The purple mist concealing his body dissipated, revealing the half-human, half-serpent man within.
Unlike the Setting Sun Body, the Venom Form's Gear 3 made Bazel's appearance closer to 'reality'.
Roaming the seas in the name of natural disasters, bestowing calamity with the body of a natural disaster.
This is the true Yamata no Orochi.
Reflected in Loki's widened pupils was the figure of a half-human, half-serpent being.
The whites of his eyes were gone, replaced by a crystalline purple.
Two incomplete vertical pupils were embedded within, adorned with dark gold accents that only enhanced the sense of ruthless killing.
The white hair at the back of his head elongated, growing until it reached his waist before gradually stopping, tied at the end with a strip made from an unknown creature's skin, forming a hanging ponytail.
His upper body remained humanoid.
From the navel down, a serpent's tail covered in white scales replaced his legs.
The serpent tail was over ten meters long.
At its end hung a small, exquisite soul lantern, burning with a green flame.
If one looked closely, they could see constantly rising skeletal phantoms within the flickering, rolling flames.
"Heaven's Gate!"
As Bazel spread his arms and embraced the sky, the soul lantern at the end of his tail blazed with light!
A massive gate made of semi-transparent, gold-inlaid stone material slowly materialized from nothingness.
The gate opened, first releasing thin poisonous gas that 'flowed' out, creating an ethereal atmosphere of a 'false heaven'.
What followed were roars filled with endless resentment.
The first flesh-and-bone skeleton walked out, followed by a second, a third...
"These!?"
Loki instinctively took several steps back, sucking in a cold breath.
Everything happening before him was truly horrifying.
He had never heard of any Devil Fruit capable of creating this kind of, this kind of…
This kind of dissonance!
Clearly, the move was named Heaven's Gate, so shouldn't it unleash a sacred technique akin to the real heaven?!
But the 'heaven' summoned by Bazel was definitely only 'superficial'!
Only that gate looked sacred!!
What it summoned couldn't be further from sacred… it didn't even come close to the word 'pure'.
Those decaying skeletons mingled with flesh and nerves stumbled out of the Heaven's Gate, then stood guard around their master like soldiers.
When the last one walked out, the Heaven's Gate slowly closed and faded back into the void.
But upon seeing the half-face of the last figure, Loki could no longer contain his horror.
"World Destroyer, Byrnndi World!!!"
"Why is he in your army of the dead!?"
"What exactly is poison? I've been pondering this question."
Bazel, answering a different question, straightened his body. His ten-meter serpent tail lifted him high.
"The purpose of poison is nothing more than to kill. But at the end of this path, why can't it be used to save people?"
Bazel's expression at this moment was devoid of joy or sorrow.
Even though an army of over a thousand knelt beneath him, Bazel showed no signs of pleasure or arrogance.
This was a world of difference from the state of Setting Sun Body.
Bazel could even clearly feel a baffling sense of pity arising within him.
Venom Body Gear 3: Lord of Naraku. After he perfectly mastered the deified techniques of the Setting Sun Body, the Venom Body Gear 3 naturally unlocked.
Initially, Bazel didn't think much of it, assuming his body and soul had simply reached the threshold to unlock the Venom Form Gear 3.
But during private research, Bazel discovered something was off.
As the dream-entering stage of the Yamata's Phantom gradually completed, the deification of the Gear 3 was born. It was only then that Bazel understood.
It wasn't that the Setting Sun Body unlocked the Venom Form Gear 3, but that the dream-entering influence of the Yamata's Phantom affected the Venom Form's state.
His obsession with dream-entering and soul-hooking forced the Venom Form to break through into a brand new realm.
If the Setting Sun Body amplified the body's combat instincts, thereby qualitatively enhancing combat power, then the Lord of Naraku strengthened life… life referring not only to himself but also to those enemies he had killed.
Poison, if used well, could not only kill invisibly, but also 'save people'.
Just like the Naraku's Poison.
Regardless of the process, Bazel had indeed 'revived those dead people'.
He brought them back from hell to reality, letting them live again.
This was the result.
As for why those revived lacked their pre-death consciousness... Bazel felt that being able to come back to life was good enough. Did they want to be greedy for more?
"Byrnndi World is just one of the many I've killed."
Bazel suddenly pointed forward with his right hand.
The previously silent flesh-and-bone skeletons suddenly raised their heads, two points of light igniting within their hollow eye sockets.
There is a hint of green in the crimson.
It just happens to echo the soul lantern on Bazel's serpent tail.
"Go forth, Angels."
Roar!!!
Unlike the Atoners, who were generally slow, the flesh-and-bone skeletons that emerged from the Gate of Heaven were not like the bodies of the living dead.
Most of their bodies were skeletal, with some bones wrapped in flesh or adorned with facial features.
At Bazel's command, these flesh-and-bone skeletons charged toward the enemy at a speed approaching Soru.
They clung to his calves and bit, but even more skeletons climbed up along the flesh and bone, attempting to attack Loki's vital points.
"Get off!!"
Conqueror's Haki erupted!
The skeletons clinging to his body were instantly blasted away.
Loki's face paled slightly.
As he retreated, he continuously called down lightning strikes with his hammer.
"You can kill ten, a hundred, but can you kill over a thousand of these?"
Suddenly…
An arm reached out from the purple mist beside him.
Bazel, who had maneuvered to Loki's side, flowed Armament Haki through his body, deflecting the enemy's attempt to punch him.
Then, his serpent tail wrapped around the enemy's ankle and yanked hard.
His entire body transformed into a boneless swimming snake, rapidly ascending along Loki's body. At the same time, his mouth opened, and countless streams of venom shot out.
"Venom Torrent!"
Boom…!!
Loki fell to the ground, intense pain from his left leg shooting into his brain.
But it was this very pain that sobered Loki up.
"This is it! If you didn't have this kind of talent, going to sea with you would be too boring!"
His left hand blocked in front, colliding with the advancing Bazel. Then, disregarding everything else, he grabbed the man's shoulders and slammed his head forward.
Bazel felt his vision sway. Before he could regain his senses, his entire body was thrown by a tremendous force.
Seeing the culprit temporarily unable to approach him, Loki quickly stood up, focusing on killing the so-called 'angels'.
By the time Bazel snapped out of his daze, more than half of the thousand-strong angel troops had been depleted.
"The reason they are angels is because they are immortal, Loki."
The flame within the serpent tail's soul lantern began to rage.
The skeletal fragments Loki had shattered suddenly began to tremble!
Then, under Loki's stunned gaze, those bone fragments started to reassemble and transform.
In mere seconds, they returned to their previous state.
Seeing this, Loki swallowed hard, decisively dropped his hammer, and sat down with a thud.
"I give up!"
"Even if I jump off Elbaf in the future, die from the fall, starve to death, or die of thirst, I will absolutely never fight you in this state again!!"
Looking at the cursing Loki, Bazel was momentarily stunned.
'This... just giving up like that?'
'I hadn't even fully tested all the abilities of Lord of Naraku...'
"Hey, hurry up and get this poison out of me!"
"I can feel my intestines starting to writhe, and my body's reactions have slowed down a bit. It must be your poison, right?"
Bazel slithered over to Loki, his expression complicated.
He suddenly remembered something.
Giants were different from humans. They had lifespans exceeding 300 years, with some long-lived individuals living even longer.
Therefore, the giants' concepts were also different from humans'. They only reached adulthood at 60 years old.
And the current Loki...
"Loki, how old are you?"
"Me?"
Looking down at Bazel, who was detoxifying him, Loki counted on his fingers.
"About... 34 years old?"
'34 years old.'
'If calculated based on giants reaching adulthood at 60, the current Loki was equivalent to a human child of about ten years old!?'
'I had been using this hidden mode to fight a ten-year-old kid for so long?'
Bazel's thoughts grew even more complicated.
Bullying a kid so openly was a first for him...
'What a headache. I forgot you giants only become adults at 60, right?'
Watching Loki's abnormally excited expression after the poison receded, Bazel felt his head throbbing.
When he initially wanted to invite Loki, it was purely because of the other's circumstances and combat power.
But he had overlooked the most important point.
That the current Loki was not the Loki of 29 years later.
He, was not yet an adult!