OP: AMP Ch. 222

"Looks like we've got no choice. Time for the ultimate move!"

Goliath watched the goatmen descend into complete frenzy, then turned toward Usopp with a look that said everything. Usopp's eyes lit up immediately. He spun around to do a headcount and figure out the formation, but stopped short when he realized how few of them were left standing together.

"Where are Shira and Robin?"

Only then did he notice that two members of their group had gone missing.

"I don't want to." Nami's entire body crackled with electrical arcs. Four or five goatmen were clawing at her from behind, their attacks passing through her lightning-transformed body, but she still looked reluctant.

Chopper, on the other hand, was vibrating with excitement.

"Huh?! We're doing it now?! Isn't this kind of reckless?" Despite his uncertain words, his eyes were shining so bright you could see stars. He clearly couldn't wait.

Vivi looked at Nami and urged her. "Nami, we need you for this!"

Her eyes were gleaming too. The two people most resistant to using their ultimate technique were Shira and Robin, but neither of them were present right now. In theory, there was no opposing will to interfere. If someone resisted or wasn't fully committed, the whole technique would fail. That was just how it worked.

Nami glanced back at the goatmen pursuing her. Their eyes were completely bloodshot, their fur standing on end like they were having seizures. Their breathing came in rapid, desperate gasps. Drool dripped from their mouths and splattered on the floor.

But none of that was what terrified her.

What really got under her skin was the low growling that echoed in her mind like delirious muttering. She had always been easily scared, and hearing those sounds triggered a fear that made her heart race and her hands shake. That was the real reason she was refusing, she was just too damn terrified.

If they activated the ultimate technique with her in this state, she'd definitely become a liability. She'd drag everyone down instead of helping. Better to just stay out of it entirely.

At least that way, the strongest fighters wouldn't have to worry about protecting her.

Vivi clearly "heard" Nami's fear through her Devil Fruit powers. She sidestepped a goatman's lunge and reached out to grab Nami's trembling hand.

"Believe in us!"

Nami looked into Vivi's eyes, and her shaking hand gradually steadied.

"But I—"

"We can do this! Together!"

The infectious confidence in those words, and the firm belief behind them, finally broke through Nami's terror.

She chose to trust her friends.

Chopper couldn't wait any longer. He rushed straight to both of them.

"Get on!"

No extra words were needed.

Vivi and Nami flipped themselves up and mounted Chopper's back as he transformed into his larger form.

With a single powerful leap, he jumped directly in front of Goliath, who had already completed his own transformation.

Goliath's massive metal jaw opened wide and swallowed all three of them whole.

Usopp suddenly clapped his palms together. A loud explosion burst from between his hands, but the blast itself wasn't particularly powerful, the real point was the cloud of black gunpowder smoke that erupted and instantly enveloped both him and Goliath.

From within the smoke came a series of teeth-grinding crunching and grinding sounds.

When the smoke finally cleared... All that remained in the corridor was a set of metal jaws sitting on the floor.

Indigo stared at the spot where five fighters had just been standing, now reduced to a single piece of metal.

"Did they run away?"

"Like hell we did!"

The voice that responded was strange, neither clearly male nor female, and if you listened carefully, there was an echo to it, like multiple people speaking in unison.

"What the..."

The metal jaws began flowing like liquid mercury. They expanded and twisted while the goatmen and Indigo watched in silence.

The metal reshaped itself into a tall, voluptuous figure, curves in all the right places, antlers growing from her head, and long dark hair cascading down to her chest. But the most striking thing wasn't her body.

It was her face.

Light blue eyes shone with bright, childlike innocence. Just one glance and you could feel the curiosity radiating from her gaze, like she was seeing the world for the first time.

A heart-shaped face complemented by a small, button nose. Rosy red lips, with her tongue darting out to lick them.

At first glance, she looked like the cute girl next door. But if you looked past her face, below her neck were collarbones. The deep cleavage below was like an abyss that drew the eye and refused to let go. Further down were clearly defined abs with faintly visible eight-pack lines, showing that despite her feminine appearance, she was packed with power.

"A woman?" Indigo frowned in confusion. Weren't there four people and one reindeer just a moment ago? Where did this woman come from?

"I'm not a woman, you know!" The voice was steady now, but it still carried that childlike quality. It had zero menacing qualities at all, and paired with that appearance, it almost sounded flirtatious.

The goatmen stood frozen in brief confusion and incomprehension. But then their instincts kicked back in and they swarmed forward. Earlier, when there had been four fighters and one reindeer to deal with, they had to spread their attacks. But now there was just one person.

They went even more berserk.

Roars echoed through the corridor nonstop.

But as they closed in, they realized something disturbing... despite standing nearly three meters tall themselves, they were somehow a head shorter than this woman.

"Oh?"

As the word left her, the body quietly began to change. Muscles swelled and expanded. Definition sharpened across every inch of visible skin. The biceps in particular grew to almost the size of a goatman's head. By the time she finished speaking, the woman's body had expanded to four meters tall.

Massive biceps bulged. Developed trapezius muscles rippled. Broad, solid pectoral muscles flexed.

"Better watch out now~"

The voice was still that same innocent, childish tone.

But a massive hand came crashing down with a vicious rush of wind.

SPLAT!

One goatman was slapped into goatman paste.

"Damn!" Indigo sucked in a sharp breath.

"Oops, I used a bit too much strength. This Human-Human Transformation Fruit is pretty hard to control, you know?"

The fully muscled woman squatted down and tried to scoop up the goatman paste with two fingers, like she was picking up a spill. Unfortunately, the thoroughly liberated goatman paste was already beyond recognition, just a red smear on the floor.

"Ew, that's gross."

She flicked her hand dismissively, splattering goatman paste across the walls.

"ROAR!"

The remaining goatmen didn't show any anger over their companion being turned into paste. They were just confused by the change in their target. Now the target was bigger, which meant they could tear off bigger pieces.

SPLAT! SPLAT!

Freshly made portions of goatman paste hit the ground one after another.

Indigo stood frozen at the back of the corridor, staring at the scene in disbelief.

What the hell was happening? How was this possible?

How was this woman dealing with his test subjects one slap at a time like she was swatting flies?

Sure, these goatmen weren't as strong as the original speciman. He'd bred them for growth potential rather than immediate power. But even their base strength should have been formidable, their power levels varied depending on what materials he'd used, but there was no way they should be getting wiped out this easily. They were being crushed like ants.

This couldn't be real.

He felt his entire worldview beginning to crumble.

Watching goatman after goatman get turned into paste right before his eyes, he finally couldn't hold back anymore.

A ball of flame suddenly appeared in his palm, conjured from his own Devil Fruit abilities. Sure, he wasn't primarily a combat specialist, but that didn't mean he lacked combat ability. In this world, a scientist without fighting power would never be able to maintain any real status or respect.

"Stop it right now!"

A sphere of eerie green fire shot straight toward the muscular woman.

Its speed wasn't particularly fast, more of a projectile than a bullet. But the muscular woman clearly didn't care. She was too focused on her goatman-paste-making operation to bother dodging.

The green fireball exploded on impact, engulfing her entire four-meter-tall, four-meter-wide frame in flames.

"They won't be able to... put out the... flames so..."

Indigo's triumphant words died in his throat.

He stared in blank incomprehension at the figure wrapped in his flames. She was still standing there, completely unbothered, calmly maintaining her rhythm... one slap per goatman, continuing to make paste like nothing had happened.

The flames licked harmlessly across her transformed body without leaving so much as a scorch mark.

"Hm?"

She looked at Indigo with an expression that clearly said "What did you just do?"

Only when she glanced up did she finally notice the green flames burning across her body. "Huh? What's this stuff?"

Just because they'd fused didn't mean the fire protection enchantments on their diamond armor had vanished. The protection was still active, layered across their combined form. She waved her hand, and the flames extinguished like someone had flipped a switch.

Indigo stood there frozen, snot unconsciously dripping from his nose as his jaw hung slack.

What kind of monster was this thing?

The instant she dismissed the flames, the three remaining goatmen closed in for another attack. One of them roared as it lunged, extending its claws. Fury poured from its throat in a scream, as if seeking revenge for all its companions who'd been turned into paste.

DING!

Sharp fingers stabbed into the well-defined muscles of her back, but instead of penetrating flesh, they struck something that sparked like metal on metal. The woman absently scratched at the spot where she'd been attacked, completely oblivious to the assault. It felt like a minor itch, nothing more.

"Hm?"

Sensing something off, she glanced down and discovered that the other two goatmen had somehow flanked her. They opened their drooling mouths wide, clearly planning to bite straight into what they saw as prime meat.

Goosebumps erupted across her muscular frame.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two explosions rang out in rapid succession.

The two goatmen who'd opened their mouths took the blasts head-on. Their gaping maws disappeared in clouds of explosive force. Their headless bodies quietly collapsed to the floor.

Dead as dead could be.

As for the last goatman who'd tried the sneak attack from behind, it launched another assault. Having learned that piercing attacks didn't work, it spread both arms wide and prepared to rely on pure brute force.

Its massive palm came down with all its strength.

Whether the attack dealt any damage was debatable, but a powerful recoil surged back through its hand the instant it made contact. The goatman was blasted backward like it had been hit by a cannonball.

The muscular woman turned her head. But when she looked back, there was nobody behind her. Just a goatman-shaped crater in the wall.

Indigo swallowed hard, feeling like he was hallucinating. This couldn't be real.

The woman turned back to the scientist and smiled cutely, dimples appearing on her cheeks, at least if you only looked at her face. The muscular woman's body began to glow. Under Indigo's gaze, four people and one reindeer fell out of the light, landing in a heap on the floor.

"Ugh!" Goliath was the first to vomit. "Sorry... I really can't handle acting cute like that."

Even Goliath, with his iron-willed personality, was the first to break.

Then Vivi and Nami followed suit. The overwhelming sense of embarrassment made it impossible for them to maintain the fusion any longer. The four-into-one combination collapsed completely. The lack of unified thought meant that no matter how hard Goliath tried, he couldn't keep them synchronized.

"Why can't we control it?" Usopp felt nothing but frustration and helplessness.

They'd used the fusion technique before in pairs. The difficulty was manageable, and the power boost was real. With good coordination between two people, both combat and training worked fine. This was their first time attempting a four-person fusion with Chopper included.

Setting aside the question of why the combined body had feminine characteristics, the sheer strength had been terrifying.

It was equivalent to five people all possessing the Human-Human Fruit simultaneously. After transforming into the muscular form, the boost to physical attributes and combat power was absurdly exaggerated.

Although the diamond armor enchantments couldn't stack multiplicatively, the increase in base attributes was ridiculous.

In that state, if a single person could control it, no matter who, even someone with minimal combat experience like Nami, they could dominate almost any opponent through pure stats alone. After all, it had the numbers when it needed numbers, the mechanics when it needed mechanics, the abilities when it needed abilities. Everything was saturated with raw statistical power.

But the problem was that this five-into-one fusion result had been completely uncontrollable. Five people's thought processes had merged together and created something new. Something with a childlike mentality that none of them could predict or direct.

Sure, they'd dealt with quite a few goatmen. But the ideological differences between the five personalities were simply too vast.

Signs of mental collapse had already appeared during the fight.

In the end, Goliath couldn't endure any longer, and the fusion ability released.

Chopper fell into deep thought. This wasn't his first time fusing with others, but in the past, combined states always had a clear hierarchy of control.

For example, when he fused with Usopp or Luffy, he could consciously choose to step back and let the other consciousness take control of their shared body. With mutual coordination and understanding, there was usually no problem maintaining the fusion. But now, five people's personalities and bodies had fused together all at once.

The result was incredibly strong, the sum total of five people's physical attributes combined. Frighteningly powerful. Yet with too many streams of consciousness colliding inside one brain, it was like having five separate souls inhabiting a single body. Even if some yielded control, the chaos of overlapping thoughts clearly overwhelmed what one "person's" mind could handle. This gave rise to yet another kind of mentality entirely.

It was like multiple personality disorder. There were male and female personalities, adult personalities, and naturally childish ones as well. When these personalities pulled against each other for dominance, the childlike one had somehow seized control.

Chopper grasped the fundamental principle at work, but almost immediately grew troubled.

If this was how fusion worked, then the more people who combined, the harder it would be to control the resulting body. Even if everyone's conscious will chose to yield and let the person with the greatest combat talent take charge, the result would most likely be the same as what just happened: a new "consciousness" autonomously taking over. More likely still, the fusion would collapse the instant it formed from the conflicting mental pressures.

He tried to think of an analogy to explain it to the others.

It was like a three-legged race. When two people cooperate, one can take the lead while the other follows their rhythm.

When three people are bound together, it's still possible for one to lead and two to follow, though it's much harder.

But what about four people?

The difficulty skyrockets exponentially. Even the slightest lack of synchronization in movement makes it easy to trip and fall. When five people are involved, even walking becomes nearly impossible. If they do manage to move, it's no longer something a single person can consciously control, the group develops its own momentum.

When six or more people try it, failure becomes inevitable. The forces pulling in different directions will tear the central body apart, sometimes literally ripping people's legs in opposite directions.

That was just a three-legged race with physical bodies.

Fusion of minds was far more complex and dangerous.

At the center of a fusion, someone needed to be the dominant consciousness. Unless one person's will could completely override everyone else's, the result was being battered by countless conflicting wills until you lost all control.

Indigo watched this scene unfold, his expression gradually shifting. It seemed to be some kind of Devil Fruit ability, but clearly one that wasn't under proper control.

Good thing it wasn't under control. Because if it were... how terrifyingly strong would that be?

Judging by the physical capabilities he'd just witnessed, a controlled version might already rival powerhouses in this world.

"I don't know what other tricks you're still hiding, but you've already lost your chance." Five blazing chemical fireballs appeared in his hands.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!

The fireballs flew one after another toward the five who hadn't yet recovered from their fusion collapse. The flames exploded across their position.

He felt victory was assured. Before, they weren't afraid because they were fused together. But now? They were separated and probably weakened from the strain. The advantage was his.

But when the flames burned over all five of them and they emerged completely unharmed, still protected by their individual diamond armor sets, his confident expression crumbled.

Words failed him entirely.

Did they activate it again?