OP: AMP Ch. 214

Marcus' completely inhumane method of forcing the Shichiseiken to taste the Devil Fruit only earned him a resentful glare from the sword's manifestation.

"Ahem... so, how is it?" Marcus asked, trying to sound innocent.

In her goat form, the Shichiseiken stuck out her tongue and licked it, as if checking for lingering traces of that awful taste.

"Why don't I feel anything?" She sounded confused.

The Shichiseiken had witnessed everything Goliath and Usopp went through from start to finish. She'd braced herself for the same experience.

But... nothing happened?

She tilted her head.

"Seems like... no change? I really don't feel any pain at all."

Marcus picked up the Shichiseiken's hilt to examine it more closely. Even though the sword was currently manifesting in beast form, that didn't mean she'd completely separated from her true body as a weapon.

A small white fluffy tail connected her goat manifestation to the sword's hilt, like an umbilical cord linking two forms of existence. On that tail were several smooth, round gemstones embedded in the fur.

One of the gems was pitch-black. The others remained their original colors.

He examined the blade itself. Clearly, the sword hadn't transformed much either.

"I've got it! I've got it!" The Shichiseiken suddenly rubbed her belly enthusiastically.

"I feel it! I've got it!"

Her hand rested on her stomach as she rubbed it again, her tail wagging. "I've really got it!"

Marcus strongly suspected she was messing with him on purpose, but he had no proof.

"Got what, exactly?"

The Shichiseiken was vibrating with excitement. Her body began to twist and distort, shifting in ways that didn't quite make sense, only for nothing to happen in the end. At least, nothing he could see with his eyes.

Just then, something poked his shoulder twice.

He turned around and found another Shichiseiken standing right beside him, identical to the first.

"Hahaha!" Both versions laughed in perfect unison, clearly pleased with themselves. "Pretty impressive, right?"

"Is this a clone?" Marcus asked, reaching out toward the second one.

"No... it's an illusion," the original Shichiseiken explained, looking smug.

Marcus frowned, trying to understand the connection. "An illusion? What does that have to do with the Goatman?" He muttered to himself, working through the logic. "Come to think of it, I've never seen a proper Mythical Zoan awakening before. Is this a newly developed ability from eating multiple fruits?"

In One Piece, Mythical Zoans displayed the widest variety of special abilities. Luffy's Nika form was the most prominent example, though that power felt more like an awakening of the Gum-Gum Fruit's true nature. Even his most impressive techniques were fundamentally just one core ability: rubberizing everything around him, including other people's bodies.

Was it powerful? Absolutely. But if you looked at pure special abilities...

Take Kaido's heat breath, his control over flame clouds, his wind blade attacks, his ability to transform into a dragon. Or Marco the Phoenix, whose baseline ability was literal immortality, with regenerative flames that could even heal others.

Those abilities seemed objectively stronger than simple rubberization when you broke it down. And those weren't even awakened forms. If they achieved awakening, would their powers reach even higher levels?

But looking at the Goatman...

The Fear Domain was impressive, sure. But theoretically, eating a second Devil Fruit of the same type should result in awakening techniques becoming normalized, like how the explosions and fusion abilities worked.

Yet the Goatman's "awakening" was illusions?

It was a new ability, which was good. But he felt slightly disappointed. He'd been expecting something more directly combat-oriented.

The Shichiseiken noticed his expression and wagged her finger like a teacher correcting a slow student.

"It is an illusion, but it's an illusion born from fear itself. As long as someone experiences fear, doesn't matter if I caused it or not, I can manifest from within their hearts. The illusion might not be real, but I can instantly transfer my consciousness to it and launch real attacks through it. And from an outside perspective, who could possibly tell it's just an illusion? Plus, it doesn't have to be this form specifically."

As she spoke, the Shichiseiken's beast form vanished, transforming back into her sword shape.

The illusion also became a sword, except this blade was floating in midair, completely unsupported.

Marcus stared at the scene. He focused his thoughts, testing his connection to the floating blade. The hovering Shichiseiken began to move, shifting position in response to his mental commands. It followed his intentions. He made the illusory blade fly directly in front of him, then reached out to touch it.

His hand passed straight through.

"So it's still intangible after all."

"Obviously," the Shichiseiken said, as if explaining something to a child. "If you want the attacks to become real, I need to channel energy through the illusion. But making the attack real doesn't mean the sword body itself becomes solid. If it were physical, how could it float in the air without support?"

Marcus nodded slowly. That made sense from a game mechanics perspective. The illusion was like a projection point for real attacks, not a duplicate.

"How many of these can you create?" he asked.

The Shichiseiken paused, considering. "With the current amount of fear energy I have stored? Maybe a dozen illusions at once, though maintaining that many would drain my reserves quickly. If I'm just creating one or two and using them strategically, I could sustain them for hours."

"And you can project yourself through any of them instantly?"

"Think of each illusion as a doorway I can step through. The moment an enemy commits to attacking an illusion, I can manifest through it and strike from an angle they're not defending."

Marcus grinned. "That's terrifying in practice. You're essentially omnipresent within your Fear Domain."

The Shichiseiken preened, clearly proud of her new ability.

"So... do you want to keep going?" Marcus asked, pulling out another Goatman Fruit.

The Shichiseiken transformed back into her beast form and stretched out her hand expectantly.

He silently handed over the fruit.

The Shichiseiken immediately floated several meters away, clearly worried that he might grab her and force-feed her again.

Seeing this, Marcus said irritably, "What kind of person do you think I am?"

The Shichiseiken gave him a look that clearly communicated: Do you really want me to answer that question?

"Besides looking vaguely human-shaped, have you ever done anything humane?" she shot back.

Marcus really wanted to argue with that assessment, but in the end, he just gave up in frustration. She kind of had a point.

Keeping a wary eye on him, and only after confirming he truly had no intention of ambushing her, the Shichiseiken began eating the third fruit using the same mist-slicing method as before.

This time, after swallowing it all, she still showed no major pain response.

She rubbed her belly thoughtfully.

"Well?" Marcus prompted.

"This time there really isn't much dramatic change. It's an ability-enhancement type upgrade. The Fear Domain expanded from three hundred meters to one thousand meters in radius. And I gained a new passive ability, I can now actively absorb negative emotions that weren't originally generated by my fear aura."

Marcus' eyebrows rose. "So you can basically feed on ambient anxiety, stress, and fear that already exists in an environment. Still no pain though? Or is it because you're a sword, so you don't have pain receptors?"

The Shichiseiken shook her head slowly. She honestly wasn't sure herself. Having seen the expressions on Goliath and Usopp's faces, she'd been scared about what eating multiple Devil Fruits might do to her.

But so far? Nothing bad at all.

"One more," she said, holding out her hand again.

Since it didn't hurt, why not push the limits?

Marcus pulled out the fourth Devil Fruit and examined her expression. Seeing her completely unconcerned, almost casual attitude, he handed it over.

After eating it, her face remained calm. She was still rubbing her belly though, which was starting to puzzle Marcus.

"Why do you keep touching your stomach?" he finally asked. "Indigestion or something?"

What he got in return was an exaggerated eye-roll.

"This should be my last Devil Fruit," the Shichiseiken announced.

"Why?" Marcus asked. "You're not feeling any negative effects. Your body can clearly handle more."

The Shichiseiken rubbed her belly.

"I don't feel pain because you've enhanced me multiple times with your abilities. But that doesn't mean I have unlimited capacity." She paused, trying to find the right analogy. "Think of it like a container that can hold one hundred liters of water. Each Devil Fruit is like pouring ten liters into that container. Even though I still have sixty liters of empty space remaining, the weight of forty liters has already reached the structural limit of what a plastic container can safely bear. If I eat more, I won't explode, but the container can no longer support the load. Unless I get upgraded again. My capacity is limited by my current form. Until you find a way to enhance me further, four is my maximum."

Marcus looked at her thoughtfully. Four Devil Fruits as the limit... was that the limit of the Shichiseiken specifically, or a general limitation for enhanced beings?

He filed that question away for later consideration.

"What did the fourth Devil Fruit bring you?"

"Still an ability enhancement," the Shichiseiken replied. "I used to have a storage cap on how much fear-black energy I could accumulate. Now that limit has significantly increased. And the Fear Domain's range expanded again, from one thousand meters to five thousand meters in radius."

Marcus let out a low whistle. Five kilometers was a massive area of effect. "So the basic mechanics are already established. From here on, it's just about scaling up the numbers... Your stats are basically maxed out, that's just how it works. You ate Zoan-types. In terms of special abilities, they can't compete with Paramecia fruits. You're a pure stat monster now."

Four Devil Fruits. That was apparently the Shichiseiken's limit.

He watched as the sword continued rubbing her belly, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"You know, I never thought I'd see a sword with indigestion," he muttered.

The Shichiseiken shot him another withering look. "I'm not having 'indigestion.' I just feel... full. That's why I said four was my upper limit. I'm trying to see if the sensation passes."

"A sword trying to digest food... That's a sentence I never expected to say out loud." Marcus shook his head and turned his attention back to the Soul Sand Floating Island.

In just these few short minutes, the pirate had completely sunk beneath the Soul Sand's surface. No trace remained of where he'd disappeared.

He walked over to the spot, staring at the deceptively calm sand. The piglins had vanished without issue, absorbed into whatever mechanism powered this place. But what about the human? He pulled out a shovel and carefully excavated a single block of Soul Sand.

This time, something remained.

The body was still there, but the moment he uncovered it, the corpse began sinking again slowly, as if something beneath was trying to drag it deeper and hide it away.

Curious now, he reached down to grab the body and pull it back up. But the instant his hand got close, he saw them... countless tormented spirits writhing around the corpse. Though they couldn't affect him directly, their possessive, almost protective behavior over their prize was disturbing.

Does this Soul Sand have some kind of consciousness? he wondered, pulling his hand back.

He decided against retrieving that particular body. Whatever was happening down there, he didn't need to interfere with the process.

Instead, he turned to the other pirate, the one still floating in the air above the Soul Sand, trapped in his pleasant dream courtesy of the Shichiseiken's fear manipulation.

He lowered him onto the Soul Sand's surface and watched.

The man began sinking immediately, that blissful smile never leaving his face. Halfway down, he grabbed him and pulled him back up.

The pirate was still grinning, completely unaware that anything was wrong. He remained lost in whatever happy fantasy the Shichiseiken had woven for him. The only reason it hadn't turned into a nightmare yet was because the sword was still distracted trying to process her unusual "meal" of multiple Devil Fruits.

Who knows... if digestion really succeeds, will the Shichiseiken end up taking a dump?

It was hard to imagine the scene of a sword taking a dump. And since it was a sheep, would what came out be little pellets of sheep droppings?

He shook his head, throwing these bizarre thoughts out of his mind. He examined the man more closely. Countless wailing spirits clung to the pirate's lower body. It reminded him of someone emerging from water, their body covered in droplets. But these spirits didn't drip off. Instead, they clung tight and began crawling upward, spreading across more of the body.

As they moved, they left behind holes, gaps in the flesh that exposed what lay beneath.

What he saw made him go still.

White bone. Nothing but stark white bone where the man's legs should have been.

The pirate was still smiling, completely unaware that he'd already lost everything below his knees. Had the dream state blocked his pain receptors? Or had the Soul Sand's process destroyed his nervous system entirely?

He didn't want to investigate further. There was no point. He placed the man back onto the Soul Sand's surface.

This time, the sinking happened almost instantaneously. The moment contact was made, the man's skeletal legs vanished beneath the surface. Within seconds, his entire body had disappeared into the sand.

He stood there for a long moment, staring at the spot where both pirates had vanished. Beneath that surface, there were probably two complete skeletons now. Everything else had been consumed and absorbed into whatever mechanism powered this place.

"What is this stuff?" he muttered.

"I still sense them faintly," the Shichiseiken said, finally abandoning her digestion efforts. She'd apparently sensed when her fear-controlled victim had disappeared. "But they're fading fast. Shame. I forgot to harvest their fear before they went under. You could've reminded me earlier. What a waste."

Marcus' mouth twitched. He was starting to feel like a villain from some dark fantasy story. Then again, he basically was one at this point. No sense denying it.

Not that he felt particularly guilty about it. They were pirates who'd invaded someone else's territory and paid the price. Even the Straw Hats, who were much more heroic than he would ever be, didn't hesitate to kill when the situation called for it.

This wasn't a shonen manga where defeated villains got redemption arcs and cover stories about their post-defeat lives. This was reality, and reality was often brutal.

"Let's go," he said, heading back toward the portal.

The Shichiseiken followed, though she kept glancing back at where the bodies had vanished, clearly still annoyed about the wasted fear energy. But he had no regrets about how things had ended. The moment those two pirates had walked through the Nether Portal, their countdown had started. Not just because they'd learned he could produce identical Devil Fruits, though that was reason enough, but because they'd seen too much of his operation here.

Some secrets couldn't be allowed to leave.

As Marcus stepped through the portal back to the obsidian cage, something stirred in the Soul Sand behind him. Two black skulls slowly emerged from beneath the surface, their empty eye sockets staring at the portal. A withered black rose bloomed silently between them, its petals releasing dark particles that drifted through the air.

---

Back in the obsidian cage, Marcus had barely emerged from the portal when the Straw Hat crew came flooding in, talking over each other excitedly. Some of them looked at him with anticipation, others with curiosity, but all of them were clearly eager for whatever he was about to offer.

Though Goliath and Usopp hadn't explained everything that had happened during their private session, the crew understood this was an invitation to a secret gathering. After all, everyone except Luffy was acutely aware they were being monitored by outside forces.

Marcus led them through the Nether Portal once again.

This time, however, he didn't take them to the Soul Sand Floating Island. That place had a deeply oppressive atmosphere that wasn't suitable for allies. Instead, he brought them to the mob grinding platform, a more neutral location that wouldn't freak them out.

"Usopp and Goliath didn't explain the important details, did they?"

Everyone shook their heads.

So Marcus walked them through the underlying principles of eating multiple Devil Fruits, and all the precautions they'd need to take. After his explanation, the crew was quiet for a moment, processing the information.

"So basically... we'd need to die at least once," Robin said thoughtfully.

None of the Straw Hats had witnessed resurrection before. They trusted Marcus wouldn't lie to them, but the concept of dying and coming back to life was still absurd to contemplate.

That's when Chopper raised his hoof nervously. "What about me?"

Everyone's attention immediately focused on the little reindeer. His original form was an animal, if he died and came back, would he lose his human intelligence? Would he revert to being just a regular reindeer?

And if he lost his mind, then ate more Devil Fruits in that state... would he even be Chopper anymore?

The crew fell into silence.

"Actually..." Nami said slowly, "even if you ate more Human-Human Fruits, would it really make you stronger?"

She had a point. The Human-Human Fruit's main effect was giving animals human-level intelligence and a human form. Chopper's Rumble Balls were what made him truly formidable in combat, they interfered with the Devil Fruit's wavelength, creating transformations that felt almost like a human had eaten a reindeer fruit instead of the other way around.

But stacking more Human-Human Fruits? What would that even do? Make him more human? That seemed pointless at best, potentially identity-destroying at worst.

Would it enhance recovery speed? Physical strength? Intelligence? Or would it do nothing at all?

"Not everything needs to change," Goliath offered quietly. "Some abilities might be stronger in their original form."

He briefly explained his own situation and how his transformation had worked out.

The crew began discussing possibilities, each member considering what multiple Devil Fruits might mean for their own abilities and fighting styles.

Marcus watched them talk, pleased that they were thinking it through carefully rather than jumping in blindly. These were life-changing decisions, after all.

Well, death-changing decisions, technically.