The conversation between father and son stretched until the early hours of the morning.
It was only after they had hammered out the strategic framework for dealing with the Kingdom of Amento that Elus, his body heavy with exhaustion, retreated to his private palace.
Inside his chambers, the bathroom was a sanctuary of steam. Thick, white vapor billowed like a dense fog, veiling the room in a cinematic haze.
Elus towel-dried his damp hair as he stepped before the grand vanity mirror. The anti-fog glass remained crystalline despite the humidity, reflecting his piercing emerald eyes, a face of flawless beauty, and a physique defined by powerful pectorals and a razor-sharp eight-pack.
But the most striking feature was the gem embedded directly into the center of his chest, pulsing with a rhythmic, blue-black luster.
"The Hogyoku..."
Elus traced the edges of the gemstone with his fingertip, his gaze in the mirror one of quiet appreciation.
Whoosh!
As his thoughts shifted, a pair of obsidian, bat-like wings erupted from his back. They unfurled to their limit in a single, violent motion, blotting out the light from the ceiling and casting a massive, looming shadow across the floor.
Pale, curved horns spiraled from his brow.
In an instant, he looked less like a prince and more like a primordial demon incarnate.
"If I had to name this... I suppose it counts as a Mythical Zoan. The Bat-Bat Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Model: Murciélago?"
Elus gently stroked the bone-white horns and the span of his wings. This wasn't the first time he had scrutinized his reflection in this form, yet every time he did, he found it marvelous. Exquisite. Beautiful.
The Hogyoku had been born into this world alongside him, a companion for all twenty years of his life.
However, for the first sixteen years, the stone had remained silent. It offered no help, no power, and no guidance. The "Golden Finger" he had pinned his hopes on appeared frozen. Left with no other choice, Elus had turned his gaze toward the mundane earth beneath his feet. He relied on his own grit, pouring a hundred and twenty percent of his effort into martial training to forge himself into someone powerful.
Fortunately, his luck was far better than that of his "fellow transmigrators."
He hadn't woken up in a dumpster, or as a corpse washed up on a beach. He hadn't been forced into a "desert island survival" trope, nor was he an anonymous grunt on a pirate ship or a soul reviving on a bloody laboratory table.
No, his luck was quite good indeed.
As the First Crown Prince of a powerhouse nation in the New World, he had been born the ultimate winner in the game of life.
Backed by the resources of a wealthy kingdom, Elus had received a top-tier elite education from childhood—which, in this era, primarily meant martial prowess. In the Great Pirate Age, especially in the treacherous waters of the New World, overwhelming force was the only true foundation for survival.
At the age of sixteen, his progress hit a bottleneck.
Elus went to the royal treasury and selected a Zoan-type Devil Fruit—the Bat-Bat Fruit, Model: Large Flying Fox. He prepared to consume it. While it was a common Zoan, the ability to fly was a tactical advantage worth its weight in gold. It was a far more practical choice than chasing the unrealistic fantasies of finding the Rumble-Rumble Fruit or the Flame-Flame Fruit.
But the moment he swallowed the fruit, everything changed.
The Hogyoku, dormant for sixteen years, suddenly awoke. Under its reality-warping catalysis, the "Ordinary" Bat-Bat Fruit was forcibly evolved into its current state: the Mythical Zoan, Model: Murciélago.
"Still... not enough souls."
Elus pressed his palm against the gem in his chest.
Since the Hogyoku's awakening four years ago, Elus had finally established a link with its consciousness. He understood then why it had been silent for so long.
The Hogyoku was a creation rooted in the soul. Its origin involved Kisuke Urahara using countless 'Hollows' as a base for a prototype, followed by Sosuke Aizen using the souls of hundreds of Shinigami and thousands of gifted residents of the Rukongai. Only when these two halves merged did the complete Hogyoku manifest.
In essence, the Hogyoku was an artifact fueled by a massive quantity of high-quality souls.
Its power was terrifying. It possessed a will of its own, capable of absorbing the "desires" of those around it and manifesting them into reality. It protected its host's body, granting a form of immortality, and when the host reached their limit or faced a mortal threat, it allowed them to evolve boundlessly into a higher dimension of existence.
It sounded godlike.
But that power didn't come from nothing. It required "desire"—specifically, the spiritual energy of sentient beings—to act as fuel. Without a steady supply of souls to burn, the host could never ascend to higher realms.
The sixteen years of silence had been due to a total lack of spiritual energy.
Souls were everything.
During those first sixteen years, Elus had hunted and killed enemies in real combat, and the Hogyoku had quietly harvested those souls one by one. When he finally ate the Devil Fruit, the fruit's inherent power collided with the gem, forcing the partially-recharged Hogyoku into an active state.
Because it hadn't fully recovered, the Hogyoku had spent its accumulated energy to mutate the Devil Fruit before slipping back into a semi-dormant state. It was no longer a "dead" stone, but it wasn't yet the world-bending engine it could be.
For the past four years, Elus had fought and slaughtered relentlessly, acting as a harvester for the gem.
Despite his efforts, while the quantity of souls was significant, their quality was poor. Trying to fill the Hogyoku's bottomless, black-hole-like hunger with the souls of common thugs and weak pirates was like trying to fill an ocean with an eyedropper. It would take an astronomical number of them.
"But finally... another chance for a feast."
A flicker of excitement danced in Elus's emerald eyes. War was the fastest way to harvest souls. The only drawback was "freshness"—he could only reap them in the heat of battle. Once time passed and the souls drifted into the Great Beyond, he wouldn't be able to salvage so much as a scrap.
He had heard of great battles breaking out elsewhere before, only to arrive too late to find anything of value.
It had been a waste of time.
But this time, he would be the one orchestrating the conflict.
He intended to turn this war with the Kingdom of Amento into his own private hunting ground.
Sensing its master's excitement, the Hogyoku against his chest pulsed, its blue-black halo swirling just a fraction faster.
After his bath, Elus changed into the silk pajamas prepared by the maids. He climbed into his expansive, soft bed and quickly drifted into a sweet, dreamless sleep.