Beneath the surface of the sea near the island.
A giant bubble suspended silently in the seawater.
Inside the bubble, the Elf Woman sat cross-legged with her eyes tightly shut.
Her complexion was ghastly; sweat from her forehead had soaked her hair, and she was in a daze.
Beside her, the female member who had created the bubble stood guard, watching the exterior with vigilance.
“Why haven't the three of them returned yet?” she whispered, her voice laced with unease.
The Elf Woman did not speak.
She had previously utilized the powers of two different Devil Fruits simultaneously to transform a massive number of ordinary people into toys in a short period. The strain had been too great.
She didn't dare let her mind wander, fearing she would lose consciousness from sheer exhaustion.
If she passed out, the curse of the Hobby-Hobby Fruit would break, and everyone turned into toys would revert to their human forms.
Though those ordinary humans were of no consequence, she had to avoid such a basic mistake to minimize the risk of unnecessary complications.
What if the entire operation failed because of a minor oversight?
So she could only endure, waiting for the Captain and the others to return.
Outside the bubble, the seawater was dark and still.
Occasionally, a few fish swam by, leaving faint ripples in their wake.
Everything seemed normal.
At least on the surface.
“Are you alright?” the Bubble Woman asked in a low voice.
The Elf Woman didn't answer. Her brow was furrowed, and her lips trembled slightly as if she were trapped in a nightmare.
The Bubble Woman frowned, sensing something was wrong. Just as she was about to ask again, she froze.
Outside the bubble, there seemed to be something strange.
It was a figure.
A woman wearing a cheongsam with a yellow and black pattern.
No, it wasn't yellow and black.
She couldn't make out the exact colors.
The cheongsam was constantly shifting—sometimes dark red, sometimes pitch black, sometimes a chaotic mess.
The patterns changed as well; at times they were peonies, at times skulls, and at times twisted monsters.
Only the silhouette of the figure was clear—slender and graceful, holding a folding fan in her hand.
The Bubble Woman wanted to call out to warn her companion.
But she found she couldn't make a sound, nor could she move.
She could only stare with wide eyes as the figure drew closer and closer.
Until she was pressed right against the wall of the bubble.
A face, separated only by a thin layer of the bubble, was staring directly at her.
That face possessed an indescribable, ultimate perfection—ethereal and dreamlike, with a beauty that transcended human limits.
Her large, watery eyes looked at her.
The Bubble Woman's heart hammered against her ribs. She tried to cast her bubble magic.
A voice suddenly rang in her ear, soft and sweet, exceptionally pleasant to hear.
“Shh, let's play a game.”
“Don't wake the others.”
In the next second, the bubble vanished.
The toys, the surrounding seawater, and the Elf Woman all disappeared with it. Only endless darkness remained.
The Bubble Woman found herself standing in a void.
There was nothing else around—only herself and that strange woman with the folding fan.
The woman stood before her, less than a meter away. Her glamorous face was right in front of her, staring intently.
“Who are you?” the Bubble Woman demanded.
The other woman smiled and tilted her head slightly, unfolding her fan to hide half of her face.
“Who am I?”
“I have many names.”
“But for now, you can call me... your nightmare.”
...
The darkness dissipated.
The Bubble Woman found herself standing in a living room.
It was the living room she knew best.
It was her former home.
She began to tremble.
The word "home" brought back no pleasant memories for her.
She slowly backed away.
Something pressed against her back.
She turned and saw her older brother, her sister-in-law, and their newborn nephew.
Her sister-in-law was a vegetarian and insisted on raising the child as a pure vegan.
She had tried her best to stop it, suggesting a balanced diet and scientific child-rearing.
Later, the nephew grew up healthy, but unfortunately, he was a useless delinquent.
The sister-in-law would often say to the nephew, “You were originally a womb-vegan baby, destined for great fortune. It was your aunt who forced you to eat meat, ruining your fortune.”
Because of this, the nephew harbored a deep grudge and eventually murdered her.
When she opened her eyes again, she had been reborn.
In this life, she would no longer stop her sister-in-law from raising a vegan child.
She wanted to see exactly what kind of fortune a womb-vegan baby would have!
As she expected, a child raised on a pure vegan diet without various supplements was frail and developmentally delayed.
She watched coldly as her nephew met his retribution.
However, the sister-in-law blamed her once again.
“When I said I wanted to raise a vegan child back then, why didn't you stop me? It's all your fault!”
In her rage, the sister-in-law murdered her once more.
She died with her eyes wide open in resentment.
When she opened her eyes for the third time, the Bubble Woman found herself in a living room.
After a moment of daze, she realized—oh, this was her home.
She was the true young miss.
But her parents and brother all preferred the fake young miss, allowing the fake one to frame, bully, and humiliate her. Finally, she was kidnapped by the fake young miss and died a miserable death.
She opened her eyes yet again.
She was the fake young miss.
Her adoptive parents had only taken her in to transfer her wealthy fated destiny to the true young miss. She died with her eyes wide open.
Opening her eyes once more.
She had been reborn as the fake young miss again. She already knew the plot of her adoptive parents to swap her fate with the true young miss.
She wanted revenge!
So she ruthlessly tormented everyone. Before the date of the fate-swap arrived, she kidnapped and tortured the true young miss to death, drove her adoptive parents' family to bankruptcy, and then kidnapped and tortured them to death as well.
She didn't know how many times she had opened her eyes.
The Bubble Woman woke up, still standing in the darkness.
The glamorous girl holding the folding fan asked, “Was it fun?”
The Bubble Woman clutched her head and crouched down, in agonizing pain.
Womb-veganism, the true and fake young miss—none of it was real.
Before entering the Lord God Space, her original family had been warm and harmonious.
But those experiences just now, though they seemed like illusions, felt incredibly real. Life after life had caused her indelible mental trauma.
“What exactly is real? What is fake?”
“I can't tell, I really can't tell!”
She looked up at the cheongsam girl. Behind that glamorous face, something was squirming.
Bloated, countless tentacles were waving in the darkness as if mocking her.
Her mind completely snapped.
The Elf Woman encountered a similar situation.
Since she was better at enduring pain, she was subjected to various heart-wrenching and body-breaking experiences.
She was even forced to follow the plot of a tragic heroine and was forbidden from seeking revenge.
An unknown amount of time passed.
The Elf Woman opened her eyes again.
She saw the cheongsam girl smiling at her.
“Was it fun?”
The Elf Woman opened her mouth, but only a sob came out.
Tears streamed down her face, and her eyes had lost their focus.
The cheongsam girl looked a bit disappointed.
“Broken already? How boring.”
With a gentle wave of her folding fan, the surrounding darkness vanished.
The Elf Woman was back in the bubble. Her companion was right beside her, curled into a ball, trembling all over and muttering nonsensical, illogical gibberish.
The girl walked into the bubble without resistance and stopped in front of them.
Looking at these two broken humans, a smile of amusement appeared on the girl's face.
Her gaze then fell upon their wrists.
Strange black watches.
Behind her, several tentacles reached out, coiled around the watches, and forced their way into the screens.
After a long time, she seemed to whisper to someone.
“I've discovered another curious place...”
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