IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT MY WORKS OR JUST TO SUPPORT ME THEN HERE IS MY PATREON:
👉 Patreon.com/Doflamingo4
___
ALSO CHECK MY OTHER WORK:
[ Shadow Monarch in Hogwarts.]
👉 Patreon.com/Doflamingo4
___________________
Third POV :
Darkness.
It wasn't the ordinary kind—the shadow of night or the simple absence of light. No, this was thicker, heavier, almost tangible, a viscous and suffocating nothingness that swallowed sound, thought, and existence itself, a primordial ooze of pure negation. Akai floated in it, suspended in a void that had no floor, no ceiling, no horizon, no point of reference to orient a soul adrift. Every direction looked the same: an endless, pitch-black, oppressive, infinite expanse of utter nullity. His body felt weightless, untethered from the laws of physics, a speck of dust in an infinite cosmos of nothing, yet every breath came sharp and strained, a desperate, mechanical act in a place that felt airless, and the silence, a physical, smothering presence, pressed on him, against his eardrums, against his skull, until it became a deafening, high-pitched ring in the vacuum of his own mind.
He opened his eyes wider, straining the muscles until they ached, blinking hard against the absolute black, as if the mere motion of his eyelids could wipe away the obscuring curtain. Nothing. No faint flicker of distant light, no subtle outline of a shape, no gradation of grey to suggest depth or distance. Just the pure, unadulterated abyss, a sensory deprivation tank stretched across infinity.
Dizziness coiled through his head, a sickening, vertiginous spiral that made his inner ear scream in protest, nausea twisting his gut into cold, hard knots of disorientation. His temples throbbed as though a relentless, unforgiving hammer beat against them from the inside, a brutal, rhythmic pulse of agony. "Ghosh…" he groaned, the sound pitiful and small, pressing a hand against his face, feeling the real, solid warmth of his own skin a small comfort against the unreal void. "Did I lose my vision because of alcohol? Or why the fuck do I see nothing here?"
His voice cracked in the emptiness, a fragile thing that should have been absorbed instantly but instead echoed back at him, hollow and alien, a distorted mockery of his own speech that seemed to come from all around him. The thought wormed its way into his mind, insidious and chilling, freezing the blood in his veins: Is this what blind people see? An eternal, unending night, a prison of the senses with no escape, no reprieve, forever?
Before the weight of that despair could sink its claws deeper, could pull him under into a panic from which there would be no return, the void itself trembled. It was a subtle vibration at first, a resonance through the fabric of the nothingness, followed by a faint hum, sharp and mechanical, a sound of pure, unnatural precision that sliced through the heavy, oppressive silence like a monomolecular blade.
Then it appeared.
A screen.
It blinked into existence directly before him, without fanfare, without a source—glowing an ethereal, electric blue, crystalline and impossibly vivid against the utter void, a stark, geometric blasphemy against the formless dark. The light, harsh and yet beautiful, reflected in Akai's stunned, wide eyes, tiny twin squares of brilliant azure swimming in the deep brown of his irises, and his breath caught in his throat, trapped by sheer, unadulterated shock. Letters—sleek and black, a font of clean, severe lines and impossible clarity—etched themselves across the surface of the screen in deliberate, unhurried strokes, each one forming with a faint, almost imperceptible metallic ring that seemed to vibrate in his very bones.
At the top, written in bold, blood-red lines that almost seemed to pulse with a lifeforce of their own, a threatening, rhythmic glow that mirrored a heartbeat, were the words:
「Congratulations, Akai. You have been chosen and promoted by the System's Architect for your next spiritual duty.」
Akai's heart thundered in his chest, a wild, frantic drum against his ribs, so loud he was certain it must be echoing in the void. His mouth hung slightly open, dry and useless, as his eyes devoured the strange, impossible message, scanning the words over and over, trying to force them to make sense in a context that defied all logic. "What the…?"he whispered, the words a choked exhalation, a plea for reason in an unreasonable situation.
More words appeared, scrolling down the impossible interface in perfect, orderly sequence, a list of commandments from an unseen god:
「Welcome, User. You have been granted the Shadow Monarch System.」 「Rules are absolute.」 「Failure to comply results in termination of your existence.」
Lines began to stack beneath, sharp and merciless, a cold, bureaucratic list of damnation:
Daily Quests: Every day, you must complete mandatory training or assigned tasks. Failure will result in immediate physical punishment.
Special Quests: Assigned randomly. Difficulty unknown. Rewards unimaginable. Failure will lead to severe penalties.
Leveling System: Strength, agility, endurance, and intelligence are quantifiable. Progress only through completion of quests and battles.
Rewards: Titles, skills, shadow extraction, and hidden evolutions.
Punishment for non-compliance: Debilitation, bodily harm, or system-enforced death.
Akai's eyes darted across the text, his jaw tightening, teeth grinding together as a cold knot of denial and fear formed in his stomach. "Rules? Quests? Penalties? This is insane. Am I still drunk? Did I collapse in the bar, and now I'm dreaming this game shit?" he muttered to the uncaring void, his voice the only anchor he had to a reality that was rapidly slipping away.
His mind churned with doubt, a maelstrom of confusion and disbelief. Why me? Why this? What did I do to deserve this… attention? What is a 'System's Architect'? What 'spiritual duty'? His thoughts raced, a frantic attempt to find a foothold. If it's real, what's the point? Is this a joke? A twisted experiment? If it's fake, a hallucination, then what the hell am I doing standing here reading this like an idiot, giving it my full attention? He clenched his fists, the nails digging into his palms, the small, sharp pain a familiar sensation in a sea of the unfamiliar, a test to see if he could still feel something real. I need proof. I need something undeniable, something that can't be explained away by alcohol poisoning or a mental breakdown. I need proof this isn't just my brain melting inside my skull.
As if hearing his internal monologue, as if the system itself was plugged directly into the core of his consciousness, reading his thoughts as easily as he read the words on the screen, the display before him flared a violent, warning red. The blue bled away in an instant, replaced by the color of danger, of blood, of emergency.
「Doubt detected. Administering verification.」
Before he could react, could even process the new message, a surge of raw, agonizing electricity ripped through his body, a current of pure, unadulterated pain that bypassed his skin and exploded directly within his nervous system. Agony erupted in every nerve ending—sharp, blinding, white-hot pain that burned like a sun had been ignited in his chest and tore through every vein, every muscle fiber, every single cell of his being. It was a pain beyond anything he had ever conceived, a totality of suffering that erased thought, erased doubt, erased everything except the all-consuming imperative of the agony. His scream echoed in the void, raw and unrestrained, a primal sound of a creature being unmade.
When it stopped, the absence of pain was so profound it was itself a shock. Akai collapsed to his knees he didn't feel, gasping for breath that burned his lungs, sweat dripping down his brow and stinging his eyes. His whole body trembled violently, wracked with aftershocks, every muscle twitching and spasming uncontrollably. His doubts, his rationalizations, his comfortable disbelief, all shattered like glass beneath a hammer, scattered into a million useless pieces.
"Shit… okay," he panted, the words ragged and torn, clutching his chest where his heart still hammered a frantic, terrified rhythm. "Not drunk. Not a dream. This is real. Deadly real." The truth of it was colder than the void, heavier than the silence.
The screen pulsed again, reverting to its calm, crystalline blue, as if the horrific violation had never occurred.
「User is allowed to select the destination world.」 「Choose wisely.」 「Confirmation required:YES / NO」
Akai froze, staring at the two glowing options that hovered at the bottom of the screen. His mind, still reeling from the shock, now spun wildly in a new direction. The world of my choice? The concept was too vast, too monumental to grasp immediately. He thought of endless possibilities—worlds of high fantasy with dragons and magic, worlds of deep history where he could change the course of empires, universes of fiction he had only ever read about or seen on a screen. The implications crashed over him: power, adventure, unimaginable danger, a freedom from the life he knew. A chance to be someone else, something else.
But with it came the darker, more immediate question: Do I even want this? What if I refuse? What if I say no and this thing just… lets me go? Lets me go back to what? To the nothingness? To my old life? To the bar, to the loneliness, to the crushing pointlessness of it all? Is that any better than this?
He wrestled with the idea, his breath still ragged, his heart racing not just from fear now, but from a terrifying, burgeoning excitement. The world is rotten. Justice is a lie told by the powerful to control the weak. Family doesn't exist for me. There is nothing tying me down. Nothing holding me back. Maybe this is it… maybe this is the only chance I will ever get to shape something of my own, to carve a name for myself in the history of something that actually matters. But what world? Where would I even begin? The options were infinite, paralyzing.
And then, it crystallized. A world of boundless ocean, of incredible adventure, of larger-than-life heroes and villains. A world where willpower was a tangible force and freedom was the ultimate prize. A world he had often dreamed of, a fantasy that had always felt more vibrant and alive than his own reality. His lips, dry and cracked, curled into a slow, defiant smile. It was a mad choice. A dangerous choice. A world teeming with powers that could crush a man like him without a thought. But it was a world worth fighting in. A world worth conquering. "One Piece."
He lifted a trembling finger, the limb still buzzing with the residual energy of his punishment, and with a final, decisive push of will, he pressed YES.
The void around him trembled, shuddering as if a great engine had just engaged deep within its core. The blue screen shifted, blanking out for a heartbeat, the letters dissolving into motes of light. New letters, jagged and fierce, scrawled across it as though carved in living fire, burning with ominous intent.
「World Selected: ONE PIECE」 「System Confirmation…Complete.」
Then came the rules, rewritten now, tailored specifically for him and his chosen hell:
Daily Quests: Perform physical training, shadow assimilation, or haki meditation. Failure = instant crippling pain.
Special Quests: Assigned per growth milestone. Rewards include skills, shadow soldiers, stat boosts. Failure = shadow degradation and body collapse.
Boss Quests: Face legendary enemies. Rewards = title absorption, devil fruit compatibility. Failure = immediate death.
Mandatory Objective: Survive. Grow. Escape.
Final Reward: Ascend as the True Shadow Monarch of the Chosen World.
His pulse pounded faster, harder, with each new line, a drumbeat marching him toward his fate. The promises of power were intoxicating, the threats of punishment a constant, chilling counterpoint. It was a contract written in blood and lightning. And then, the final notification, the twist of the knife, seared across the screen in blazing, triumphant crimson, a taunt from a cruel god:
「Good luck escaping Impel Down!!」
Akai's eyes went wide, the defiance and excitement evaporating in an instant, replaced by pure, undiluted horror. His breath caught, trapped in a vise of terror. Impel Down. The very name was a synonym for hopelessness, the most infamous, inescapable prison in all of fiction, a layered nightmare of torture and despair buried deep beneath the ocean. That was his starting point. Not an island, not a ship, not a quiet beach. The bottom of the world's most secure hellhole. "What the holy motherfucking shit!?"he screamed, his voice cracking against the void, a raw, terrified sound of utter betrayal and panic.
The screen blinked one last time, indifferent to his despair.
「System Activated.」
And then the darkness rushed in again, swift and absolute, swallowing the light, the screen, his scream, and everything.
[ END OF CHAPTER 2 .]
_________________
IF YOU WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT MY WORKS OR JUST TO SUPPORT ME THEN HERE IS MY PATREON:
👉 Patreon.com/Doflamingo4