To open a passage connecting the real world and Uta's world, Kong Tai alone would not be enough; Uta, the ruler of Uta's world, would need to personally assist.
Previously, to tear open the spatial barrier of the real world, Kong Tai had to use the black hole energy derived from space compression.
Even now, Kong Tai could not control that power well, so he rarely used it.
But now, with his body's accelerated growth, his strength and understanding of space had increased geometrically.
Although he was still a demigod, it was not an exaggeration to say he possessed the strength of a god.
Therefore, at this moment, he could actually tear open the spatial barrier of this world with a mere slash.
If, on top of that, he added the power of time that surpassed the realm of slashing, maintaining a void passage from being corrected by the world should be no problem for at least a hundred years.
"Mmm!"
Uta opened her eyes and instinctively looked around. Seeing herself in Shanks's arms, and Beckman and the others looking at her with concern, her initially stiff body instantly relaxed.
She smiled faintly at Shanks, got up from his embrace, and stood straight. Looking at the silver-haired youth among the crowd, she bowed.
"Thank you~"
Her voice was light, lighter than ever before, like a bird that had broken free from the cage that had always enveloped the sky, soaring freely from now on.
Only Uta knew the depths of despair that came with being truly consumed by the Demon King.
In that dark, shadowy cage, her world was entirely black. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see a single speck of light.
That extreme fear and loneliness, even if it lasted only a minute or two, felt as long as a century to her.
And just as she was about to fall into complete despair, it was the boy's blade that severed her connection with the Demon King, pulling her out of the dark cage.
Looking at Uta, Kong Tai smiled silently. Then, with a thought, he gently helped her up and told her what he had just said to Shanks and the others.
"I'll entrust everything to you, Mr. Kong Tai."
Without hesitation, even though she knew that connecting her Uta World, created by her Devil Fruit ability, with reality would affect her, she agreed without a second thought.
"What do I need to do?"
Uta looked at Kong Tai, her face filled with seriousness.
"Haha!! You don't need to be so serious!"
Kong Tai chuckled and continued, "As soon as you woke up, the Uta World reappeared. So you just need to find a place in the Uta World, create a virtual portal, and at the moment I pierce the reality and dream worlds, prevent the world's self-correction power from repairing your Uta World."
Kong Tai could prevent the void of the real world from being repaired, but the Uta World could only be maintained by Uta herself.
Of course, she could forcefully extract that corner of the void that belonged to Uta's spirit, but that would cause too much harm to the girl. There was no need for that, so it was better to let the girl maintain it herself!
Just as he had told Shanks and the others, he also trusted Uta.
The girl's kindness needed no words; anyone who met her would know.
"Alright."
Uta did not keep Kong Tai waiting. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and looked at Kong Tai, pointing to the void on her right. "Here."
"Good."
Looking in the direction the girl pointed, Kong Tai turned around and slowly drew Zan Kong.
At this moment, the blade of Zan Kong had become completely transparent, no longer the initial metallic silver.
In the end, Kong Tai did not possess a black blade. Perhaps it was fate.
After all, in this world, there were only two black blades. Hadn't Shanks's "Gryphon," Roger's "Ace," and Whitebeard's "Murakumogiri," which had accompanied them for decades, become black blades?
Although they all knew the method for tempering black blades, such a thing truly could not be forged in a short time.
If Kong Tai had a few more decades, he should be able to temper his blade into a black blade, but obviously, neither time nor fate had chosen Zan Kong. And Zan Kong, who had eaten the time-time fruit, would henceforth surpass black blades and become the true divine sword in Kong Tai's hand.
Looking at Zan Kong, looking at the distorted space around its blade, both Shanks and all the members of the Red-Haired Pirates' crew had their pupils contract sharply, and their faces became solemn.
"This sword?"
They had seen Kong Tai's Zan Kong in Dressrosa. At that time, Zan Kong was just an ordinary sword, even if it was comparable to a Meito, it was not worth their attention.
But now it was different. The moment Zan Kong was unsheathed, it brought a strange sensation as if time had slowed down. Even with Kong Tai's spatial abilities enveloping them, Shanks and the others, who were nearby, felt a momentary discomfort.
Moreover, the strange feeling of space distortion just from being unsheathed told them that Zan Kong was no longer an ordinary sword.
"This one?"
Kong Tai held the hilt and held the sword vertically in front of him.
The space cut by the blade seemed to ripple like water, causing a layer of spatial ripples in the void.
Looking at the distorted space around Zan Kong, Kong Tai chuckled, "It just defeated the Demon King. This guy is full and a bit indigestion."
Although in the eggshell world, the blade of Zan Kong had only grazed the Demon King's body for a moment, that single moment allowed Zan Kong to absorb endless time belonging to the Demon King.
This power, for a being like the Demon King, was of course a drop in the bucket. But for ordinary life, for this world, it was a long period that humans might take tens of centuries to go through.
So, Zan Kong was full, but also overstuffed, which was why it exhibited this unstable state, between reality and illusion.
"My sword is the Blade of Time, which has eaten the 'Time-Time Fruit'."
Knowing what the people around him wanted to know, and Kong Tai not being afraid of them knowing, he revealed it directly.
"Time-Time Fruit??"
Beckman and the others were shocked. Then everyone turned to look at Shanks.
As companions who had sailed together for decades, they all knew Shanks's past and had heard many interesting stories about the Roger Pirates from him. Among them, of course, was "Kozuki Oden," and with Oden, there was naturally "Toki," the user of the "Time-Time Fruit."
"It's not the Time-Time Fruit belonging to Lady Toki."
Looking at Zan Kong, Shanks pondered for a moment and said, "Lady Toki's Time-Time Fruit only allowed her to travel through time. It didn't give me the strange sensation that this fruit on Kong Tai's sword does."