In the air.
Gazing at the grateful eyes of the woman.
Kong Tai's sight seemed to perceive… the woman's entire life.
What followed was largely consistent with what Kabuli had recounted, but the turning point occurred after the engagement of the two families.
For reasons unknown, the girl suddenly found the town mayor's son utterly repulsive. Under this inexplicable emotion, she fled.
Upon setting sail, her luck was exceptional. Before long, she encountered a magnificent ship.
On this vessel, she met the love of her life… Cartales.
At the time, Cartales was exceptionally radiant, handsome, and humble, much like a prince. She, however, was a Cinderella from the mountains. Even though she fell in love with Cartales at first sight, for the first few days, she lacked the courage to speak to him.
She merely watched from afar, observing Cartales amidst the elegantly dressed crowd, conversing and carrying himself with grace. Whenever their gazes met across the expanse, she would always catch his sunny smile, while she, blushing shyly, would quickly avert her head.
It wasn't until this ship, after traversing tsunamis and darkness, was about to reach its destination, the "Sabaody Archipelago," that she finally mustered the courage to approach and speak with Cartales.
This single interaction, however, led to the ruin of her life.
After being with Cartales for several months, she discovered she was pregnant. She also discovered Cartales's status as a Celestial Dragon. Even more shocking, she realized that the man she deeply loved could be her grandfather.
And Cartales had been deceiving her all along.
He didn't love her.
After enduring it for a few months, she could no longer bear anything about this place.
So she escaped.
She fled from the seemingly prosperous, dreamlike, and happiness-filled Sabaody Archipelago.
She wanted to go home, back to the true home that loved, cherished, and indulged her.
Little did she know, upon her return, she was met not with the warmth of family, but with bone-chilling cold.
As flames engulfed her surroundings, and she witnessed the formerly amiable villagers and her beloved family members’ faces, now gleaming with an eerie chill in the inferno, her heart completely died.
Yet, as if fate were playing a cruel joke, just as the flames were about to consume her entirely,
He arrived.
He descended from the sky, stepping on black clouds, extinguished the fire, and carried her away into the heavens.
Though she survived after this, despite suffering severe burns all over her body, even her face being disfigured… the child in her womb perished.
The heavens were too cruel, why torment her so?
Like watching a movie, at this point, Kong Tai could feel the woman's despair and hatred at that moment.
The scene continued. The man, Cartales, after healing the woman, left behind a fruit. A fruit that seemed to exist outside of time, shimmering continuously as if on the verge of disappearing.
Afterward, the man vanished, never to reappear.
It wasn't until she had completely recovered from her injuries, consumed the fruit, understood its nature, and lived alone on that uninhabited island for nearly twenty years, that she left.
She sought revenge, not only on her hometown but also on Cartales.
Upon consuming the fruit, she knew her strength was insufficient to defeat Cartales, which was why she endured for so long on the island.
Her first destination was her hometown. She wanted those people to regret killing her child twenty years ago and to use the fruit's power to transform them into her own strength.
The fruit she consumed was the "Superhuman-Type: Time-Time Fruit."
It could extract time from all living beings, converting it into her own time. This time could only be used to enhance her abilities, not to prolong her life. Thus, she could achieve time stop, time acceleration, and time deceleration.
Of course, she could also rewind time for herself.
Seeing this, Kong Tai could understand why the World Government and Cartales were so confident in their ability to kill him.
This person had always believed that his Mountain Lord Fruit could replicate his instantaneous movement, and then, using the Time-Time Fruit, extract his time. In such a scenario, he would have no chance to escape.
No, among the known individuals in this world, no one could escape this person's pursuit.
Truly terrifying.
Fortunately, this person was old, so old that he could only make one move. And this person was so arrogant that, possessing such a powerful fruit, he hadn't made the woman extract time beforehand.
Fortunately, he hadn't let Ah Hua and the others step into the woman's time domain.
Otherwise, if this person had extracted his time, he might truly have had no solution.
After all, the woman's fruit, though sharing the same name as Kozuki Toki's fruit, had a vastly different development path.
Toki's fruit ability was less about time and more fitting to be called a time-travel fruit.
Because her fruit's ability could only be used for time travel, and only into the future, it couldn't be used for combat.
But the woman's fruit was different. This fruit was clearly designed for combat.
If the woman also possessed Haki, especially Observation Haki, she wouldn't even need Armament Haki. As long as she had developed Observation Haki to its peak and her fruit's abilities to their peak, she would be another invincible being in this world.
Just the ability to rewind time meant no one could harm her.
And with peak Observation Haki, even if someone surpassed her in strength, they couldn't instantly kill her.
As long as she wasn't instantly killed, she could maintain her peak state.
However, this fruit was quite malevolent. All its abilities were contingent on extracting time from others to be utilized. This reminded him of someone.
"Tokisaki Kurumi."
Hmm…
A favorite character from a very enjoyable anime. A woman.
But even if this person had prepared temporal energy beforehand, it would only be enough to resist him in his normal state. When he unleashed the black hole energy derived from compressed space, she would still die.
Because that spatial black hole energy was something that the powers of this world couldn't withstand.
This included powers derived from Devil Fruits in this world.
Although it was a time-related ability, it wasn't a law, nor a world-governing power. It was merely some form of superhuman ability.
The screen continued to flash. He had a vague premonition of what would happen next.
When the woman absorbed the time of the townspeople, Cartales appeared. Without Haki, only relying on his Devil Fruit, and lacking specific intelligence on Cartales's true strength, how could the woman possibly be his match?
Thus, in a single encounter, she fell into Cartales's illusion, allowing him to easily kill her.
Only after Cartales extracted her soul did the woman learn the truth.
She finally understood why she had suddenly found the mayor's son repulsive, why she had fallen for Cartales at first sight, why her parents, who had always doted on her, suddenly became cold and indifferent upon her return, and why the townspeople's temperaments had changed so drastically.
It turned out that, from the very beginning, this was an illusion woven by Cartales for her and for everyone in the town.
Her parents' love was real, and her pregnancy was real.
But her aversion to the mayor's son, her falling in love with Cartales at first sight, and her parents' drastic change in disposition upon her return – all of it was fake.
Fake, all of it was fake.
Endless madness instantly consumed her heart, shattering her completely.
In the darkness, only a glimmer of hatred sustained her. Until the darkness dissipated and her soul was finally at peace, she once again saw true light. She also learned of Cartales's death and that the person he hated was killed by the benefactor standing before her.