Carrying his reflections on 'life,' the 'world,' and the series of 'propositions' that a 'human' must face—based on concepts like 'life,' 'the living,' and 'the dead'—Roy decided to give the 'natives' of this world a taste of 'extra-worldly' shock!
'Illusions originate from self-perception... And what exists within my perceived world?'
There was the Dream Path... the familiar Sea of Cognition... and the 'Gates' standing upon the sea's surface, each etched with different patterns representing different themed worlds...
Strictly speaking... 'I am the Gate, the Gate is me, and I am... Mr. Door!'
As a crimson hue flooded the boy's eyes, three black tomoe began to slowly rotate. Roy's consciousness submerged as he fixed his gaze on the Fake Ging. His lips moved slightly, soundlessly uttering: "Illusion: Unlimited Void."
Within his cognitive world, the wooden door leading to the Demon Slayer world—adorned with a demon mask hanging over the frame—suddenly flashed open a crack. Then... it opened slightly... halfway... until it swung wide open!
Using his own Nen as an anchor to carry the weight of the entire Demon Slayer world, Roy shifted his thoughts. Through imagination, he attempted to project himself into every 'tangible' and 'intangible' thing within that world. Subsequently, he compressed everything—the flowers and grass, trees and stones, humans and demons, houses and ponds, clouds and sun, meals and sleep—into a world-view spanning a mere 0.01 seconds...
Then, through the Sharingan, he cast it upon the Fake Ging!
From a distance of nearly a hundred meters, the Fake Ging looked at Roy with wariness. Suddenly meeting the boy's crimson eyes paired with the three tomoe, he instantly froze, falling into a state of total catatonia!
A swift cut through the curtain of rain as a swallow dove downward...
Amidst the churning misty fog, the Fake Ging blinked, and in that instant, the world changed.
He didn't know what had just happened; he had merely glanced at his opponent, and suddenly, he had become a white birch tree. He struggled violently, trying to move his limbs, causing the leaves to rustle against the trunk. The movement frightened away a woodpecker that had perched on him, attempting to rid him of insects.
The woodpecker flew away through the rain. The Fake Ging watched it, lost and bewildered. His thoughts turned, wondering, 'How did I suddenly appear here? And how did I become a tree?'
His consciousness flickered. When he came to again, he had become a stubborn boulder not far from the tree.
The rain washed over the stone's surface, cold and damp. He felt uncomfortable and instinctively wanted to shiver, only to discover dejectedly that he couldn't even manage a sneeze. Unwilling to submit and filled with dread, he struggled frantically once more. His consciousness flickered... and when he came to...
He suddenly found himself as a woodcutter wearing a bamboo hat with an axe tucked into his waist. Taking advantage of the last rays of light, he was rushing to cut wood and leave the mountain before dark. Standing by a stream, he looked at the reflection of a strange face in the water. Instantly, all the woodcutter's memories flooded his mind—his children, his wife, his worries, his joys, his sorrows... everything. It left him melancholy and dazed. Finally, he snapped out of it, abandoned his wood, and ran like mad, trying to escape this world. However...
Before he could run even a hundred meters, his consciousness flickered again. When he came to... he was positioned high in the sky, having become a mass of dark, heavy clouds. Above him was the brilliant sun, and within him was the rumbling of thunder, with lightning snaking around like electric serpents.
The Fake Ging 'opened his mouth' and roared. A bolt of lightning struck down, hitting a foraging wild wolf. The wolf foamed at the mouth and collapsed, twitching. The Fake Ging watched blankly, and then...
He became the rain, pouring down...
He became a woman, scrubbing clothes by a pond in a village...
He became a mule, letting out a shrill cry of pain as a peddler's whip struck him, galloping in agony. Then, he became a man-eating demon, slipping into a household under the cover of night to bite through a human's neck, feeling the spray of hot blood. He became a Demon Slayer, following a Pillar to hunt demons... He became Gyomei Himejima... he became Kagaya Ubuyashiki... he became Muzan Kibutsuji, cowering inside an Infinity Castle where one couldn't tell north from south, seeing that familiar face in his heart that made him feel terror and resentment, wishing for that person's immediate death...
'It's him... it's the person I was fighting... he's the one who threw me into this world!'
Having become Muzan Kibutsuji, he clutched his chest, realizing everything in a fit of gritted teeth. Then his consciousness flickered again. This time he became Nakime, then Kokushibo... then Doma... then Gyutaro... then Tengen Uzui... then Muichiro Tokito...
He was like an alien soul trapped within the Demon Slayer world, constantly rotating through lives, wanting to escape but unable to. He could only passively and lonely accept the Demon Slayer world Roy had forced upon him. His consciousness constantly cycled between 'wandering' and 'being lost,' slowly sliding into the abyss of collapse.
The ocular technique, fueled by Nen, continued to operate.
At the Hunter Association.
Wing keenly noticed that the Fake Ging had suddenly stopped moving. His clear eyes, hidden behind his glasses, instinctively drifted toward Roy. The moment he met Roy's crimson Sharingan with the slowly rotating three tomoe... for some reason, a wave of fear washed over him, causing him to stumble back two steps. His back was caught by a small hand reaching out!
"Don't panic, he isn't targeting you." Biscuit supported Wing. Well, there was no need for the old man to explain; based on the three tomoe appearing in the boy's pupils... the old woman narrowed her eyes and instantly judged that these were definitely not the Scarlet Eyes known as one of the world's seven most beautiful colors.
'It's a pair of eyes that has never appeared before... they look even rarer than some gemstones.' Biscuit's beautiful amber eyes flickered with a ripple of emotion. She turned her head to look at Netero. "Old man, do you see what's going on?"
In a corner of the floor, Netero—with his topknot tied high and Buddha-like ears adorned with two studs in imitation of the youth fashion—took the black tea refilled by Beanman but seemed to forget to drink it. Those eyes, weathered by time and having seen all the affairs of the world, eyes that were usually calm and unmoved by external things, were now staring intently at the screen. Rarely, they flashed with a sharp light!
The old man took a sweep of the room; it wasn't just the Fake Ging who had stopped. In several battlefields split within the No Man's Land, the opponents facing Ging, Razor, Gotoh, and Elena—the Fake Razor, Fake Gotoh, Fake Elena, and that magical beast that looked like an elephant but had a membrane for a face, suspected to be an Elephant Baku—all stopped moving the moment Roy revealed his Sharingan. Their eyes rolled back, and they fell into a dazed state.
"Humans only freeze like that when faced with a powerful ideological shock."
"Ho ho ho... it's not that they don't want to move, they simply cannot move."
Amidst the rising steam from the tea, the "strongest human" with his extraordinary insight spoke. Looking closely at the Fake Ging and Fake Razor on the screen, it reminded him of when he, Linne, and Zigg first entered the Dark Continent and were ambushed by a Sandworm; he too had experienced such a moment of daze in a very short span of time.
"Ideological shock..." Wing repeated the phrase while leaning against Biscuit's small but powerful hand. His forehead grew warm as Biscuit grabbed his cowlick and gave it a rub.
"He's talking about perception," Biscuit said, narrowing her eyes as she studied Roy's Sharingan. "For them to be stunned, they must be seeing something that exceeds their understanding."
"Exceeds their understanding?"
"Correct."
Curiosity piqued, Wing peeked at his master and then at his grand-master. The latter was stroking his beard, eyes glowing as if... he were eager to try it himself?
Wing's throat moved as he quietly swallowed. He looked back at the screen.
Inside the ruins of the church, as the Fake Razor, Fake Gotoh, Fake Elena, and the Elephant Baku all stood frozen...
Ging, Razor, Gotoh, and Elena were clearly taken aback, immediately noticing the abnormality of their opponents.
'What's going on?'
'Why did they suddenly "crash" like a dead computer?'
Elena, who was circling the Elephant Baku, seized the opportunity after a moment of daze. She quickly manipulated her Buttons wrapped in Ten and pierced through the Elephant Baku's body. A mist churned, and the Elephant Baku dissipated into a wisp of smoke. Following that, the girl's vision blurred. When she came to, she had fallen out of the No Man's Land and returned to reality.
Three soft pops followed in quick succession.
Ging, Razor, and Gotoh each fired a Nen bullet, killing the Fake Razor, Fake Gotoh, and Fake Elena. Consequently, the illusion was broken, and they returned to reality. They glanced at each other and collectively turned their gaze toward the figure standing at the very front—a figure that wasn't particularly tall but was exceptionally upright.
"Young Master..." Within those blood-red pupils, three tomoe were slowly rotating. Gotoh reached Roy's side first. The moment his long, narrow eyes—which often carried a hint of gloom—met the boy's gaze, he froze in place, stopping his footsteps just in time.
"It seems this is his... masterpiece."
"You'd better not touch him."
Ging and Razor walked up, simultaneously noticing Roy's abnormal state.
The man reached up and pressed down on his hood to cover his messy hair. He warned Gotoh, his gaze lingering deeply on the boy's blood-red eyes for a moment. With his hands tucked into his pockets, he waited quietly to the side, taking the opportunity to scout the surroundings for the 'person behind the scenes.'
Nearby, Elena had already summoned her Nen ability, Global Control, using En to explore the ruins. Further in, Razor and Gotoh flanked Roy on the left and right, forming a protective formation.
At the Hunter Association, the screens for Ging, Razor, Gotoh, and Elena all vanished, leaving only Roy. He stood within the No Man's Land, his Sharingan active as he savored the effects of Unlimited Void. Without haste, he released his En and split off a Heart Insect to invade the Fake Ging's mind along the thread of causality.
Unexpectedly, the Fake Ging exploded with a bang!
Even the Heart Insect was blown into ashes along with him!
Roy was startled as a panel prompt appeared.
[MONSTER ENCYCLOPEDIA HAS UNFOLDED...]
[DETECTED A SLIVER OF "POST-MORTEM NEN OF A MAGICAL BEAST"... SPECIES TALENT NEN ABILITY EXTRACTION COMMENCING...]
[REMARK: ELEPHANT BAKU (POST-MORTEM NEN)... RATING: A]
[MANIFESTED AURA: B-: 780,000 / 1,000,000]
[POTENTIAL AURA: A: 5,640,000 / 10,000,000]
[EVALUATION: DUE TO THE LINGERING OBSESSION AFTER DEATH, A FRACTION OF POST-MORTEM NEN REMAINS. POWER IS LESS THAN ONE-TEN-THOUSANDTH OF ITS LIFETIME STRENGTH.]
Roy's heart jumped into his throat as he fell out of the No Man's Land. Alarm bells rang in his mind.
He exchanged looks with Ging, Razor, Gotoh, and Elena. Together, they looked toward the very front of the church, before a broadsword thrust into the ground.
There sat a skeleton alongside a massive elephant corpse. Across the rows of seats, they watched the group quietly. Two clusters of pale green ghost-fire suddenly ignited within the skeleton's hollow eye sockets. At that moment, a faint sigh carrying the vicissitudes of ages drifted into everyone's ears.
"Please forgive Airavata. It... just didn't want you to disturb my slumber."
The floor vibrated, causing the seats to clatter. Before Roy, Ging, or Razor could react, the skeleton gently patted the elephant corpse beside it to signal it not to be anxious. With a wave of its hand...
Accompanied by a vast, ancient trumpeting of an elephant...
The church, with its magnificent dome nearly a thousand meters high, seemed to come alive in an instant.
Opening its mouth, it 'spit' Roy, Ging, Razor, Gotoh, and Elena out as 'uninvited guests'!
The tall stone doors, engraved with various reliefs, slammed shut. Just before they closed, Roy locked eyes with the skeleton through the narrowing gap.
Amidst the flickering green ghost-fire, the skeleton deeply engraved the boy's appearance into its memory. Then, another soft sigh surfaced in Roy's heart.
'Ai... I have met your brother.'
'Could it be that even you failed in the end?'
Roy's pupils shrank. He looked again, but the doors were shut tight, cutting off his vision. Only the boy, Ging, and Razor remained, staring blankly as the mountain-like church vanished inch by inch, as if an eraser were rubbing away lead-gray sketches. Before their eyes, it used a method of 'De-materialization' to turn the tangible into the imaginary, sinking into the void...
Until it vanished completely.
Ging, Razor, Gotoh, and Elena looked at each other. Just like the Fake Ging who had been hit by Roy's Unlimited Void, they stood dazed at the bottom of the sea, unable to snap out of it for a long time!
With the protection of the church gone, the membrane covering the seabed instantly shattered. Seeing the seawater pouring in, Ging forced himself back to reality. Relying on Water Evade, he grabbed Elena and shouted to the others: "Now is not the time to be dazed. Let's head up and talk!"
Razor cast a quiet glance at Roy, who was frowning in deep thought, and then surged upward like a fish, following Ging toward the surface.
Gotoh tucked his Infinite Pistols into his coat and quickly pulled Roy. "Young Master, let's go."
The words 'Ai,' 'brother,' and 'failed' circled repeatedly in the boy's mind. His thoughts flickered with images of Nanika and Alluka switching faces in the original story. Taking a deep breath, he surged upward alongside Gotoh, heading toward the surface.
At that moment, the panel prompted:
[NOTICE: ELEPHANT BAKU TALENT NEN ABILITY HAS BEEN EXTRACTED...]
[REMARK: DE-MATERIALIZATION... BY TURNING REALITY INTO THE IMAGINARY AND REVERSING CONJURATION, PHYSICAL OBJECTS CAN BE BROUGHT INTO THE COGNITIVE WORLD...]
[CONDITIONS...]