost impossible to awaken.
Having done all this, Allen slowly withdrew his hand, as if he had only done a trivial matter. In the control room, only the remnants of the collector, the completely dulled stone platform, and Doma, pale as death and slumped on the ground, remained.
Outside, the deafening music and the clamor of the crowd abruptly ceased.
With the continuous extraction and amplification of Emotional Energy gone, the eerie force field enveloping the entire island vanished instantly. Those who had been forced to remain at the peak of euphoria awoke as if from a dream, their heightened emotions quickly subsiding, their faces revealing bewilderment, exhaustion, and... genuine expressions with various subtle nuances. They looked at each other, some confused, some relaxed, and some even feeling a wave of exhaustion from their previous excessive excitement.
The fake, manipulated celebration has come to an end.
Allen walked up to the collapsed Doma, looked down at him, his eyes showing no joy of victory, only a calm.
"You see," Allen's voice remained calm, "Without that machine, people will still laugh and feel happy, but those will be their own, genuine emotions. And the 'eternal feast' you seek is nothing but... empty noise."
Doma stared blankly at the ceiling, muttering, "It's over... it's all over..."
Just then, the door to the control room was suddenly pushed open, Luffy, Ace, and the others rushed in, their faces showing a mixture of lingering excitement and obvious confusion.
" Allen! What happened? The music suddenly stopped!" Luffy shouted.
Ace stared sharply at the Doma on the ground and the wreckage in the room. "It seems there really was something wrong with this celebration."
Nami looked at the pile of powder with heartache. "That shiny machine... wasn't it very valuable?"
Robin gazed thoughtfully at the ancient stone platform. "An ancient seal...?"
Allen looked at his companions and said simply, "The celebration is over. True joy should not be built on plunder and falsehood."
The adventure on Vista Island ends with the thwarting of a conspiracy against "happiness." Although the grand revelry is over, a more authentic and peaceful atmosphere begins to permeate the island.