On the massive trunk of the Treasure Tree Adam, Roger struggled as he pulled himself out from the blood-soaked white fur.
Blood streamed from the corner of his mouth, and his breathing was rough and unstable. It was obvious he had suffered serious injuries as well.
Still, thanks to Valthior acting as a shield for him, Roger was only heavily wounded rather than fatally injured.
"Hey, Valthior, are you okay!? You still alive!?" Roger hurriedly asked as he looked toward the giant beast behind him.
If Valthior actually died here, Roger swore he would slaughter everyone in Elbaf.
"My... back..." the ice beast transformed by Valthior weakly forced out a single word.
"Your back is snapped? Oh crap, even if you don't die, you're going to be paralyzed!" Roger shouted in horror.
"If you... can't fucking talk properly... then shut up..." Valthior cursed weakly between breaths.
Hearing him still able to speak at all finally made Roger relax a little.
Good. At least he wasn't dead.
It was only a severe injury. With the recovery ability of a Mythical Zoan, as long as the user didn't die on the spot, most injuries could eventually heal. At worst, he'd just be bedridden for a few months.
But his injuries were clearly too serious to maintain the full Ice Zheng form any longer.
The beast's fur rapidly shrank back while its massive body visibly reduced in size.
During the transformation, the area around the beast's lower back was exposed, revealing that the section of the Treasure Tree Adam smashed apart by the impact actually contained a hidden chamber embedded inside the trunk.
And by pure coincidence, a Road Poneglyph happened to be lodged exactly where Valthior's lower spine had struck.
Half of the giant stone had been driven into the tree trunk itself, yet the Poneglyph remained completely unharmed.
It was obvious what happened.
When Valthior had been blasted backward earlier, his lower back had smashed directly into the Poneglyph.
"Dammit, no wonder it hurt so bad..."Valthior cursed.
Back in human form, he looked utterly miserable.
Almost all his clothes had exploded apart, with only a few scraps hanging from his body. Thankfully, his pants were surprisingly durable and had managed to preserve at least a little dignity.
At the center of his perfectly sculpted abs, right around his navel, a horrifying wound continued pouring blood nonstop.
His intestines were literally spilling out from the hole.
Looking carefully, it was a wound that had pierced clean through both sides of his waist.
His left arm, which he had used to shield Roger, was drenched in blood. The shape of the arm was barely recognizable, and the bones inside were definitely shattered beyond repair. He couldn't move it at all.
The front of his chest had caved inward, while broken ribs pierced through muscle and flesh, hanging grotesquely out into the open air.
Every breath he took sounded like a broken bellows wheezing painfully. Blood foam bubbled out from his nostrils with each inhale.
"You seriously look like you're about to die!" Roger said, his fingers trembling slightly after seeing Valthior's condition clearly.
He truly was afraid.
Afraid that Valthior might actually die here.
Roger simply couldn't accept the idea of one of his companions being killed.
"Not dead yet... quit talking nonsense... make a rubbing of the Poneglyph first... then see if there's a second one... if Elbaf has two, there's no reason they'd hide them separately..." Valthior said weakly between breaths.
"You hang in there!" Roger said before immediately jumping into the ruined hidden chamber.
...
Honestly, when Harald's full-power Hakoku had hit him head-on earlier, Valthior genuinely thought he was going to die.
Every inch of his body screamed in agony.
The overwhelming pain flooding through him made him feel as though he had been completely shattered apart, and for a moment, he even lost consciousness entirely.
But he woke up quickly too.
The violent collision against the trunk of the Treasure Tree Adam jolted him awake again, and the sharp pain from his lower back smashing against the Poneglyph restored his awareness completely.
Then came an even more terrifying wave of agony.
His internal organs had probably all suffered catastrophic damage. For a brief moment, he could even feel his heart stop beating.
But soon after, he noticed something strange happening to his body.
First, the unbearable pain began fading rapidly.
Not because the injuries disappeared, but because his body itself seemed to instinctively suppress the sensation of pain.
Then his heart—which had nearly stopped completely—started beating again.
And each heartbeat became stronger than the last.
That was how he managed to regain consciousness.
At the same time, deep within his mind, it felt as though a savage beast was roaring endlessly, crashing violently against his consciousness as it tried to seize control of his body.
In theory, after suffering such catastrophic injuries, Valthior's consciousness should have already been collapsing. Under normal circumstances, the beast raging inside his mind would have easily taken over.
But unfortunately for that beast—
Valthior possessed Mangekyo Sharingan eyes.
Every time the roaring beast launched a mental assault against his consciousness, the Sharingan mercilessly tore it apart and devoured it, transforming that spiritual energy into Valthior's own strength instead.
Little by little, Valthior began to feel the beast weakening.
Then, almost instinctively, his own consciousness surged forward and crushed down on it.
The moment Valthior completely destroyed the beast's consciousness, his heartbeat suddenly accelerated violently.
Inside the hidden chamber, Roger—who had been making a rubbing of the Poneglyph—seemed to sense something strange and abruptly turned around.
What he saw stunned him.
Black smoke was pouring out from Valthior's body.
"Wait... don't tell me you're actually some undercover bastard? You signed a contract too?" Roger thought in shock.
But very quickly, he realized something was wrong with that idea.
The black aura surrounding Valthior didn't feel sinister like Harald's. Instead, the dark energy coiled around his shattered body, forming flowing sashes of black flame that drifted through the air.
Roger was no inexperienced rookie.
The moment he saw it, he instantly understood what was happening.
"A Zoan awakening!? This bastard actually turned disaster into a blessing!?" Roger muttered in disbelief.
Valthior's heart now beat with powerful force once more.
His wounds stopped bleeding.
But those weren't the important changes.
The truly important thing was—
His body felt lighter.
It was an incredibly subtle feeling. If he hadn't carefully sensed it himself, he might never have noticed the difference.
It felt as though invisible shackles wrapped around his soul had finally been broken apart.
His body had truly become his own again.
Back when he first ate the Devil Fruit, he had been too weak to notice the "outsider" that had entered his body.
But now, after completely defeating, absorbing, and devouring that beastly consciousness, he could finally feel the change clearly.
His power no longer felt foreign.
The Devil Fruit ability had become as natural as breathing, as though it had always belonged to him from birth.
That—
Was the true meaning of awakening.
"And nobody bothered telling me Zoan awakenings require nearly dying first? ...Or is this just coincidence?" Valthior muttered to himself in surprise as he felt endless vitality pouring out from inside his body.
For years, Valthior had constantly pushed himself to develop his powers further, hoping to awaken his Mythical Zoan abilities.
But everyone knew Mythical Zoans were incredibly difficult to awaken.
Even someone as monstrous as Kaido hadn't manifested those black flame sashes when he was finally defeated.
Yet Nika Boy somehow awakened while laughing around like an idiot.
Until now, Valthior had always assumed he simply hadn't found the right trigger yet—or perhaps his mastery over the fruit still wasn't complete enough.
But now, standing on the edge of death, he finally understood.
Maybe the simplest and most brutal method for awakening a Zoan was exactly this.
Luffy had also awakened only after being beaten half to death.
When someone reached the brink of death, the beast sleeping inside their body would awaken. At that moment, it would attempt to seize control completely.
If you could overcome it, you would obtain the Devil Fruit's full power and become an awakened user.
But if you failed...
You'd probably end up like the mindless Jailer Beasts of Impel Down.
The risk was terrifyingly high because the beast was essentially another version of yourself.
Very few people could overcome themselves while standing at death's door.
Thankfully, Valthior's Sharingan perfectly countered that kind of spiritual assault.
And honestly, he had benefited greatly from the experience too.
The Sharingan had absorbed the entire spiritual energy of that "beast-self," causing Valthior's mental energy to swell to an absurd degree. There was now so much excess spiritual energy that some of it was literally leaking out of him uncontrollably.
"Besshi Hachiman..." Valthior muttered softly.
The ability of his right Mangekyo Sharingan allowed him to convert spiritual energy into stamina, physical strength, and healing power.
Normally, because Haki was so important and he had never suffered injuries this severe before, Valthior usually converted stamina into spiritual energy in order to strengthen his Haki.
But now, his spiritual energy was overflowing.
There was no way he'd let that go to waste.
As the Mangekyo Sharingan spun within his eye, the massive amount of spiritual energy rapidly transformed, flowing through his body and turning into dense life force that continuously repaired his shattered flesh.
The bleeding stopped completely.
His wounds rapidly closed.
Broken and displaced bones snapped back into place.
Even his crushed internal organs slowly began recovering.
By the time most of that spiritual energy had been consumed, Valthior's injuries still weren't fully healed—but they were close enough.
When Roger finally climbed out of the hidden chamber and saw him, even he was shocked.
"What the hell!? Are you cheating!? I've never heard of an awakened Zoan being able to bounce back from injuries that severe so quickly!?"
Sure, awakened Zoans were said to possess terrifying vitality and recovery abilities, capable of standing back up no matter how many times they were knocked down.
But that was obviously just an exaggerated description.
If a Zoan Awakening was really this broken, wouldn't the world be crawling with immortal beings!?
...
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