— — — — — —

A little later that evening—Night had already fallen.

But under the radiant golden light spilling out from Eientei, the place looked even brighter than it did in the daytime.

"He should be almost done, right?"

In the courtyard, Kaguya Houraisan turned to Eirin Yagokoro. She had been waiting patiently ever since that golden glow first appeared, back when it was just a tiny speck in his palm. Now it had enveloped his entire body.

"From what we can observe on the surface… it looks like it," Eirin replied, nodding—though she followed that with a shake of her head. "That said, I've never seen anything quite like this before, so I can't say for sure if things are going the way we think they are…"

She trailed off mid-sentence as her eyes caught movement—Veyron had opened his eyes.

In the blink of an eye, the blinding golden flames that had lit up all of Eientei like a palace of light vanished, pulled back into his body. Only his eyes still shimmered with an impossibly pure shade of gold.

"When your consciousness dives into the deepest parts of your soul for the first time, your sense of time tends to get… fuzzy. Sorry for keeping you waiting."

The golden glow in his eyes faded as Veyron exhaled softly and addressed the two before him—one kneeling, one standing.

"The depths of your soul… You've reached mid-stage Tier Four?" Eirin asked.

"Yeah. Tier Four, mid-stage Gene Lock."

He raised his hand, and a faint golden light shimmered across his palm—a manifestation of the "light" he had ignited deep within his soul. That light had now become a stable part of him.

Just as he had suspected before his breakthrough, that familiar golden radiance—one he'd seen more than once back when he was still in the early stages of Tier Four—was, in fact, the manifestation of his Soul Light, his Light of the Mind, the magic born from his innermost being.

The power of his Soul Light was simple in concept, but absurd in application: whenever he clearly defined a goal, the outside world would bend and re-align itself to match his will.

When he didn't want his personal "time" to be affected by time-stopping effects, the pocket watch trying to freeze time around him would simply… fail.

When he found himself doubting whether becoming the Monarch of the Treeborn World was truly a good thing, the universe itself whispered to him an answer that felt drawn from the great unknown.

As he thought about it, something clicked in Veyron's mind.

He had always believed his first glimpse of his Soul Light had come during that incident in the time-stopping pocket watch world. But now, retracing his steps, he realized… maybe he had awakened it even earlier.

It might've been right after he reached early Tier Four, when the will of the Treeborn World—Larentia—had granted him a portion of its world fate.

Back then, he had sensed that his own power was starting to become too fragmented. He'd wanted to unify all the different energy sources he had—Armament Haki, Observation Haki, Conqueror's Haki, spiritual energy—into a single, universal and scalable power system.

And he had succeeded.

Using spiritual energy as the foundation, and weaving in all three types of Haki from the One Piece world, he'd crafted an entirely new Trait—Divine Ki.

Over time, by fusing it with Treeborn World's magic and the magic from the Fate (TYPE-MOON) universe, he had stacked on buffs and pushed the power of that "Ki" to the point where he could destroy a planet.

At the time, he'd just assumed it was thanks to Tier Four's ability to simulate energy systems.

But looking back now...

The ease with which he'd created Divine Ki back then—wasn't that his Soul Light lending him a hand?

As that thought crossed his mind, something shifted.

On his Trait panel, the [Telekinesis (Lv. 38)] entry—one that had been flickering nonstop ever since he awakened his Soul Light—suddenly changed.

It became: [Divine Will (Lv. 38)].

Originally, this "telekinesis" had stemmed from the T-Virus. It was never just telekinesis—it was always the embryonic form of his Soul Light.

Now that his Soul Light had fully awakened, it made sense for that proto-power to evolve as well.

Its next form? A manifestation of the will shaped by his soul light. Or more accurately—it was the Soul Light itself.

Veyron just renamed it on the spot when the system prompted the evolution—he called it "Divine Will."

He considered names like "Mind Control" and "Willpower Energy," but they just sounded awkward. So yeah—he went with "Divine Will." Has a nice ring to it. Like Divine Ki.

Despite the transformation, the original strength of his telekinesis—like that 24,320-ton raw force baseline—was still intact.

But that wasn't all.

Now, this new Divine Will came with a powerful area-effect scan that worked almost like a mental sonar—high precision, wide range. When paired with Divine Ki, which he'd already fused with Observation Haki: Hearing the Voice of All Things… his sensory perception skyrocketed.

And if you factored in the true nature of his Soul Light—rewriting reality based on will—

Then yeah, all that talk about upgraded telekinesis and mind scans? That was just the baseline.

What could golden Divine Will actually do? That entirely depended on what he wanted it to do.

...

"You guys better start stepping up too, y'know."

After quickly consolidating the results of his breakthrough, Veyron pointed at Eirin Yagokoro, Kaguya Houraisan… and then at Inukimi.

"Early Tier Four is just the warm-up. If we're talking real transformation, it all comes down to Soul Light. It's also called Light of the Mind."

"Wait, Master! What about me?"

Hagoromo Gitsune, the little white fox, watched as his finger passed right over her head—skipping her entirely—and landed on Inukimi instead. She shot up a paw like a kid raising her hand in class.

"...Don't you think becoming a 'great yokai' is kind of your actual priority right now?"

With a flick of his wrist, the little fox instinctively leapt into his arms. Veyron scratched her soft white fur as he countered her question with a teasing smile.

And after his reminder—that out of everyone who had awakened potential through the Gene Lock, she was the only one not yet a great yokai or comparable to one—Hagoromo's eyes lit up with fierce determination.

"This time, I'm not coming out of closed-door training until I become a great yokai!"

With that, she bounced off toward her fox den.

As for Veyron himself, Eirin quietly pulled him aside, saying she needed his help. He followed her into the lab hidden inside her personal dimension—and even deeper, into the basement below it.

"It's still nearly full?"

"Hmm… Okay, you scared me for a sec there. I thought you were actually using this stuff as, like, regular bathwater."

Veyron blinked at the neatly lined-up wooden barrels filled with his Almighty Elixir. Aside from the one closest to them—which was missing maybe a third—the rest were still full to the brim.

"To be honest… I have considered what you just said," Eirin muttered.

"…What exactly do you mean?"

"…"

"Wait—don't tell me you're actually thinking about using this stuff as bathwater…"

"…"

"You're serious!?"

"…"

Eirin said nothing. Just stared at him, expression unreadable.

Veyron paused, then slowly raised a hand. One of the barrels behind them responded immediately. Guided by his Divine Will, a stream of the shimmering liquid spiraled upward like a golden dragon and hovered in front of him.

Through the flowing liquid, he caught a glimpse of something glinting faintly beneath the surface.

He narrowed his eyes.

"…Okay, seriously—what is that?"

.

.

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