One Piece: The Living Devil

Chapter 770: I Alone May Bully Others

"Tsk! Tsk! What exactly is this supposed to be?"

Hikifune Kirio keenly sensed the abnormal flow of energy, "I can feel her using energy to promote the fusion of the two worlds. At the same time, it seems like she's undergoing some kind of transformation? Evolving by sacrificing Hueco Mundo?"

"Don't make it sound so bloody and unpleasant."

Rosse smiled as he corrected her, "She isn't sacrificing the world. She's helping it complete its formatting and fusion. In return, the new world is granting her authority to govern this place. Harribel is the strongest native lifeform of Hueco Mundo. Having her carry the core rules of this transformed world is the most perfect solution, and the one with the least rejection."

"I see. Being able to follow a new god like you, she's quite fortunate."

Hikifune Kirio sighed, then shifted her gaze away from Harribel and began looking around.

"By the way," she asked, puzzled, "Where are the ordinary Hollows? We came all the way from Las Noches, and aside from endless white sand, we didn't even see a single Gillian. That's not like the usual chaotic Hueco Mundo."

"They've gone underground. Want to take a look?"

The smile on Rosse's face deepened, "Since Hueco Mundo is destined to become the transit station for reincarnation of the dead from my world, it needs absolute order. Those Hollows that only know how to kill by instinct and refuse to accept guidance have already been treated as system garbage and removed. The ones still alive are those who passed the selection, clear-minded individuals willing to act as administrators of the new world."

"Pah! 'Administrators of the new world'?"

Shutara couldn't help but sneer again, "Most Hollows are nothing but a mass of chaotic malice. Where would they even get the consciousness to choose willingness or unwillingness? You just slaughtered them unilaterally, forcibly erased them, and turned them into the primal energy needed for world fusion. Invaders are invaders, don't dress it up so grandly!"

"I'm not taking that blame."

Rosse shook his head innocently, wagging a finger.

"I very kindly used rules to forcibly suspend all Hollows' predatory instincts and gave them a period of clarity with self-awareness. They made their own choices. It's just that…"

A mocking curve appeared at the corner of his lips.

"The vast majority of Hollows have already had their souls completely corroded by endless chaos and malice. Even if I gave them a chance at clarity, their shattered souls couldn't bear rationality. In the end, they could only remain beasts."

"If you want to blame someone, blame your great Soul King. He set Hollows up as this irreversible tragic existence from the very beginning."

Shutara bit her lip, unable to respond.

She knew she was just venting.

As a member of the Zero Division, she understood better than anyone what Hollows truly were.

They were pure collections of negativity and malice. Among such vast numbers, those who could retain clarity like Adjuchas were rarer than one in tens of thousands.

"And after that?"

Hikifune Kirio didn't care about past tragedies. She only cared about the future experimental environment.

"After Hueco Mundo fully merges, the new life born here should all have normal self-awareness, right?"

"No. After the fusion, Hueco Mundo will no longer naturally give birth to any new life."

Rosse gave an agitating answer with a smile.

"This place will become a pure transit station. In the future, every soul here will come from lives that have died in my world."

"After death, they'll arrive here. Aside from a very small number of particularly suitable individuals who will be retained as administrators, all other souls will have their memories erased here, be purified, and then sent back into my world to participate in a new cycle of reincarnation."

"Wouldn't that mean true reincarnation exists?"

Hikifune Kirio's eyes widened as if she'd heard something out of a fantasy tale, "Like those stories in the living world? Past lives and present lives?"

This was far more advanced than the crude soul balance of Soul Society.

In the current system, souls brought to Soul Society could live another life.

But after dying again, they turned into reishi and cycled, not true reincarnation.

"Why not?"

Rosse tilted his head back, looking at the glowing sky as he calmly revealed his true ambition, "Since I rule this entirely new system, then in my world, birth, aging, sickness, death, even the reincarnation of souls, should all operate under a perfect set of rules, under my control."

If scripts of multiple lifetimes and entangled fates were to play out in his world, as the sole audience and director, he was curious what kind of endings they would produce.

He admitted he wasn't a good person in the traditional sense.

But he wasn't exactly a tyrant either.

He advocated absolute order, his own absolute order, to guide the world forward.

In the world he envisioned, only he himself could stand above the rules, freely bullying or altering the fate of others.

All other beings, even his own children, the women around him, his descendants, would have to strictly operate under the rules and order he established.

Unless he found things too dull and chose to intervene or loosen control over certain events.

Otherwise, everything would proceed in perfect order under that grand and precise system of reincarnation.

Honestly speaking, under such a system, the number of individuals he could personally toy with was far fewer than that of those so-called tyrants.

On the contrary, as his world developed, life would continuously emerge. After a brief period of losses caused by transitional pain, population and living conditions would improve in astonishing ways.

Hikifune Kirio stayed in this Hueco Mundo filled with Rosse's will for a full two days.

During those two days, she not only witnessed the transformation of Hueco Mundo, but also risked herself, personally acting as a vessel to measure the bottomless depths of Rosse's power.

———

When the surrounding space once again rearranged like a kaleidoscope, that dizzying sensation of weightlessness struck instantly.

Buzz!

Light and shadow froze.

A faint, familiar scent of tea drifted into her nose, and sunlight lazily spilled across the floor outside the window.

The Tenth Division captain's office, they were back.

"Cough! Cough!"

The moment she landed, Hikifune Kirio's legs gave out, and she nearly collapsed onto Rosse.

Her plump, graceful body trembled uncontrollably, as if every muscle were wailing and every bone groaning from exhaustion.

"Well, Senior Hikifune, can you still move like this?"

Rosse wrapped an arm around her slender waist, supporting her so she wouldn't slip, a maddeningly smug smile on his face.

Want to study him? No problem.

But in this world, knowledge always came at a price.

In exchange, Hikifune Kirio had to use every part of her body to fully receive and analyze Rosse's power.

An extremely fair equivalent exchange.

"I'm fine."

Hikifune Kirio took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and tried to stand upright.

But even with a Zero Division body reshaped by the Oken and possessing extraordinary vitality, she now felt like an overloaded machine, her legs trembling uncontrollably.

Leaning on Rosse's arm, her gaze carried not only lingering haze, but also deep fear and trembling from the depths of her soul.

"Your body density is absurdly high."

She looked at the man beside her, still shaken.

Only through direct, intimate contact could one truly understand the terrifying mass compressed within that seemingly perfect human shell.

Even a drop of his blood, even the rhythm of his breathing, felt as heavy as a mountain.

"How did Shutara even endure it?"

Now she finally understood why Shutara had been so limp when they first met.

If it was this level of "bullying," sustained for years in endless confinement, Hikifune Kirio felt her body would've long since collapsed into reishi fragments, forget mental breakdown.

"The Oken is highly malleable and has limitless potential. As for her… her mouth may be tough, but her body is quite resilient. Not only can she endure it, she gradually adapted."

Rosse chuckled softly, turning meaningfully to look at the other figure who had landed with them.

This time, he had brought Shutara back as well.

She was now fully dressed. Though no longer in the elaborate Zero Division attire, she wore a neat black kimono that concealed those ambiguous marks.

Still, her pale complexion showed lingering weakness.

"Want to consider going back to the Zero Division? You've been away for a while."

Rosse reached out, casually stroking her waterfall-like black hair, his tone gentle, as if asking a lover what she wanted for dinner.

"Hmph! I'm not going back."

Shutara slapped his hand away in disgust but didn't move far, simply sitting down on the floor of the captain's office without regard for appearances.

"Who knows what tricks you've planted in my body? Going back to the Royal Palace now would be like inviting a wolf into the house."

Her usually narrowed eyes opened slightly, glinting with suspicion.

There was no way Rosse would so generously let her return to Soul Society without ulterior motives.

She knew this man too well. Every gift he gave came with a price that could devour everything.

"I'll stay here and keep an eye on you, see what you're really up to."

"Suit yourself. There's plenty of tea here."

Rosse shrugged, completely unconcerned.

In fact, Shutara's instincts were correct.

Both Hikifune Kirio and Shutara had already consumed the Devil Fruits native to his world.

These fruits were not just a source of power, they were anchors of the world.

Given the current level of analysis the pirate world had on Soul Society, these two Zero Division members themselves had become walking sources of contamination.

If they returned to the Royal Palace and approached the sealed Soul King, the laws of another world would spread like a plague, causing irreversible erosion and assimilation.

The outcome was already decided.

"Haa! I'm leaving first."

After a brief rest, Hikifune Kirio finally regained some control over her legs.

She adjusted her disheveled collar, her eyes once again burning with the fervor of a mad scientist.

"I need to hurry and sort out the data you gave me and figure out a way to perfectly combine kishi and reishi. Otherwise, Soul Society really will be finished."

Leaning against the wall, she staggered to her feet, then cast Rosse a charming glance over her shoulder, curiosity glimmering in her eyes.

"You're going to such lengths, even merging the laws of two worlds. Is it really just for domination? Will you abandon Soul Society in the future?"

"Domination is only a means, not the goal."

Rosse smiled, his expression almost disarmingly sincere.

"I won't abandon this world. I'll take away those willing to follow me. Then, using Soul Society and the living world as a foundation, I'll reshape a true heaven in my world. A celestial palace where I reside."

"Tch! So that so-called heavenly palace is built on the perfect fusion of kishi and reishi?"

Hikifune Kirio instantly caught the key point, her mind racing.

"Correct," Rosse snapped his fingers.

"Then if I crack this problem and become a major contributor, you'd better save me the best spot in that palace."

Hikifune Kirio grinned, the fatigue at the corner of her eyes unable to hide her hunger for the unknown.

To her now, Rosse wasn't just a dangerous man, he was an inexhaustible treasury of knowledge.

The chance to constantly encounter new laws and study new phenomena was more valuable to her than life itself.

"No problem. Even if you fail, there will always be a place for you in the heavenly palace."

Rosse stood, gently tucking a stray lock of her purple hair behind her ear, then lightly pressed a kiss onto her soft, full lips.

"And remember to keep your current figure. Don't fatten yourself up again just to store spiritual pressure. This suits my taste better."

Feeling the touch on her lips, Hikifune Kirio froze for a moment, then shot him a sultry glare before staggering out the door.

Only after the door closed did Shutara, who had been watching coldly from the floor, finally speak, her voice thick with resentment and irritation, "You bastard… you can be that gentle too?"

Whether it was fixing her clothes or that kiss, she had never received such tenderness in that underwater palace.

Rosse turned, looking down at her with a teasing smile, "Shutara, if you had been as sensible as her back then and chosen to submit willingly…"

He bent down, lightly hooking a finger under her chin, gazing into her anger-filled eyes.

"I would've been ten times gentler with you. Of course, it's not too late to regret it now. My door is always open."

"In your dreams!"

Shutara slapped his hand away, gritting her teeth.

"Even if the world is destroyed, you'll never make me wag my tail and beg!"

"Tsk! That's not up to you."

Rosse smiled as he gently stroked her smooth black hair.

As his hand moved, Shutara's body trembled violently, as if seized by an unbearable craving.

Watching her current alluring state, Rosse smiled and pressed forward.

He didn't want her to agree anyway.

This version of Shutara was exactly the one he liked.

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