Chapter 2: Elus Born With The Hogyoku
The father and son’s conversation continued until dawn.
After roughly deciding on the strategy for dealing with the Amento Kingdom next, Elus dragged his somewhat tired body back to his own sleeping palace.
Bathroom.
The pervasive water vapor, like thick fog, concealed the scenes that shouldn’t be shown.
Elus wiped his wet hair while walking to the large bath mirror. The anti-fog large bath mirror was not affected by the water vapor in the bathroom at all, clearly reflecting that pair of emerald green eyes, handsome face, two magnified pectoral muscles, eight robust abdominal muscles, and—
The gem embedded in the center of his chest, flowing with a blue-black glow.
“Hogyoku!”
His fingertips gently touched the gem on his chest, and Elus gazed at himself in the mirror with appreciative eyes.
“Splash!”
As Elus’s thoughts changed, a pair of bat-shaped pitch-black large wings grew from the position of his rear deltoids, instantly stretching and unfolding to the extreme, directly blocking the light on the ceiling above his head and casting large shadows on the floor.
A pair of pale curved horns also grew from the top of his head.
At a glance, it was as if he had been possessed by a devil.
“This thing······ if naming it, it should count as Mythical Zoan, right? Bat-Bat Fruit·Mythical Zoan·Black-Winged Great Demon form?”
Elus gently stroked the horns on his head and the wings on his back. This wasn’t the first time he had stood in front of the mirror to examine himself, but every time he looked, it felt so wondrous, so exquisite, so······ marvelous.
The Hogyoku in his chest was born in this world with him and had spent the twenty years so far together.
However, for the first sixteen years, the Hogyoku remained silent, providing him with no help at all. The ‘golden finger’ that once made him immensely ambitious was frozen, so Elus could only turn his gaze to the yellow earth under his feet, relying on his own effort, paying 120% sweat to make himself stronger.
Fortunately, compared to those ‘transmigrators’ who woke up in junkyards, were picked up on the beach, played uninhabited island adventures, dominated on pirate ships, or directly respawned on bloody experiment tables—
His luck wasn’t bad.
Really not bad!
As the first crown prince of a New World great power nation, he was already a winner in life from birth in this lifetime.
With the support of such a powerful great power country, Elus received top elite education from childhood (mainly martial power training). There was no choice—who let it be the Pirate Era now? Not to mention that the Eckmond Kingdom was located in the New World. To survive in this era, on this sea, sufficient martial power was the most basic guarantee.
At sixteen years old,
Elus, whose strength growth had hit a bottleneck, selected a Zoan Devil Fruit from the royal palace treasury—Bat-Bat Fruit·Paramecia·Great Flying Fox form—preparing to eat it. Although it was just an ordinary Zoan, it could fly!
Compared to chasing unrealistic fantasies and risking life and death nine times out of ten to find the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, Flare-Flare Fruit······
A flying Zoan Devil Fruit was actually already a choice that was hard to obtain even for a fortune.
However,
The moment he ate this Devil Fruit,
The Hogyoku that had been dormant for sixteen years awakened. Under the Hogyoku’s catalysis, the ordinary Bat-Bat Fruit directly transformed into its current form, [Bat-Bat Fruit·Mythical Zoan·Black-Winged Great Demon form].
“Still not enough soul!”
Elus’s finger pressed on the Hogyoku in his chest.
Four years ago, when the Hogyoku awakened, Elus finally connected to the Hogyoku’s consciousness and learned the reason for its sixteen years of silence.
First, the Hogyoku’s birth: Kisuke Urahara used countless ‘Hollows’ as the foundation to create a semi-finished Hogyoku. Later, Sosuke Aizen used the souls of hundreds of Shinigami and more residents of Rukongai with Shinigami potential as materials to create another semi-finished Hogyoku. Finally, the two semi-finished Hogyokus merged into one, giving birth to the complete Hogyoku.
From this, it can be seen that the Hogyoku’s essence is a creation based on a large number of high-quality souls.
As for the Hogyoku’s power, it has its own consciousness. It can absorb the ‘hearts’ of things existing around it and manifest them, and it can protect the host’s body from death and decay. When the host’s ability reaches the limit or life is threatened, the Hogyoku can make the host endlessly evolve to the next dimensional realm.
It sounds ridiculously powerful.
But upon careful consideration, one finds that the Hogyoku’s power doesn’t appear out of thin air. It needs to absorb the ‘hearts’ of things existing around it—this ‘heart’ is not the physical heart, but accurately, the souls of all intelligent beings. Only with souls as fuel can it support the host’s evolution to higher, stronger realms.
The sixteen years of silence were due to the lack of sufficient souls to provide energy.
So,
Soul,
Only the soul is everything.
In those first sixteen years, Elus continuously hunted and killed enemies in repeated real combats, and the Hogyoku silently absorbed soul after soul. When he ate the Devil Fruit, the Devil Fruit’s power collided with the Hogyoku, forcibly activating the Hogyoku that hadn’t fully recovered its energy.
Because the Hogyoku hadn’t fully recovered its energy, the awakened Hogyoku merely strengthened and enhanced the Devil Fruit’s power, then sank back into dormancy. However, this time it wasn’t complete silence; its consciousness was still under Elus’s control.
Over the four years,
Elus had been continuously fighting and killing, persistently collecting souls for the Hogyoku.
Through four years of relentless effort, the number of souls collected wasn’t small, but the quality of these souls was really not high. If relying only on such low-quality souls to fill the Hogyoku’s bottomless pit-like demand, it would be an astronomical figure.
“However, there’s finally another chance for a big meal.”
A hint of excitement rose in Elus’s emerald green eyes. War was the fastest way to collect souls. The only drawback was that souls had freshness—only during the war could they be collected freely. Once time passed and the souls went to the underworld, not even a single hair could be obtained.
Several times, he heard of a great battle erupting somewhere, but by the time he arrived, it was too late, resulting in meager gains.
In the end, it was just a waste of time.
However,
This time, he would personally lead the war.
In this war with the Amento Kingdom, he planned to turn it into his hunting ground for harvesting souls.
The Hogyoku in his chest sensed Elus’s excitement, and the flowing blue-black glow quietly sped up a bit.
After finishing the bath and changing into the pajamas prepared by the maid, Elus quickly fell into a sweet slumber on that soft large bed.
