In the increasingly grand and magnificent floating city, Harry stood inside his private training room.
He kept engraving Runic matrix patterns beneath his feet with all kinds of precious materials, planning to use them to help open a passage to another world.
Just this one attempt would consume materials worth tens of millions of credits, about the price of a thousand Star-Lords.
But Harry still felt every bit of it was worth it.
If he really could establish stable travel to other worlds, then his understanding of chaos at its source would deepen rapidly as he moved between different realities, until he ultimately mastered it completely.
Once the supporting Runic matrix was finished, Harry was just about to randomly jump to the nearest world he could find when he suddenly noticed something strange happening in the chat group.
Nami was frantically pinging him, begging for help.
"Harry, save us! I don't know why, but undead creatures have started appearing in our world, just like the undead scourge you once mentioned!
A lot of people in our world have already turned into undead, even Whitebeard, one of the Four Emperors and the old man of Luffy's brother Ace!"
Harry blinked.
What was going on?
He clearly remembered that the One Piece world didn't have undead like this. Even if something similar existed, there was no way it could create undead on such a massive scale.
Harry immediately pressed for details.
"What exactly is happening? Tell me everything."
Nami quickly sent another message.
"The first infected person was Whitebeard. He suddenly died, then came back to life, and after that he started slaughtering everyone in sight.
Anyone killed by him, even if their bodies are torn apart, grows their missing flesh back and starts killing other people just like Whitebeard.
Right now, aside from the territories controlled by Big Mom, Kaido, and Red-Haired Shanks, almost the entire New World has already fallen. And the infected areas are spreading fast. There are already scattered infected people showing up in Paradise, the first half of the Grand Line!"
With those added details, Harry was certain now that the One Piece world really had suffered an enormous upheaval.
That world had most likely been invaded by some kind of Dimensional Demon God.
No, maybe not an ordinary Dimensional Demon God. After all, even Dimensional Demon Gods from the multiverse couldn't casually cross into other worlds, so this was very likely something beyond even them.
That discovery made every cell in Harry's body tremble slightly, and it confirmed that his suspicions had been right.
If the One Piece world had already been invaded, then the wizarding world was very likely next.
So starting from his third year, he would need to move as quickly as possible to tear down the old system and build a brand-new one capable of uniting every form of power into a single whole.
Much as Harry wanted to return to the wizarding world immediately, before he did that, he had to make a trip to the One Piece world.
Partly because he couldn't just stand by and watch a world collapse in front of him, and partly because saving the wizarding world might mean learning something about these Demon Gods, gaining information and experience that could help him fight them.
To Harry, that knowledge and experience were priceless.
So he comforted Nami.
"Don't worry. I'm coming right away. This will all be over soon."
After that, Harry activated the observation runes and teleportation runes beneath his feet, pouring a steady stream of chaos magic into them.
In the next instant, one enhancement after another settled over Harry, and with all his strength, he opened a doorway to another world in front of himself.
The experiment seemed to have worked.
Staring at the dark spiral vortex slowly turning before him, Harry took a breath and stepped inside.
It was even worse than the first time he had ever used Apparition. It felt as though his entire body had been squeezed into a knotted tube barely half an inch wide and forced through it in a spiraling motion.
He had no idea how much time passed before everything suddenly brightened. Harry's thoughts became clear again, and the environment in front of him was no longer Kamar-Taj, with its blend of classical beauty and futuristic mysticism, but an endless sea, the Lender Nami, and the rest of her companions.
At the same time, now that he had fully entered this world, he could feel the suppression imposed on him by the world itself.
This world didn't contain high-dimensional energy like chaos magic, and its overall level didn't seem especially high either. As a result, the suppression Harry felt here was far stronger than what he had experienced in the wizarding world.
At that moment, the amount of magic power he could control inside his body had been reduced to roughly one-fifth of what it was in the multiverse. Even so, judging by that remaining fifth alone, Harry could still unleash tremendous power.
He felt it should be enough. At worst, dealing with the descending servants of the Demon Gods might require a bit more effort than usual.
When the wormhole suddenly appeared beside them, Nami jumped in fright at first. But the moment she saw Harry step out of it, she let out a long breath of relief.
She knew how powerful Harry was. Even when he had only used her body, he had displayed incredible strength.
Nami suspected that if Harry were using his own body, then his power might actually be on the level of the Four Emperors.
Thank goodness. They were saved.
But just as Nami was about to run over to Harry and start pouring out all her complaints, a figure in a straw hat suddenly shoved her aside, rushed up to Harry, and said excitedly, "So you're the strong guy Nami was talking about? Come on, fight me!"
He didn't even get to finish before Nami interrupted him.
That seemingly lively girl threw a punch straight into the straw-hatted boy's head, raising a giant lump on it, then turned to Harry with an apologetic expression.
"Sorry, Harry. Our captain's brain doesn't work right. Please don't take what he says seriously."
Harry watched Nami with curiosity. The moment he arrived, he had already sensed that her companions were anything but ordinary.
A talking reindeer, a bizarre banana guy, a cyborg, and even a dead skeleton that somehow still reacted exactly like a living human.
Originally, Harry had thought that without the Lending contract, Nami would probably be one of the more normal people among them. But when he saw the attack she had just used on the straw-hatted boy, he noticed a strange kind of energy.
It was some sort of spiritual force, representing Nami's will directly striking the boy's true body, which was why his rubber constitution hadn't canceled out the damage.
This kind of attack, unconsciously used by Nami, was similar to "true damage" in a game. If she could fully master it, her strength would rise dramatically.
Unfortunately, she could only use it on enemies she didn't fear at all.
The moment even the slightest bit of fear appeared in her heart, the attack would become completely useless.
So in short, it was "true damage against teammates."
For a moment, the way Harry looked at Nami became a little strange.
So this was what it meant to only be tough with your own people.
Harry shook his head to show he didn't mind.
"It's fine. I can tell he didn't mean any harm. That must just be part of how your world works. It looks more interesting than what I observed from a distance."
Nami's eyes suddenly lit up as she remembered the Lending contract on herself.
With only her original strength plus the contract, she had already become stronger than Sanji. If someone as strong as Luffy signed a Lending contract too, then just how much power could he unleash?
So she looked at Harry with great anticipation and asked, "Harry, can Luffy and the others sign Lending contracts too? Almost the entire Whitebeard Pirates crew has turned into undead, the New World has become a living hell, and Luffy's brother has also been captured by the Marines. We desperately need to get stronger!"
Harry nodded. The people around her all had unique talents, so of course they could.
But what Nami hadn't expected was that the moment Harry agreed, her own friends stabbed her in the back by refusing to sign.
Luffy grinned and shook his head. "No way. I'm not signing any Lending contract. I'm gonna punch everyone flying with my own power!"
Zoro studied Harry curiously. He couldn't sense the aura of a powerhouse from Harry at all, but for some reason, the instant he saw him, his battle-hardened body started trembling slightly.
When he heard Nami suggest that he sign a contract too, he rejected it without hesitation.
"Don't make decisions for me, stupid woman. I'm not signing any Lending contract. If I rely on outside help, I'll never become the world's greatest swordsman."
Sanji instantly grabbed Zoro by the collar and demanded angrily, "Damn mosshead, how dare you talk to the beautiful Miss Nami like that?"
But a moment later he lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and smiled instead.
"Sorry, Miss Nami. Much as I hate to admit it, this time I agree with mosshead. Some things are meant for us to win with our own hands. If we borrow outside power, it won't mean anything."
Just then, an ill-timed voice cut in from the side. Long-nosed Usopp cautiously raised a hand, and after making sure everyone was looking at him, he laughed awkwardly.
"Well, I don't mind. Make me a Lender like Nami."
Chopper the reindeer bounced up too and shouted, "Me too! Me too!"
In the earlier fighting, both Usopp and Chopper had already realized that their strength had fallen far behind the others.
Their crewmates might not care, but that didn't change how frustrated they felt inside.
They wanted to get stronger too.
But unlike Luffy and Zoro, they didn't have those monster-like gifts. So if there was an outside power they could rely on, of course they weren't going to say no.
The two of them turned to Luffy and asked their captain for his opinion.
"Luffy, you don't mind, right?"
Luffy burst out laughing. "Of course not!"
Seeing that, Harry felt this little adventure crew was genuinely interesting. He immediately drafted two Lending contracts and handed one each to Usopp and Chopper.
Both of them had only average magical talent. Usopp's natural affinity turned out to be moral perception and railgun magic, which fit his role as a sniper perfectly.
Chopper's talent, on the other hand, surprised Harry quite a bit. It was Transfiguration, specifically self-directed Transfiguration.
That probably had something to do with the fact that he was a reindeer who had transformed into something like a human.
After signing the Lending contracts, the Straw Hats brought out wine and food and started preparing a banquet to welcome Harry.
But at that exact moment, a horrifying aura of death began swirling rapidly beneath the ship.
A figure that had already died, yet been rejected by death itself, opened a huge blood-soaked maw and lunged toward Harry and the others.
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