I am the Bandit King of the East Sea.

The clown twitched the corners of his mouth slightly, as if he wanted to laugh, but he didn't.

"I am Joke."

This is a joke by the clown.

Jock....

The God-King silently repeated the name several times, as if a thunderbolt had struck his heart.

"You're the clown who led him astray? You're the one who corrupted him?" His voice was filled with disbelief.

Not only the God-King, but also the surrounding area was in an uproar. The gods also looked at the God-King and the clown standing in the center of the battlefield with strange eyes.

"what happened?"

"Isn't he the prince of gods?"

"That's right. His clown makeup and clothing style are exactly the same as the God Prince's back then, and his build is also similar... No one knows who is behind the clown mask, so he has kept it from the God King?"

"Then, if he isn't the prince of gods, then who is the real prince of gods?"

In fact, the God Prince was the one who guided Joker, but now Joker has no desire to refute it.

“He never expects your understanding or support,” the Joker said softly.

"As long as there is no obstruction, even just ignoring him or treating him like a stranger is fine."

"Support him in doing what he wants, ask him why he started playing the clown, give him a glimmer of hope... Is that so hard?"

"Shut up!"

The voice of the God-King was like a thunderclap.

The wind howled, and the storm raged around the God-King, sending sand and stones flying everywhere. The two people were standing in the eye of the storm.

"Who gives you the right to talk to me like that!"

Lightning gathered at the God-King's fingertips, his eyes blazing with divine light, and his intense killing intent almost boiled over.

But suddenly, all the murderous intent vanished.

Two faint phantom figures suddenly appeared in the air beside the clown.

On the left is a smiling clown who looks almost identical to the Joker. With the clown makeup, he looks almost exactly like the Joker, except that his smile is a little softer.

On the right is a young female magician wearing a white top hat; she was the previous user of the Phantom Fruit.

Two phantom figures stood on either side, both looking at the clown in the middle with expressions of hidden worry.

The clown took out an old photograph from his pocket; it was a group photo of three people.

After continuous battles, his strength was almost completely exhausted, and his life force was still rapidly fading away. However, the two figures were quite solid and seemed different from the previous phantoms, making it almost impossible to distinguish between them.

They are not the souls of the dead summoned by the fruit.

The ability of the Phantom Fruit is to replicate a phantom of the deceased at a certain moment in their life. Although the two phantoms still possess their own consciousness and abilities, they are ultimately clones of the deceased.

The real dead had already perished in the fire.

The God-King's anger suddenly stopped. He stared intently at the phantom clown, his face suddenly turning pale.

"They are all dead, killed in the fire ten years ago."

The clown, standing between the two, said in a low voice.

As he spoke, a false illusion of a sea of ​​fire vaguely appeared around him.

The flickering flames, the collapsed roof beams, the air distorted in the phantom firelight, and the scorching heat wave rushed towards us.

This is the scene that the Joker remembers most vividly. He is the only survivor among the three, but he has never truly escaped the aftermath of that fire.

The God King stumbled back two steps, staring at the God Prince's face, his pupils trembling.

"So...you're here for revenge? To get back at me?"

The God-King's decree banished all the circuses in the country, and the God-Prince was placed under house arrest in the palace for a year. The subsequent manhunt indirectly contributed to the fire and the deaths.

revenge?

The phantom of the divine prince slowly shook his head.

He exchanged a glance with the magician Phantom and the clown beside him, and nodded.

The two clowns stood together, then suddenly crossed their waists and started jumping and spinning in circles, performing a comical dance.

"Those self-proclaimed gods, those high and mighty nobles... this is just a little trick played by us commoners..." Joker said softly.

One day, the three-person performance will be brought to the stage of the gods, and joy will be conveyed through the performance... This is the wish of the god prince Happy.

His gaze then drifted to the magician beside him.

The magician was born in the Kingdom of Drum in the Blue Sea, where a grumpy quack doctor once awakened the people and doctors with his death... This led her on a long journey, to the Sky Island Kingdom above the clouds.

The quack doctor's dying words are often quoted by magicians.

"When does a person die? Is it when they are shot in the heart? No. Is it when they get an incurable disease? No, that's not right either."

"It is the time when we are forgotten by the world."

Happyness's wish was to perform before the gods.

Joker's wish is that the Joker and the Magician, who are already dead, can... live on.

The gods believed this was the prince's revenge.

Golden Lion thought this was a story of a prince's revenge and filial piety.

Bucky the Clown thought Jock the Clown was capturing him for his own amusement.

These were just jokes by the clown.

On such an unprecedented grand stage, where all the gods were present, the performance by the phantoms of two deceased people will remain in the hearts of the audience.

This was their last performance.

The magician removed his hat, bowed deeply, and from within the hat, the phantom of a white dove flapped its wings and flew out, then swiftly transformed into a throwing knife, grazing past the clown's body.

Throwing knives, breathing fire, tossing small balls...

Oversized shoes that didn't fit properly, a loose and comical clown costume, and hopping, skipping steps.

This was hardly a brilliant performance; the clown staggered and nearly fell several times.

In the heart of this battlefield, a clown and two phantoms incongruously began their performance, completely out of place with the battle that had just taken place.

The gods looked at each other, still reeling from their earlier shock, and now stared at the performance with bewildered expressions, unable to comprehend the sudden shift in style reminiscent of an Indian film.

They didn't know what kind of expression they should make at this moment. Many people glanced at the God-King who was closest to the battlefield stage and saw his face gradually turn ashen, with veins bulging on his forehead.

"Utterly boring." The disappointment on the Golden Lion's face was undisguised.

He came to see a tale of filial piety and parental love, not a clown performance, which made him feel fooled.

The clown danced comical steps on the battlefield, and he felt as if the real clown was himself.

“Old Man Sig?” Violet lowered her hand from Sig’s eyes.

“No need to interfere. Since their performance has begun, let’s watch it to the end,” Sieg said calmly.

He clapped his hands lightly, as if to start the beat. An invisible telekinetic force swept by like a storm, and the grass on this sky island battlefield swayed gently from side to side, like an audience applauding from below the stage.

Colorful curly hair, red nose, and the most comical gait.

Have you learned this kind of happiness?

They'll keep playing dumb with you through clumsy yet thrilling acrobatics.

Forget all the sadness.

puff.

The performance was just coming to an end when Joker's legs gave way and he fell heavily to the ground.

This wasn't a performance intended to be funny; rather, it showed that his strength was almost completely exhausted, and he could no longer hold on.

Two afterimages blurred for a moment, one on the left and one on the right. The prince and the magician instinctively reached out to help their stage companion, but their hands passed right through the clown's body...

Even if their consciousness is copied, they are still just phantoms of the deceased, without any real physical body.

They've been dead for a long time.

The two phantoms froze for a moment before slowly withdrawing their outstretched hands. Facing the audience, they smiled and bowed in greeting.

The battlefield was silent, the gods wore strange expressions, and only sporadic applause rang out from the clouds on Sig's side.

Sieg doesn't really appreciate the circus clowns' tricks, but that doesn't stop him from clapping and creating atmosphere for the circus.

"The performance has ended. Thank you for watching."

Joker raised his head, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the gods with their strange expressions, finally settling on the god-king whose face was ashen.

The God-King clenched his fists, patiently watching the entire performance until the clown collapsed to the ground and the two phantoms vanished...

Are you kidding me?

He looked at the spot where the phantom had stood and muttered to himself:

"This is not funny."

"So, in the end, it was still a failure?" Joker smirked.

"I told you long ago, Happy is too naive..."

It's sizzling!

A golden lightning spear suddenly appeared in the God King's hand, piercing through the clown's chest in an instant and sending his body flying hundreds of meters away, landing on the edge of a puddle.

call.....

The clown gasped for breath and managed to straighten up.

He looked at his reflection in the puddle beside him, his face covered in dirt and blood, and it was as if he saw again the two clowns supporting each other in the alleyway back then.

"Your makeup is ruined..."

The clown reached into the blood-stained wound on his chest, smeared the blood on his lips, and then smeared it on his lips, restoring a touch of crimson to them.

He pursed his lips slightly, the corners of his mouth turned up slightly, and a big smile appeared on his pale, clown-like face.