Uchiha Puppet Master, Starting from One Piece

Chapter 248 The Tower at the End of the World

It wasn't because Bai Yu was soft-hearted or indecisive, but because every soldier killed meant one less bit of life force in this world, and meant that Im could draw more power from Pangu City.

Moreover, on a more fundamental level, these soldiers were also victims of Im, only they themselves were unaware of it.

"Artoria".

Bai Yu's voice wasn't loud, but at that moment, in the vast, almost empty square in front of Pangu City, his voice clearly reached the ears of everyone present.

It wasn't because his voice was loud, but because of the power of rules that his voice carried, making it impossible for anyone to ignore his words.

Artoria took a step forward.

Her holy spear was now fully unleashed. The last few limiter markings on the spear disappeared completely at this moment, and golden light burst forth from the spear, like a small sun being born in Artoria's hand.

Those golden rays were not ordinary light, but magic power condensed to the point of almost becoming a physical entity. Each ray of light contained enough energy to destroy a small island, but under Artoria's control, this energy was perfectly confined to a range of less than one meter around the Holy Lance, without the slightest leakage.

At that moment, the eyes of the Five Elders all focused on Artoria.

They did not know the woman's identity.

But they knew she wasn't from this world, or rather, not from this planet.

They knew that the gun in her hand was not a weapon that should exist in this world, because a weapon with such terrifying energy should not exist in this world.

But they didn't know the gun's true power, the sword's full name, or what would happen after the gun was summoned in this world.

All the information about Artoria and the Holy Lance came from Bai Yu's scattered words at sea and the team's limited use of them in battle.

Now, they are about to see the answer.

At this moment, Shiraha's Rinnegan turned completely red and gold.

It wasn't just the pupil that changed color; the entire eyeball turned that color—the iris, sclera, and even the blood vessels around the eye all turned reddish-gold.

The color emanated from inside the eyeball, like a cluster of stars burning in the eye socket.

The red and gold light overflowed from Bai Yu's eyes, drawing an arc in the air before landing precisely on the holy lance that Artoria had raised.

The Holy Lance made a sound the instant it came into contact with the light.

It wasn't the sound of metal, nor the sound of energy, but a long, drawn-out sound, almost as if it came from the end of time, similar to the sound of a bell.

The voice wasn't loud, but everyone present heard it.

Moreover, everyone felt the same way when they heard that voice.

The feeling was like gazing into a bottomless night sky, like listening to an ancient song passed down from time immemorial, like going upstream in the river of time, returning to where it all began and arriving at where it all ended.

That feeling is called awe.

Artoria took a deep breath.

Her lips parted slightly, and the sound that came out of her mouth was not ordinary words, but some ancient language that resonated almost with the underlying rules of this world.

Its name is one.

At this moment, the Holy Lance is no longer a spear.

It turned into a beam of light.

But it's not just light; it's light condensed to its extreme, light that converges from every corner of the world at the same time, light that is simultaneously drawn from every point in time.

The light gathered, compressed, and sublimated in Artoria's hands, transforming from a concrete shape into a more abstract form, existing between existence and non-existence.

"Shining in the spear of the end, Rungonimid."

The moment Artoria uttered that word, the whole world fell silent.

This is not quiet in a metaphorical sense, but quiet in a real, physical sense.

The wind stopped.

The sound of waves crashing against the red earthen cliffs in the distance stopped.

The breathing and heartbeats of countless people stopped.

Even the continuous low-frequency humming sound emitted by the purple beam of light stopped.

All sound disappeared, as if the whole world had entered an absolute, complete silence, a silence so profound that even the atoms ceased to vibrate.

Instead, something more essential has taken its place.

It is a rule.

When Artoria's Holy Lance was summoned in this world, it was merely a concept, an external concept that did not belong to this world.

It exists in this world, but it does not belong to this world. Like a tree transplanted to foreign soil, it can grow, blossom, and bear fruit, but its roots are forever connected to another land.

Now, under the protection of Bai Yu's Rinnegan, this concept has been completely, thoroughly, and irreversibly summoned into this world.

Shining in the final spear.

Lengominiad.

This is what connects the inside and outside of the world.

This is a tower at the end of time.

This is the tower that supports the world, separates the inner and outer sides of the world, and exists at the intersection of all timelines.

It is not a weapon.

Although it can be used as a weapon, it is not a weapon in its essence.

Its essence is a tower connecting the inside and outside of the world, something that preserves the soul at the end of time.

Anything that comes into contact with this tower, whether living or non-living, physical or conceptual, will be pulled into the tower the instant it touches it, becoming a part of it.

Under normal circumstances, Rungomminiad can only preserve the soul, not the physical body.

However, under the protection of the Rinnegan, within the unique rule system of this world, Rungomminiad's power was given a new dimension.

It can not only preserve the soul, but also fix the physical body around the soul in the form of a specimen, forming a complete, indivisible existence that is preserved forever at the end of time.

In other words, nothing that is hit by Rungomminiad will die.

It won't die, but it won't live either.

They will become specimens.

They become specimens preserved at the end of time, neither alive nor dead, forever frozen at the moment of being struck.

This is the true meaning of what Bai Yu meant by avoiding unnecessary casualties.

It's not that we won't kill them, but that we'll completely incapacitate them without them having to die.

Bai Yu does not intend to kill the humans of this world.

Bai Yu intends to preserve all of these humans.

Before the power of Rungomminiad, under the protection of the White Feather Rinnegan, and summoned by this tower at the end of time, it was preserved.

Golden light rose from Artoria's hand.

That light did not emanate from the Holy Lance, but rather burst forth from Artoria's body, from her soul, and from her faith in the King's path.

The light began to extend upwards.

It didn't extend for a few meters, tens of meters, or hundreds of meters, but directly upwards to a height that the eye could not reach, piercing through the clouds, piercing through the atmosphere, piercing through all the heights that this world could define, pointing directly to some more abstract dimension above the world.

At this moment, Rungominiad's form began to appear.

It is a tower.

But it is not a tower.

Its shape is that of a tower, a tower made of light, wide enough at the base to cover the entire square in front of Pangaea, converging upwards to a sharp apex. But when you gaze at it, you will find that it is not just a tower, but a superposition of countless towers, a convergence of all towers existing on the timeline, a collection of all possible towers from the birth of the world to its end.

Every layer is real.

Each layer exists.

Each layer is at a different point in time.

Some layers are from the past, some are from the future, some are in progress but will never be completed, and some are completed but will never end.

All these timelines converged at the same point at this moment, converging into the beam of light in Artoria's hand, and onto the coordinates pointed to by the Rinnegan of the White Feather.

then.

Then it fell down.

There was no acceleration, no descent trajectory, no movement from point A to point B. It simply existed in the sky for one instant and landed on the ground the next.

The fall of the divine spear is not a physical movement, but a conceptual coverage.

Just as the word "gravity" covers the entire Earth, Rungomminiad covered everything beneath it in an instant.

The Five Elders reacted faster than anyone else.

They didn't know what the light meant.

They didn't know the name Rungomminiad, the essence of the tower, or which world it came from.

Which system does it belong to?

But they have lived for eight hundred years, and they have seen far too much power, far too many weapons, and far too much destruction.

When a force reaches a certain level, you don't need to know its name to judge its level of danger.

Just like you don't need to know the sun's temperature to feel its heat.

The first of the Five Elders took a step forward.

His figure became blurred after this step, not because he moved too fast, but because he existed in multiple spatial locations at the same time during the process of taking this step. Each location was him, yet each location was not him.

His power cannot be defined by any known system in this world, because it is not a Devil Fruit, not Haki, not anything that can be categorized.

He is one of the Five Elders.

He is the pinnacle of power in this world.

He was Im's most loyal servant on this land.

Their hands reached out simultaneously, and their ten fingers drew a huge, complex barrier in the air, composed of countless concentric circles.

The concentric circles spread out from his palm, each layer rotating at a different speed, and the direction of rotation of each layer canceling out and reinforcing the direction of rotation of the adjacent layers.

This barrier once blocked meteorites from outer space.

This barrier once saved an island from collapse from destruction.

This barrier once dispersed the power that was enough to destroy an island when Im's avatar was attacked.

However, in front of Rungomminiad, the barrier held for less than a tenth of a second.

One-hundredth of a second later, the barrier composed of countless concentric circles collapsed inward from the center, like a piece of paper licked by flames.

They wanted to stop the light from falling.

To prevent the tower from descending.

To prevent Lengominiad from completing its mission.

The combined power of the five individuals created an unprecedented defensive field in the sky above Pangu City.

The defensive field was neither circular nor square, but rather a more complex geometric shape existing in multidimensional space. Each of its faces was constantly changing shape, color, and state of existence.

This is a power that the Five Elders have never displayed on any occasion.

This is their most prized possession.

This is a last resort they've reserved, something they'll only use in the most critical moments, a method even the Knights of God are unaware of.

however.

It was still of no use.

The light from Lengominiad continued to fall.

It pierced through the Five Elders' first layer of defense, just as it pierced through a thin mist.

Those barriers, forged from eight hundred years of accumulated power, are as fragile as a sandcastle being washed away by the tide before this tower that connects the inside and outside of the world.

It penetrated the second layer.

The third layer.

Fourth floor.

The Five Elders' bodies began to tremble.

It wasn't because they were afraid, but because they were experiencing a backlash they had never felt before.

Their power was swallowed up the moment they came into contact with Lungominiad, and they were dragged into the tower at the end of time, becoming part of that tower.

Every second, hundreds of years' worth of energy flowed out of their bodies, being absorbed, transformed, and stored by the tower.

When the divine spear falls, the soldier will vanish.

It is not death, but it is more irreversible than death.

They will become specimens, beings preserved at the end of time, neither alive nor dead, waiting for Uchiha Hakuba to reshape the world.

The Five Elders did not want to see this outcome.

It wasn't because they cared about the lives of those soldiers, but because those soldiers were one of Im's sources of power.

With each soldier who disappears, Im's life force draws from this world decreases by one unit, and the energy pumped out by the dark golden sphere at the core of Pangaea City decreases by one unit.

At this moment when Im is about to return, the loss of even the slightest bit of power is unacceptable.

So the Five Elders continue.

Continue to block them.

Continue to burn through their eight hundred years of accumulated wealth.

They continued to use their bodies, their souls, and everything they had to resist that invincible light.

In their minds, no force in this world can truly defeat them.

No, not before Im, for as long as Lord Im is there, they will not truly die.

Then Lengominiad landed.

Not through them.

It's not about bypassing them.

Instead, it enveloped them all.

At this moment, the Five Elders finally understood the true nature of the tower.