OP: AMP Ch. 212

From the moment Goliath had been created until now, he'd never received proper nutrition. His entire existence had been sustained by consuming iron ingots through the Munch-Munch Fruit's power, like someone surviving on vitamin supplements alone without ever eating real food. It gave him this perpetually malnourished quality, even with his imposing physique.

But now, by using the second Munch-Munch Fruit, he'd finally completed himself. Made himself truly human instead of just human-shaped. The price, however, was transforming from a silicon-based construct into a carbon-based lifeform. He now had organs, blood vessels, a digestive system, all the squishy vulnerable bits that could be exploited as fatal weaknesses.

Whether that trade-off was worth it... who could really say?

After all, the reason he had never needed to train was because he was an iron golem at his core. Physical exercise was meaningless for him. His strength had nothing to do with building muscle or improving technique. Working out would just wear down his iron components faster without making him stronger. From birth until this moment, his power level had remained static. The only way he could increase his combat effectiveness was by using the Munch-Munch Fruit to create weapons inside himself.

That was why he rarely fought directly. He knew his limitations.

Marcus pulled out another Munch-Munch Fruit. "The third one shouldn't be a problem."

Goliath didn't hesitate. He reached for it immediately.

"Wait," Usopp interrupted, a thought occurring to him. "If Goliath was an iron golem before, he didn't feel pain, right? But now he's got a human body with nerves and everything. Can he handle a third fruit now that he can feel it?"

The question made Goliath freeze mid-reach, and Marcus paused to consider it seriously. That was a valid point. An iron construct's body, even when heavily modified, truly had no concept of physical suffering. Pain signals required nerves, and Goliath's original form had possessed none.

Goliath hesitated for just a moment, then he opened his mouth wide and swallowed the fruit whole in one gulp.

This time was different. Sweat immediately beaded on his forehead, and his face contorted. This was probably the first time since his creation that he'd ever experienced real pain. But that raised an interesting question in Marcus' mind. If that was the case, what exactly made Devil Fruits so unbearable for people? Was the limiting factor physical endurance or something in the soul itself?

Goliath's first transformation had been nearly instantaneous. You could barely see his expression change, like a loading bar jumping straight from 1% to 100% in a blink. But his personality matched his appearance, he was a steel-hard tough guy through and through. Even as his muscles spasmed uncontrollably and his expression threatened to break entirely, he refused to make a sound. His eyes filled with burst blood vessels, looking like they might pop right out of their sockets from the strain.

In the end, he made it through. When the transformation finally finished, his sweat had left a perfect human-shaped puddle on the obsidian floor.

"Hah... that was something," he managed, wiping his forehead. Despite losing his iron golem body, he felt unexpectedly good about the change.

"Well? How is it? What changed?" Usopp crowded closer.

He'd suffered through this experience alone before. Even though he'd survived it, seeing someone else endure the same torture made those psychological shadows fade considerably. There was really comfort in shared suffering.

Goliath sat up slowly, examining his hands, then looking at Marcus with confusion written across his features.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" Marcus prompted.

"I don't think anything changed?" Goliath looked baffled. He tried to elementalize his body, but nothing happened at all.

Did I suffer through that for nothing?

Seeing his confusion, Marcus activated Soul Possession without a word. Goliath accepted the connection immediately. When Marcus took control and stood up using Goliath's body, he ran through a series of tests himself. He tried every variation he could think of, pushing the fruit's abilities in different directions. Finally, he released the possession and returned to his own body with a thoughtful expression.

"You're right. There's no change to your abilities."

"What? How is there no change?" Usopp moved closer and knocked on Goliath's body. Before, he would've heard the metallic clang of hitting iron. Now the surface felt warm and slightly yielding, like flesh over muscle.

"Maybe try growing a mouth somewhere else on your body?" Usopp suggested. "I mean, the Munch-Munch Fruit is basically about growing extra mouths to eat things, right?"

Marcus shook his head. "Already tested that. But if I'm not wrong... this should be an enhancement of the core ability itself rather than gaining new powers."

"An ability enhancement? How can the Munch-Munch Fruit get enhanced? It already does what it does."

It was a fair question. Was the Munch-Munch Fruit powerful compared to something like the Rumble-Rumble Fruit? Not really. Compared to the Bomb-Bomb Fruit? If you had advanced engineering knowledge and could assemble complex machinery inside your body, then sure, the Munch-Munch Fruit could be devastating.

You could say it was entirely dependent on the user's imagination and technical knowledge. Especially in scientific applications, the more you understood about mechanics and materials, the stronger you became. If Goliath had blueprints for something like Tony's Iron Man suit, he could build it directly by consuming the right metals. Hell, he wouldn't even need an arc reactor since Goliath himself was essentially a living power source, just requiring iron ingots for fuel.

Now he could even permanently alter his body's composition, eliminating the time limitations his transformations used to have. If this fruit had gone to someone like Vegapunk instead of that waste of space king from Drum Kingdom in the original story, it would be considered top-tier.

But even with such a versatile ability, Marcus was claiming the power itself had been enhanced somehow? How could it be enhanced further? In what way? Better digestion? A bigger stomach dimension?

The Munch-Munch Fruit did create an internal storage space, and it was quite large. During Usopp's experiments, they'd measured at least a hundred square meters of capacity.

Had it expanded to a thousand square meters now? If so, they might be able to fit the Going Merry inside it. The Merry was currently with Shiki's fleet. When Marcus had returned from his trip, he'd immediately asked about the ship's condition. Learning it was safe and undamaged had been an enormous relief.

He turned his attention to the two pirates who were shaking.

Under his gaze, both men felt their spines freeze despite the blazing heat of their hellish surroundings. It was like being trapped in an ice bath while someone held your head under.

"We can do anything you need! We won't say a word about this place to anyone!" one of them stammered desperately.

"Right! I can serve you however you want! Oh, and I know navigation! Plus I've got brewing skills. I can—!"

Before either could finish their pitches, Goliath opened his mouth impossibly wide and swallowed them both in one gulp. Usopp wasn't particularly surprised by this. The Munch-Munch Fruit could consume people and merge them with the user's body.

Though that merging ability was honestly pretty underwhelming in practice. Two people got connected together, but their bodies were just forcibly attached like some kind of stitched-together monster. Coordination was difficult, and the benefits were marginal unless you'd trained extensively together. If the synchronization was good, you could see improvements in strength and durability.

Like when Wapol had eaten his two subordinants, creating that stacked form. Their combined power and speed had increased noticeably. But that only worked because they'd already adapted to it through long-term practice. More importantly, if one party was a Devil Fruit user and the other wasn't, only the ability user could access their powers. The other person couldn't trigger anything. If you weren't careful, it was easy to injure both participants.

For example: if Chopper and Usopp merged together, both could theoretically use their abilities. But the moment Chopper transformed into one of his forms, that didn't mean Usopp's body would transform along with him. The result would be the connection point tearing apart violently, Chopper shifting into his muscular Heavy Point while Usopp failed to adapt and just... collapsed. He wouldn't die, but he'd be in rough shape.

Fortunately, in that merged state, it only took a moment to separate back to normal by releasing the Munch-Munch ability.

For powerful fighters, the merging was pretty useless. But it was kind of fun to experiment with.

After he completely consumed both pirates, Goliath's body began changing again. His physique grew taller and broader, muscles swelling. Then an iron door materialized on his stomach.

The door swung open.

A human figure walked out of Goliath's torso.

Everyone stared in silence as one of the pirates emerged, looking disoriented, stumbling out of Goliath's body cavity like he'd just been born from some mechanical womb.

The pirate looked down at himself, then up at Goliath's face, then back at the door in the golem's stomach, his brain clearly struggling to process what had just happened to him.

"What... what the fuck..." he whispered.