Outside the entrances of the plaza, the Defense Force's First Regiment had finally completed its assembly.
Meanwhile, the Second and Third Regiments had already finished handing over their various checkpoints and consolidating their forces, quickly converging to reinforce the plaza.
Receiving this crucial update through his spiritual link with his subordinates, the rage on Law's face melted away—first into disdain, then into a frenzy of bloodthirst.
"First Regiment of the Defense Force—hear my command! Suppress the rebellion in the plaza! Any who dare stand in your way—kill them without mercy!"
Now with troops at his disposal, the man had gone mad—rebranding the unrest in the plaza as a rebellion of the gravest severity.
In the air, Vegapunk and his twelve clone researchers froze, their faces stricken. The blue flame-particles burning within his true body's eye sockets flickered violently.
Even Vegapunk had not expected this—Law had suddenly gone off script, escalating the situation in an instant.
"Commander Law!" Vegapunk roared. "What are you doing? Most of these are innocent civilians!"
Law cackled darkly. "Innocent civilians? Your poison has already seeped into their bloodlines! For generations they will be bound to corruption and growths—there is no antidote!"
"Your so-called antidotes? Nothing more than another round of experiments!"
"You've already doomed tens of thousands—is that still not enough for you?! Or do you mean to turn the entire Lower City into your poison laboratory?!"
One, the planetary governor. The other, the chief scientist. Both men held unmatched prestige across Pirate Star.
Now, as they hurled accusations back and forth, the civilians of the Lower City—and even the Middle and Upper City—were left utterly bewildered.
Who was truly responsible for unleashing the poison?
And whose path offered salvation for the yet-uninfected?
Even Roya found his thoughts momentarily dragged off course, weighing the question.
But he quickly realized the truth: both of them were already corrupted pawns. How could either genuinely wish to save the innocent?
No matter what they claimed, it was nothing but lies and excuses—each striving to appease the master pulling their strings.
On the ground, the fully armed First Regiment had already broken into squad-level charges. Less than a hundred meters now separated them from the defenseless civilians.
Roya knew he could wait no longer. The enemy had yet to show their full hand, but the people had no more time.
Rising from the Throne of Void, he stepped forward—and in that single step crossed space, arriving above the Lower City plaza.
From him spread waves of spiritual radiance, warm and gentle, like sunlight in the dead of winter. It bathed every corner of the district, calming the terrified civilians and steadying the soldiers on the brink of madness.
"It's Lord Roya! Lord Roya has returned!"
"I knew it! Lord Roya would never abandon us!"
"Praise Lord Roya! His radiance can banish all darkness and corruption! He will guard us until the very end!"
Those who had taken part in the rites of worship were the first to respond. They dropped to their knees in the most devout of postures, offering fervent prayers to him.
Their faith in Roya had never faltered. They had merely been deceived by sinister cultists, blinded into worshiping the false idols of the altar.
Now, before the true object of their faith, their spiritual fervor soared to unprecedented heights.
And under the sway of that fervor, the ordinary civilians—though not as devout—found themselves swept up, one by one dropping to their knees, joining in the prayers.
For in this desperate moment, with slaughter at hand, it was Roya who had come to save them.
At the same time, under the glow of his spiritual radiance, most of the Defense Force soldiers wore bewildered expressions.
Their senses returned. They began to question why they had ever raised their weapons against civilians.
But the captains of the First Regiment—the veterans who had followed Law since the early days of the Pirate Crew—were different.
The corruption in them ran far deeper.
Roya's radiance did not suppress or purify their taint. Instead, the violent clash of energies tore away their masks entirely.
These once-elite soldiers now glared with eyes burning crimson, their faces twisted beyond recognition.
It was as though they were wracked by unbearable agony—and yet also driven by some exalted ideal for which they would gladly die.
Caught in that paradox that even Roya could not fully comprehend, they raised their weapons high and charged into the crowd of civilians.
The other soldiers, shaken from their stupor, instinctively turned their blades and guns toward their crazed comrades.
Under the blessing of Roya's radiance, their buried duty—to protect civilians—reasserted itself like a primal instinct. They interposed themselves, intercepting their deranged former brothers-in-arms.
Without Roya uttering a command, the newly-awakened squad leaders roared:
"Stop those lunatics!"
Clear orders snapped the soldiers back into fighting form. In an instant, the square erupted into chaotic melee—loyalists clashing against the corrupted.
Roya did not halt this unavoidable civil strife. Those men were too far gone; their reason could never be restored.
Their spirits had long since died. What moved their bodies now was nothing but an all-consuming hunger for bloodshed.
Roya's focus was elsewhere.
On Vegapunk.
On Law.
From past bonds to future plans, both men were pivotal. Roya could not—would not—let them slide into the same abyss as the corrupted soldiers.
His radiance worked deeply, battling the corruption within them both.
On Law's face, expressions flickered wildly, warring between reason and rot.
Vegapunk's clones, twitching and convulsing grotesquely in the air, betrayed his inner struggle just as vividly.
Then—
"My lord! Lord Roya! Save me!"
Law's face contorted into a mask of terror, crying out desperately for help.
But in the very next instant, his features warped into something else entirely—cruelty, savagery, bloodlust—all fused together into a visage of horror.
With a voice coarse and frenzied, he bellowed:
"Pain! Blood! Death! They are the only eternity of the material world!"