Chapter 183: Sequence Sublimation
Pff!
A member of the God's Guard was sent flying by immense force, crashing into a wall and instantly losing consciousness.
Kaito Shirogane was like an unstoppable beast. He didn't stop, charging straight into the shrine. The guards he encountered couldn't even pierce him with their spears; instead, he grabbed them one by one and smashed them against the walls.
But he had to admit, the life force of these ordinary people from the One Piece world was pretty strong. He had killed less than half of the people he'd encountered on his way in.
Soon, Kaito reached the central area of the shrine. He didn't find the last Priest, Shura of the Forest, but instead saw a person chained to a corner of the shrine with golden chains.
Bellamy. The pirate with a 55,000,000 Beri bounty, user of the Paramecia [Spring-Spring Fruit].
Tap, tap.
Kaito's deliberate footsteps woke Bellamy. He looked at this familiar, vicious man. This was the guy who had forced him to flee and spread the news about El Dorado, which led to his capture by that lightning monster.
Bellamy glared at Kaito, but he was in terrible condition, with large patches of charred skin. He was helpless as Kaito lifted him by the neck.
Kaito felt the muscles on Bellamy's neck. Honestly, his strength was pretty decent; his technique was just extremely crude.
"Bellamy, you have one sentence to convince me to spare your life."
The cold killing intent snapped Bellamy to his senses. He didn't understand. Why had this guy broken into the shrine? Why did he want to kill him? What was in it for him?
There were too many things he couldn't figure out. But when their eyes met, the indifference and cold killing intent in Kaito's gaze made Bellamy's mouth open and close several times, unable to spit out any tough words.
He had a strong gut feeling: if he said anything useless, this man would absolutely not give him a second chance to speak.
"I... I know about the Emerald City..."
Kaito had been ready to crush him. For Reincarnators, the most common value of a native character was the drop they might produce upon death.
But Bellamy had actually provided a piece of surprising information.
The Emerald City... That name had indeed appeared in the original story. Bellamy had listed it alongside [El Dorado] and the [One Piece], believing them all to be nothing but fantasies.
But now, [El Dorado] was real. [One Piece] had been confirmed to be real by Whitebeard. For Bellamy to mention the [Emerald City] now... it made Kaito hesitant to kill him.
"The Emerald City? You're planning to use a vague legend like that to save your own life?!"
Kaito's right hand tightened. Bellamy immediately felt an agonizing pain, as if his spine was about to crack. He struggled.
"No! I got a sea chart! It's marked with the [Emerald City]! I thought it was fake, but if [El Dorado] is real, then maybe... No, the Emerald City must be real too!"
"Where's the map?"
Kaito calculated the time. He suddenly yanked, breaking the golden chain from Bellamy's neck. Kaito kept hold of the chain, leading Bellamy deeper into the shrine.
Bellamy, knowing his information was his ticket to survival, struggled to keep up.
"The map is hidden somewhere in Mock Town! If you get me out of here alive and set me free, I'll give it to you..."
[You have triggered the hidden side-quest: The Legend of the Emerald City]
[Description: You have learned of the Emerald City, one of the sea's most precious treasures. Fulfill Bellamy's conditions to obtain the mysterious map.]
[Objective: Ensure Bellamy survives and reaches Mock Town.]
[Reward: Treasure Map: The Legend of the Emerald City (Extremely Rare)]
Kaito hadn't expected Bellamy to be carrying something of this value. He temporarily suppressed the thought of killing him.
He gripped the golden chain, like a hunter leading a hyena, and walked into the deepest part of the shrine.
This place was illuminated, glittering with gold. It was made entirely of gold. Kaito guessed he was close to [El Dorado] itself.
And there were no guards here. The atmosphere was strange. Kaito continued forward and finally saw Vergo, missing his right arm, embedded in a golden wall, his lower body sealed in gold.
His upper body was reinforced with Armament Haki, but his face was twisted, his mouth split open beyond a human's limit. New eyes had opened on his cheeks.
Bellamy's face changed when he saw this. He had seen this Marine before. The man was strong; he had fought his way into the shrine but was eventually captured by Enel. He never thought he'd end up like this, neither human nor ghost.
Kaito frowned. His appearance was clearly the result of that thing in the pyramid. But why would Enel do this?
He walked forward a bit further, entering a golden passage about 200 meters long. His expression changed.
In this passage, almost every ten meters, there was a "person" like Vergo, bound to the wall in gold. Without exception, all their bodies had undergone horrific mutations. The closer he got to the end of the passage, the more severe the mutation.
And the towering Heavenly Yaksha, Doflamingo, was imprisoned at the very end.
The once-proud Donquixote Doflamingo was now a hideous monster. His hair was gone, and his skin was covered in fine red scales. If not for the iconic pink-feathered coat on his upper body, Kaito wouldn't have been able to recognize him.
Bellamy clearly recognized Doflamingo, too. He was in disbelief. Once upon a time, Doflamingo was the very image of a true great pirate in Bellamy's eyes.
Vicious, cruel, powerful, and influential.
Doflamingo had fulfilled all of Bellamy's fantasies of a seafaring conqueror.
But now, even a man like that had been turned into a monster, twisting his body at the end of the passage.
Kaito understood. Enel was testing.
He was testing the range and intensity of the corruption from the monsters in the pyramid.
And this time, he used Vergo and Doflamingo, both of whom had Haki, to test if Haki could resist the corruption.
The result was no. Doflamingo, with all three types of Haki, was placed closest and was completely corrupted. Vergo, further away, was only partially corrupted.
Kaito ignored Bellamy's protests, dragging him into the passage.
"Guts... Guts... you've appeared again..."
The moment Kaito entered the passage, the voice returned.
Kaito didn't respond and kept walking.
Bellamy immediately felt sick. He clutched his head, feeling a sharp, needle-like pain.
"Guts... don't kill me... Have you forgotten? We fought Griffith together. We searched for the [God Hand] together..."
"You can't forget!"
"You said Roland was your friend! You said... even if you became the new king, you would never forget your friends... Guts..."
The voice grew more intense, more twisted.
[You are being eroded by the spectral realm. Performing Sanity Check...]
[Check Passed. You have resisted this erosion.]
The notifications flashed in front of Kaito. The erosion was becoming more frequent. Bellamy's consciousness was already fading; he was now being dragged forward purely by Kaito's strength.
Kaito's Spirit attribute was also touching its limit. The benefit of his balanced stats was that he had no weaknesses. His resistance to this anomalous corruption was quite high.
"Guts, it was your fault... It was all your fault..."
"If I wasn't trying to get you out of that miserable world... I never would have entered that inferno! I never would have been targeted by that guy..."
"No, in the end, it was the Captain's fault... 'We have to save everyone'... Then he should come and save me!"
Vmmm!
Following the unknown entity's shriek, a powerful shockwave hit. Kaito saw the world before him begin to blur and warp. He blinked, but the distortion remained.
Kaito shook his head, unsure if this was real or a hallucination from the mental erosion.
His assessment of this thing's danger level rose again.
"Run... run..."
Bellamy spoke, his voice slurring. Kaito looked down and saw Bellamy's tongue was starting to swell abnormally. Clearly, even a pirate of Bellamy's level had been corrupted after just a few minutes of being this close.
Kaito stopped, picked Bellamy up, and turned to leave.
As if hearing Kaito's retreating footsteps, the voice suddenly became more urgent, almost sobbing.
"Luffy... are you going to... abandon me again...?"
At that moment, Kaito's pupils shrank. He gathered ki in his hand and fired a Dodon Ray at both Doflamingo's and Vergo's heads.
Their heads exploded, but Doflamingo's body grotesquely regenerated and began to roar.
[You have killed Vergo. You obtained 2500 Dimensional Points.]
[You have obtained a Drop Card (Blue).]
Kaito left the shrine without looking back. He could still hear the terrifying gunshots from outside, but the cloud-splitting sword slashes were gone. He didn't know if Moon Fiend had escaped or been defeated.
Kaito brought Bellamy back to the white district. The little girl, Cindy, and Orkins weren't back; they were probably hiding somewhere.
"Hey, help me... my neck... it's so itchy..."
Bellamy pleaded weakly. Kaito just glanced at him. Small tumors were beginning to grow on his neck.
But Kaito had no time to deal with such a minor, non-lethal problem. He was rapidly organizing the intel from this operation.
The person locked in the pyramid calls himself [Roland]... a Reincarnator.
But can a Reincarnator really stay in a mission world for over two years? How many Singularities would that cost? Can any Reincarnator afford that price?
And... Kaito took out the severed arm. He finally knew who the probable owner was. Luffy?!
Kaito found it hard to believe. Even an awakened 'Nika' Luffy shouldn't theoretically exceed this world's upper limit by that much. How could he produce such a rare material?
Kaito suddenly remembered a rumor the Reincarnator known as [The Professor] had told him back in the Demon Slayer world.
"In the Nexus, we aren't the only Reincarnators from the real world..."
"Legend says there is an organization in this Nexus called the [Black King's Assembly]. It's a special meeting of Reincarnator teams, composed of 'Kings' who have had their entire worlds stolen from them. Their only goal... is to kill every Reincarnator who has committed an evil act."
Kaito thought back on this world's mission. When he entered, a Reincarnator deliberately started a fight, got team-wiped by Enel, and left Kaito in a -7 point disadvantage.
The second batch of Reincarnators was clearly stronger than his own, but the Nexus assigned teams based on batch. While he couldn't be sure if this new batch was split into warring factions, from this perspective, the Nexus was... not looking out for the weakest Reincarnators.
The second batch included [Moon Fiend] and [Flame Fiend], [Strong-tier] Reincarnators who had passed the first ladder and were famous in the Nexus. So, who would be in the third batch?
Kaito already had a sinking feeling.
He found this whole troublesome mission boring and irritating. He had no desire to get tangled up in 'justice' vs. 'injustice', or the moral arguments between Reincarnators and native characters.
"Unpleasant. Very unpleasant..."
Kaito stood up, radiating a terrible, vicious aura. He had a terrifying impulse to release the thing in the pyramid and let it corrupt everyone.
But looking at the food left for him on the table, he, for once, suppressed the impulse and sat back down.
Only now did he have time to check his loot and the Nexus notifications from the battle.
[Karma Points meet advancement requirement. Sequence promoting. Great Sin is manifesting...]
[Manifestation complete.]
[Great Sin Reincarnator Ex051, you may now unlock the 2nd-Rank Great Sin Sequence and proceed with Sublimation.]
[Sin of Pride (Sync Rate 84%): Sublimation requires Heart of Pride *1]
[Sin of Greed (Sync Rate 81%): Sublimation requires Heart of Greed *1]
[Sin of Betrayal (Sync Rate 77%): Sublimation requires Heart of Betrayal *1]
[Sin of Envy (Sync Rate 45%): Sublimation requires Heart of Envy *1]
[Sin of Lust (Sync Rate 8%): Sync Rate too low, cannot be unlocked.]
[Sin of Wrath (Sync Rate 53%): Sublimation requires Heart of Wrath *1]
...
(Note: Once a Sublimation choice is made, it is irreversible. The quality of the material does not affect the success rate. Once Sync Rate reaches 100%, consuming 10 Karma Points and the material will complete the Sequence advancement.)
The number of Great Sins listed here was far more than the usual 'Seven,' and many overlapped. Kaito looked at the crimson glow on his right hand. Then, to Bellamy's horror, he formed his hand into a spear and thrust it violently into his own chest.
(End of Chapter)