Uchiha Puppet Master, Starting from One Piece.

"unnecessary."

Artoria remained silent for two seconds.

She wasn't thinking about why Bai Yu didn't stop him, because she knew Bai Yu had his reasons for everything he did, and she didn't need to ask why; she just needed to accept the fact.

Her silence was a sign that she was adjusting her tactical thinking, incorporating the variable of Im obtaining the information into her calculations for all her next actions.

"Bai Yu, you said Im is collecting information about you. What will he do after he finishes collecting it?"

Bai Yu's eyes were still fixed on the northern sky, but his gaze had pierced through the clouds, through the atmosphere, through the boundaries of this physical world, and reached the realm beyond the rules.

That field had nothing, yet it had everything.

There was no space, so everything overlapped in the same place.

Since there is no time, the past, present, and future exist simultaneously.

Since there is no cause and effect, the cause and effect can be interchanged.

"He will analyze my information, try to find my weaknesses, or find a way to bypass my eyes. This process takes time because there are some components of my power that he has never seen before. Those components do not belong to any power system he knows, and he cannot fully understand them with his existing cognitive framework."

"I can handle them."

Artoria suddenly spoke.

She is Artoria Pendragon.

She is the monarch of the Knights of the Round Table.

She was the queen who led a group of the most unruly knights to the light in the darkest of times.

Her tactical skills, her decision-making ability, and her ability to remain calm in dire situations were all honed through countless life-or-death trials.

These things are ingrained in her bones. She doesn't need to think or hesitate. She only needs one condition: she knows what she needs to protect.

Now she knows.

She wants to protect this world.

Bai Yu turned his head to look at Artoria.

"Artoria".

"Ah."

"I have a question."

"Ok?"

Bai Yu's gaze shifted from Artoria's face to her right hand. There was nothing on that hand, but Bai Yu knew that if Artoria wished, a holy sword, a holy spear, or any kind of treasure that appeared in the legends of King Arthur could appear in that hand.

These things do not exist physically; they are the embodiment of concepts, the privileges that Artoria possesses as the bearer of the concept of King Arthur.

"If Im were to initiate self-destruction within this world, using all the power he has buried at the core of this world for eight hundred years to shatter the entire world in an instant, would your holy sword and holy spear be able to be fully unleashed?"

The weight of this problem is heavier than all the previous problems combined.

Artoria did not answer immediately.

She is feeling it.

She was sensing the holy sword and holy spear within her body.

These two entities have been with her since the day she became King Arthur. They are not her weapons, but a part of her, proof of her as a king, and constraint on her as a human being.

The holy sword represents the "chosen king".

The Holy Lance represents "the cornerstone anchoring the world".

These two forces coexist in a delicate balance within her body.

The holy sword points outward, protecting everything she wants to protect.

The Holy Lance turned inward, fixing her as humanity's final boundary.

The mechanics of the Holy Sword and Holy Lance are triggered when she attempts to fully unleash both simultaneously; the Holy Sword and Holy Lance cannot be fully unleashed unless the world is destroyed and humanity is annihilated.

"After complete liberation, can you prevent the collapse of this world?"

"Once the Holy Sword is fully unleashed, the light from its scabbard can cover the entire world I want to protect."

That ray of light was not light in the physical sense, but rather a concrete manifestation of the concept of protection.

Everything enveloped by the scabbard's light is imbued with the attribute of being protected. In this state, no destructive force from the outside can penetrate the scabbard's light.

"Once the Holy Lance is fully unleashed, it will become the physical anchor of this world, not a spiritual anchor, not a conceptual anchor, but a physical, real, and unshakable anchor. All the physical laws, all the material structures, and all the energy flows in this world will be fixed in their proper places by the Holy Lance. Even if all the forces at the core of the world explode at the same time, the Holy Lance can confine the energy of these explosions within the core of the world, preventing them from spreading to other parts of the world."

“It doesn’t matter. As long as I protect people with the scabbard and the holy lance, even if the world is shattered, I can rebuild it.”

The conversation between Uchiha Hakuba and Artoria left Shanks, Loki, Mihawk, and Jabba looking at each other in bewilderment…

Destroying the world, reshaping the world...

That's way ahead of its time...

Chapter 246 The Smoke of War Before the Battle

Bai Yu's voice wasn't loud, but the weight of his words in everyone's ears was heavier than any other sentence they had ever heard in their lives.

The red-haired man's right hand unconsciously rested on Griffin's sword hilt, not because he sensed a threat, but because his body automatically entered a state of combat readiness when faced with some kind of information beyond his comprehension.

This was an instinctive reaction ingrained in his very bones, a reaction honed by his status as one of the kings and a top warrior who had experienced countless life-or-death battles.

Loki stood beside Red Hair, his enormous body freezing the instant he heard Bai Yu's words.

His eyes widened, his pupils contracted slightly, and his lips moved a few times, but he didn't utter a single word.

He was a prince of the giants, and from childhood he had heard countless grand and unbelievable legends about the World Tree, Ragnarok, and the Nine Worlds. But those legends were just legends, stories that his ancestors told to children around the campfire, and no one ever took them seriously.

Now Bai Yu tells him that he can recreate the world.

It is not a legend, not a story, not a metaphor.

It is a statement.

Mihawk's expression changed the least of all of them. His hawk-like eyes darted back and forth between Bai Yu and Artoria a few times, then he took a slow, deep breath.

His right hand moved away from the hilt of the black sword, hanging at his side, his fingers slightly open and closed, as if sensing some kind of change in the air that only he could perceive.

Jabba finished the last drop of wine from the jug.

He tucked the flask back into his belt, raised his head and looked up at the northern sky, the direction of Mary Geoise, the direction of Pangaea, and the true center of this war.

"Roger, Roger."

Jabba said in a low voice, his voice as hoarse as an old canvas that had been blown by the sea breeze its whole life.

"Is this what you saw in Laugh Tale?"

No one answered him.

Because nobody knows the answer.

Bai Yu withdrew his gaze from Artoria and looked back at the northern sky. At this moment, his Rinnegan entered a completely new state.

The reddish-gold star in the center of the pupil began to rotate at an extremely slow speed. With each rotation, a ripple, almost invisible to the naked eye, spread outward from the pupil. These ripples carried no energy and had no effect on the surrounding environment.

It seems to be reading all the information stored in this world at the coordinates of Pangu City.

It wasn't about reading what was happening now, but about reading all the memories accumulated by this city throughout its long existence. Every brick, every pillar, every inch of land was peeled away layer by layer in Bai Yu's eyes, like an archaeologist excavating an ancient city buried for thousands of years, with secrets from different eras hidden beneath each layer of soil.

Bai Yu saw many things.

He witnessed the construction of the city.

It was not built by humans; no human craftsmen participated in the construction of this city.

Those buildings grew out of the ground, like plants, starting from a seed and slowly growing over a long period of time, growing into towers, city walls, underground cavities, and countless energy channels.

Eight hundred years ago.

Bai Yu also witnessed everything that this city had experienced.

It has witnessed countless wars, but the wars have never reached its walls, because all those who dared to attack the city vanished before they even got close.

It was not killed by humans, but destroyed by some energy-related forces within Im.

Bai Yu even saw the dark golden sphere deep within the city's core.

The sphere began to pulsate at the very moment Im's avatar was destroyed, a pulsation so slow it was almost imperceptible to any ordinary senses.

It's like a heart beating, but the way it beats isn't contraction and expansion, but a more abstract fluctuation that exists between existence and non-existence.

With each fluctuation, the sphere's color undergoes an extremely subtle change, from dark gold to an even darker gold, and then back to normal.

Bai Yu's pupils contracted slightly.

He saw something he hadn't noticed before.

That sphere was not merely a container used by Im to store the life force of this world.

It is a beacon. A permanent beacon connecting this world to Im's Void Throne.

Im can use this device to project his consciousness onto someone in this world who has signed a contract at any time, and he can also use this beacon to draw the power scattered throughout this world back to his own body at any time.

The existence of this beacon means that Im has never truly left the Flower Garden of Pangaea.

He has always been there.

Even if his avatar is destroyed, his consciousness can still reach any part of this world at any time through this beacon. As long as the beacon remains, this world can never truly escape Im's control.

Bai Yu turned his gaze away from the northern sky.

He looked around at the people. Red-haired Shanks, Loki, Mihawk, Jabba, Artoria, Matsumoto Rangiku, Unohana—everyone had a different expression, but in everyone's eyes was the same thing: waiting.

They are waiting for Bai Yu to make a decision.

Because everyone knows that only Bai Yu can decide the direction of the next action.

It's not that they lack their own opinions, but rather that every step they take next requires guidance from Bai Yu's eyes, which can see beyond the rules.

Without knowing where Im is, what is in Pangaea, or the existence and function of the beacon, any decision made by anyone is nothing more than wildly swinging a fist in the dark.

Bai Yu opened his mouth, ready to speak.

But he didn't say it aloud.