Inside Pangea Castle, the ceiling of the Room of Power collapsed entirely amidst violent tremors, sending rubble and debris showering down.
"Master!"
The Five Elders' faces lit up with joy as they looked up at the pillar of purple-black light soaring into the sky. Within that light, a slender figure gradually manifested, treading upon the void and descending slowly.
Unlike the last encounter in the North Blue, she was now enveloped in a terrifying pressure; merely standing there, it seemed as if the entire world trembled beneath her feet.
Imu!
The supreme ruler of the World Government, the being hailed as "God"!
This was the first time Shane had seen Imu's true physical form. As the radiance faded, he narrowed his eyes, looking her up and down with a slight frown. She had cascading blue hair, and her features were so exquisite they seemed inhuman. Her eyes sparkled like stars.
Looking at this appearance alone, it was truly difficult to connect her with her dark and evil abilities. Yet, she looked somewhat familiar... he felt as if he had seen her somewhere before?
"Master!" Warcury prostrated himself in excitement. "You have finally emerged! The Holy Land has fallen; we beg you to act and suppress these audacious rebels!"
"Silence."
Imu didn't even spare the Five Elders a glance, her gaze fixed directly on Shane on the sofa.
"Thou art indeed strong. Had it been the 'I' of the past, I might not have had a certain victory. To reach such a height with a mortal body... thou hast much to be proud of."
Imu spoke flatly, her voice ethereal and distant. "However, it is thanks to the urgency thou provided that I completed the construction of the 'World' ahead of schedule. Now, I have transcended the boundaries of the world and reached an unprecedented height."
"As a reward, I can overlook thy past sins. From this day forward, thou mayest enter my service and shepherd the mortal realm on my behalf. What sayest thou?"
There was no response. Shane remained with his legs crossed, blowing the foam off his tea before taking a leisurely sip.
"Arrogant!" Imu's gaze turned cold. "Dost thou reject my mercy? If so, then..."
Thud!
She slowly raised her right hand, and several massive demonic spikes suddenly sprouted from behind her. "Perish utterly along with thy ignorance and pride!"
Boom!
The demonic spikes tore through the air, lunging at Shane, only to halt abruptly half a metre away. As if encountering some terrifying natural predator, they shuddered and recoiled even faster than they had come!
"Hm?" Imu's pupils shrank.
"It seems your so-called successful breakthrough is only so-so."
Shane finally put down his teacup and stood up slowly. His tone and expression were calm, yet an invisible pressure radiated from his being.
Thump!
The three Elders instantly collapsed to their knees, unable to move a muscle no matter how hard they tried. Imu stared fixedly at Shane, her expression becoming solemn.
"There's no need for these little probing tricks. Go all out, Imu. Use your strongest methods. Let me see if you actually have the qualification to make me warm up."
He kept one hand in his pocket and casually raised the other, lightly flicking a finger toward Imu. "However, it's a bit cramped here. Let's move to a more open space."
Snap!
With just that one flick, and under the stunned gazes of the Five Elders, Imu's figure vanished instantly. Blasted away by the force of that finger, she turned into a shooting star on the horizon!
She streaked across the top of the Red Line, over the Revolutionary Army fighting on the other side, across the boundless sea, and finally...
BOOM!
A monstrous wave soared into the sky as Imu's body slammed into the sea. The terrifying impact instantly evaporated the water for kilometres around, revealing the bare seabed below!
Splat!
Imu spat out a mouthful of blood, staggering for a long time before standing up. She looked around at the desolate sea, the thick, unshakeable fog, and the massive three-masted ship that nearly blocked her entire field of vision in the distance.
Her face changed. Wait! Could this be...
"The Florian Triangle."
An indifferent voice came from high above. Imu whipped her head up to see Shane already standing atop the clouds, looking down at her as if she were an ant. "This place is infamous and rarely visited. It makes for the perfect battlefield, does it not?"
It really is the Florian Triangle?! Imu's mind shook. From Mary Geoise to this sea was at least a thousand nautical miles, yet Shane had sent her flying this far with a mere flick of his finger. What terrifying power!
"It seems I still underestimated thee." Imu wiped the blood from her lip and stood tall, the shock in her eyes gradually replaced by coldness. "However, if thou thinkest brute strength alone can defeat me, thou art far too naive!"
She took a deep breath, and countless intersecting lines of purple-black light appeared around her, spreading out in a grid like a chessboard.
"World... expand!"
In an instant, the entire ocean seemed to be covered by an infinite, massive net! Between the criss-crossing lines, every island and its surrounding sea became a square on a chessboard. And the one holding the pieces high above... was Imu!
"Dost thou see?" Imu ascended slowly into the air until she was level with Shane, opening her arms indifferently. "With the world as my board, everything on the sea can become my pawn at any time. This is my true power!"
"Finally, something interesting." Shane raised his eyelids. "Though I doubt this power belongs to you. That demon controlling the darkness is your true self, while this ability to turn the sea into a chessboard... it likely comes from that shell of yours?"
"..." Imu narrowed her eyes and stared coldly at Shane.
"I hit the mark, didn't I, Saint Nerona Imu?" Shane said flatly. "That is your true name, right? It makes sense; how could a Celestial Dragon hailed as a 'Saint' be a woman?"
"No wonder you looked familiar the moment I saw your body. Thinking about it now, the original owner of this body is likely the ancestor of the Alabasta Royal Family, one of the twenty monarchs of old—Nefertari Lili, wasn't it?!"
"You possessed her body, her soul long dead, yet you could never fully master the Devil Fruit power that belonged to her. That's why you couldn't leave the Room of Flowers until today..."
"SILENCE!" Imu roared in sudden rage. "Thou... whose blood flows within thee? Joy Boy? Davy Jones? Otherwise, how couldst thou... how couldst thou know so much!"
In her exasperation, Imu's voice lost its ethereal quality, replaced by a shrill sharpness. "Regardless, enough! Cease thy boastful talk. A mere mortal dares to speak of the secrets of the Gods!"
Imu suddenly pressed her hand down.
Snap!
The sea beneath Shane's feet twisted instantly. Space shrivelled like scrap paper crumpled by an invisible giant hand, collapsing the endless seawater within into a massive black chess piece. It hung high in the sky before crashing down toward Shane's head!
"Actually playing chess?"
As the black piece slammed down, Shane looked up slightly, observing with interest. He stood his ground, not moving an inch, allowing the massive piece with the power to destroy the world to strike him.
CRACK!
In just one second, the moment the black piece touched the top of Shane's head, countless cracks appeared. Then, under Imu's horrified gaze, it held for only a second before exploding into a sky full of black fragments!
Splash!
These fragments reverted to seawater, turning into a torrential black rain that poured from the heavens.
How... how could this be? Imu was drenched by the rain, yet she stood frozen, staring blankly at the unharmed Shane. No. This wasn't how she had envisioned it! Once the "World" was complete, her chess pieces should possess the power to easily destroy an entire island once they successfully landed. Even if the opponent's body was exceptionally tough and couldn't be erased in one strike... how could he not have a single scratch?
"You hit like a child, and you call yourself a God?" Shane's voice drifted over. "What other tricks do you have? Show them all at once. If you keep tickling me like this, don't blame me when I start hitting back."
"Cease thy pride!" Mocked so blatantly, Imu's gaze turned hideous. "Do not get ahead of thyself! In the end, it is merely physical hardiness. Since the pieces cannot harm thee, we shall use the board instead!"
She raised her right hand high and flipped it!
"Board Displacement!"
Space tore open, and the thick fog and seawater receded rapidly.
Swish!
Shane's vision blurred. When his sight returned, he was in the East Blue, above the familiar tangerine groves of Cocoyashi Village. The sun was setting, and the evening breeze carried the scent of citrus. Even though Bell-mère had been gone for a long time, the trees were still well-tended. Shane saw the house he had grown up in, a flash of nostalgia crossing his face.
"So, you swapped the Florian Triangle square with the Cocoyashi Village square." Shane looked up at the sky; the celestial alignment hadn't changed, confirming only the land beneath him had been moved. He stayed in place, but the "chessboard square" beneath him had been swapped by Imu's fully awakened Board-Board Fruit ability.
"Lili's fruit power is indeed powerful and interesting. But what are you trying to do?" Shane glanced at Imu.
"There is no point in playing the fool, mortal! Since thou knewest to save Edward Newgate and to move the people of thy homeland, hadst thou not already deciphered the conditions of 'Blackened Dominion'?" Imu's gaze turned indifferent again. "Now that thou art in thy homeland, thou canst be dominated by me at any time. How wilt thou respond?"
Before the words finished, she raised her hand and activated "Blackened Dominion"! This man was incredibly fast. She had to strike first, and she could not allow him to react and flee this stretch of sea!
The darkness of the sky swallowed everything, completely enveloping Shane's body. Witnessing this, Imu finally relaxed, a smile curling her lips. Hmph, given a chance and he didn't take it. In the future, having such a powerful puppet will be...
"Eh??" Imu's expression suddenly changed, staring hard at the centre of the darkness. She could feel that Shane showed no signs of being corrupted! Her Blackened Dominion technique hit his body like a tide hitting a massive boulder—it flowed right past, unable to penetrate at all.
"Impossible! How can there be no reaction?!" Imu cried out in shock and rage. "Thou... what hast thou done!"
"What's so impossible?" Shane stepped slowly out of the darkness. He glanced at Cocoyashi Village below and looked at Imu with some pity. "It's quite funny, really. Tell me... who exactly told you that this was my true homeland?"
Not here??? Imu's face shifted between anger and uncertainty. She had long ago had the Five Elders investigate his background; she knew his actual birthplace was the Kingdom of Oykot in the East Blue. But the birthplace didn't matter. Since he had grown up in Cocoyashi Village from a young age until he set sail at eighteen, Cocoyashi Village was undoubtedly the "First Homeland" he would cherish most!
Unless... unless he had lived in some other place for a longer time and formed even deeper bonds, allowing him to ignore this constraint and break the Blackened Dominion. But how could that be! The boy was not even twenty years old yet; where could such a place possibly be?
Shane had no intention of explaining. "Forget it. If I let you keep messing around, I might risk harming the innocent. I can't be bothered playing board games with you anymore."
He looked up at the darkness-shrouded sky and suddenly took a step, appearing instantly before Imu. The latter felt her vision go dark; before she could react, a powerful hand gripped her throat.
"Since you spent eight hundred years turning this ocean into your chessboard..." Shane smiled slightly. "Then we'll just go fight somewhere outside the board."
Before his voice faded—BOOM!
Shane suddenly exerted force, and a terrifying shockwave erupted from beneath his feet! In an instant, space seemed to tear as their figures vanished! Twenty thousand metres, fifty thousand, eighty thousand!
In a heartbeat, they ascended tens of thousands of metres at several hundred times the speed of sound, piercing through the troposphere, until they were about to break through the thermosphere...
Snap!
The next instant, the breathless Imu felt her body stall. When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by the pitch-black, deep, infinite void of space!
Beneath her was the slowly rotating blue planet; far above was the brilliant Milky Way; and around her was endless darkness. No sound, no air—and most critically, the "World" she had worked so hard to build could not be used at this distance.
"This... where is this?!" Imu's pupils shook, and she was instantly drenched in cold sweat. She realized then that her thinking had been far too limited! She had naively believed that no matter how strong Shane was, as long as he was on her board, she could eventually wear him down or defeat him.
She had never imagined that he could simply take her off the planet and into the infinite vastness of the universe!