"Your struggles and cries can only be heard by us within this Holy Land."
A calm male voice with a hint of laziness suddenly echoed through the vast and cold laboratory hall.
Makino's body shook, and she quickly turned her head.
Accompanied by steady footsteps, a man slowly approached.
He possessed an extremely tall and imposing figure, yet his muscles were not bulky. Instead, they were balanced and well-proportioned, carrying a nearly perfect golden ratio.
Most striking of all was his face, as if it had been personally carved by a god. Handsome and attractive, it carried a charm powerful enough to make people lose themselves.
Makino swore that in all thirty years of her life, she had never seen a man this good-looking or this overwhelming.
The moment their eyes met, her mind, already clouded by despair, briefly went blank.
"Daddy!"
Just a moment ago, Shirahoshi had been standing above Makino, tormenting her mind like a demon. But the instant she saw the newcomer, the cold mockery on her face melted away.
Her graceful body, over two meters tall, immediately moved like the most obedient daughter. She hurried to the man's side and affectionately wrapped herself around his arm.
Hearing Shirahoshi's sweet form of address, Makino stopped breathing for a moment.
During the conflict at the tavern earlier, she truly hadn't known Shirahoshi's identity.
Perhaps Beckman and Shanks had mentioned it in anger, but her mind had been too overwhelmed at the time to remember.
But she clearly remembered the Saintess title attached to Shirahoshi's name.
It represented a genuine Celestial Dragon, a title only the rulers of the World Government could possess.
And now, a man whom a first-rank Celestial Dragon called "Daddy" with such affection... there was no need to think.
An answer that made the entire world tremble struck her like lightning.
"It seems you don't recognize me."
Rosse smiled slightly and allowed Shirahoshi to hold his arm.
Taking slow steps, he walked over to Makino and gently lifted her trembling chin with his long fingers.
Rosse looked down at the prey before him.
In terms of looks and figure, Makino would only rank slightly above average in the eyes of someone as experienced as Rosse.
However, the gentle and mature aura she had developed from years of running a tavern gave her a unique charm.
Normally, beauty at this level would be nothing more than a temporary novelty to Rosse.
But if this body carried the dual labels of "the guide of the Pirate King" and "the moonlight in Red-Haired Shanks's heart," then it became an entirely different matter.
For Rosse, physical pleasure was merely the most basic sensory stimulation.
What he truly enjoyed was the feeling of crushing the beliefs and dignity his enemies treasured most, placing them beneath his feet, then completely claiming them and marking them as his own.
"Your Grace... I'm sorry. I've always been an ordinary citizen living in a remote village in the East Blue. My world is too small. I don't have the ability or the qualification to know the name of someone as noble as you."
Makino's body trembled uncontrollably, and her teeth chattered.
Years of dealing with people in the tavern caused her body to react on instinct.
She lowered her head immediately and no longer dared look into his eyes, making herself as humble as possible.
Someone like this could not be offended.
She didn't even dare imagine a monster of this level, let alone resist one.
Suddenly, she remembered something that had happened many years ago.
Back then, she had gone alone to the capital of the Goa Kingdom to buy supplies for the tavern. Unfortunately, a fat local noble had taken a liking to her.
He had declared that he would take her away by force and had already started getting rough. Just when she was losing hope, the noble suddenly looked as though he had seen something terrifying and fled in panic.
At the time, she had only felt lucky and thought she had escaped disaster.
But now, recalling the surveillance file Celesta had just read out, she suddenly understood.
That noble had not let her go because of luck.
It was because... the gods before her had been watching this NPC who played an indispensable role in the script.
Perhaps her fate had truly been decided from birth.
"Your attitude isn't bad. Since you don't know, listen carefully."
Rosse chuckled. His voice seemed to carry some kind of power as it echoed in Makino's ears.
"My name is Jaygarcia Rosse. Engrave that name into your mind."
The moment he finished speaking, Rosse leaned forward slightly and pressed a kiss onto Makino's pale lips.
It was only a brief touch, yet it carried a sense of unquestionable possession.
Makino felt a loud crash in her mind. Her body shook several times as if struck by electricity, and her legs nearly gave out beneath her.
"Saint Rosse... You're the one who rules everything? The Lord of the World?"
Makino did not know Shirahoshi, but the name Rosse was as familiar to her as a nightmare.
Over the past ten years, this name had appeared countless times in the suppressed and angry conversations between Dragon and Shanks.
It had appeared so often that she could practically recite the story of how this man overturned the world and came to rule the World Government.
"Lord of the World? Heh! That's an interesting title. This is the first time someone has dared to call me that to my face. It's slightly offensive, yet surprisingly fitting."
Rosse laughed softly, and undisguised amusement appeared on his handsome face.
"Hehe! What's so difficult about that? If Daddy likes hearing it, I'll just give an order and gather all the Chosen Princesses in the Holy Land. They can kneel outside your palace every day and call you that nonstop."
Shirahoshi immediately moved closer like a caring daughter, her beautiful eyes filled with devotion.
"No need. Empty titles and slogans from puppets mean nothing to me."
Rosse laughed and affectionately rubbed Shirahoshi's smooth hair.
Watching this warm and harmonious interaction between father and daughter, Makino felt a deep sense of unreality.
So...
Inside the family of the World Government's highest-ranking nobles, whom Shanks and the others described as cold and merciless, family members could actually be this close?
Even if the content of their conversation was still impossible to accept.
After listening to Dragon and Shanks curse the Celestial Dragons as cold-blooded pigs for so many years, she had almost been convinced that these rulers were not human at all, but some emotionless species of monsters.
Yet the father and daughter before her, who interacted so naturally, had just effortlessly crushed all her and Shanks's hopes using the cruelest methods.
"Saint Rosse... what exactly did you mean by what you said earlier?"
After a brief struggle, Makino took a deep breath, suppressed her fear, and raised her head to ask.
Compared to the title of Lord of the World, she cared more about what Rosse had said when he first appeared.
Her cries had indeed only been heard by those in the Holy Land.
But she wanted her words to reach Luffy and Shanks.
She absolutely did not want to see Shanks and the others die. Not at all.
And now she clearly understood that she had become a Chosen Princess.
As the name implied, her personality, her body, and everything she possessed had already been completely offered to the man before her.
Since this broken body was destined to be taken and used by Rosse however he wished, what was wrong with making one bold request within this abyss?
At worst, she would anger him and die earlier, just like the predecessors who had been tortured to death.
People died eventually.
If her life could save theirs, she would have no regrets.
"It means exactly what it sounds like," Rosse smiled, "Since you've already witnessed the World Government's power and believe their resistance is nothing more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot."
"Then instead of letting them be crushed like insects, why not have you personally tear apart their illusions?"
"If you can successfully persuade them to lay down their weapons, I promise you that I can forgive everything they've done in the past."
"What, Daddy! How can you do that?"
The moment she heard Rosse's promise, Shirahoshi puffed out her cheeks and stomped her foot in complaint.
"If Luffy and Shanks surrender that easily, then all the surveillance and scripts we've arranged across the East Blue and the Grand Line will have been for nothing. That's no fun at all!"
Although Shirahoshi sounded dissatisfied, the sly look in her eyes showed she was merely playing along with Rosse's twisted sense of amusement.
As the daughter who understood him best, she knew exactly what her father truly wanted to see.
Not simple killing.
But the ultimate pleasure of giving hope and then destroying it.
"Really... is that possible?"
Makino felt as if she were hearing a ridiculous fairy tale.
An ordinary person with no strength at all was supposed to persuade Shanks and the Child of Destiny to surrender?
And if she succeeded, the World Government would truly forgive everything they had done?
Could something this good really exist in such a cruel world?
The offer was too generous.
So generous that she instinctively sensed something strange.
A completely absurd thought even surfaced in the depths of her mind.
'Could it be... that the all-knowing surveillance the World Government is so proud of is merely a bluff?'
'Maybe they are not as powerful as I imagine, which is why they need me to break Shanks's fighting spirit?'
"Heh! Put away that pitiful fantasy of yours. If you want proof that I have the right to forgive them, then eat this."
Rosse saw through Makino's thoughts at a glance.
But instead of becoming angry, he found it amusing.
With a crisp snap of his fingers, Rosse slowly opened his right hand.
A small piece of mysterious tissue appeared in his palm out of nowhere. It emitted a strange white light and seemed to pulse faintly.
It looked like a translucent piece of flesh, yet it gave off a sacred presence beyond normal biology.
"Th-this... what is this?"
Makino hesitated as she looked at the white tissue, no larger than a fingernail.
Just looking directly at the light it emitted gave her the urge to kneel and worship.
"This thing is called the Oken."
The smile on Rosse's face deepened.
"Eat it. It can allow a weak woman like you, who couldn't even restrain a chicken, to break through the limits of talent and instantly gain power comparable to Shanks."
This was a small piece of the Soul King's flesh.
Simply using this flesh to forcefully stimulate energy, without any training at all, could directly elevate Makino's mortal body to S-Class strength.
Of course, power gained through such forced growth came with a price.
After the transformation, Makino's body would completely lose its potential and ability to grow. For the rest of her life, she would never advance further through her own understanding.
But in Rosse's eyes, that hardly mattered.
For most ordinary people struggling at the bottom of society, this was already a blessing beyond their wildest dreams.
After all, the Soul King's peak potential was SSS-Class.
If Rosse were willing to invest more of its flesh and essence, he could even mass-produce SS-Class monsters.
And in the world of pirates, someone capable of reaching SS-Class through personal training might not appear even once in a thousand years.
"How could something like this possibly exist in the world?", Makino stared in shock.
But she soon gave a bitter smile.
She knew she had no choice.
Even if this were a legendary divine treasure, or a deadly poison that killed upon contact with blood, if it was an order from the man before her, she could only swallow it without hesitation.
Her trembling hand reached out and picked up the Oken.
Closing her eyes as though she had made a certain sacrifice, she placed it into her mouth.
The texture was strange.
It felt like an extremely delicate piece of meat, but before she could chew it, the tissue melted into a warm stream the moment it entered her mouth and flowed down her throat into her stomach.
BOOM!
A terrifying burning sensation erupted inside her body like a volcanic explosion, as though it would burn even her soul to ashes.
Makino felt her blood boiling. Every bone and every cell in her body was painfully torn apart, rebuilt, and healed under the flood of violent energy.
"So hot... it hurts..."
Sweating heavily, she curled up on the floor.
The overwhelming heat spreading from within made her instinctively want to tear off her clothes and release the enormous energy threatening to burst her apart through some intense form of movement.
Gradually, her consciousness became blurred.
At the same time, her once-dull senses were amplified countless times by that power.
She could clearly hear dust falling through the air and sense the heartbeats of researchers hundreds of meters away.
Then, in her hazy vision, the cold high-tech laboratory around her began to twist.
A dizzying feeling of space shifting followed.
When her back touched an incredibly soft silk bed, she had already been instantly transported into a gigantic palace so luxurious it left people speechless.
What followed was a long and frenzied evolution.
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