Chapter 553 The Reappearance of Soul Power: The Erased Emotions.

Time seemed to stand still. Arthur looked around the room and knew exactly what had happened.

When he looked back at himself in the mirror, he wasn't naked; instead, another version of himself, dressed in a black robe, was staring at him with disdain.

He was already used to this kind of oppression.

"You filthy, disgusting thing, a piece of trash who vents his lust on women." Another extremely insulting voice reached Arthur's ears, and the voice smiled, staring at his greatsword.

"Well, you have a maximum of 63 years left. If you live to be 100, I'll only give you 100 years."

"I will die eventually, what business is it of yours how I live?" Arthur retorted shamelessly.

"Sigh, tell me, can you, who has only lived for forty-odd years, defeat me, who has lived for a hundred years? Will the stronger one dominate the situation?"

The other Arthur responded casually, with a sneer, "The price of those words is..."

Arthur saw his past self reach out and point at his forehead through the mirror.

Then something in my mind was sucked away, and transparent energy was drawn into the mirror.

Accompanying this was a soul-wrenching pain that even he could hardly bear.

He was in so much pain that he knelt on the ground, clutching his head and howling in agony.

"What's disappearing...something in my head...is disappearing!?"

"It's about taking something from your soul so you can continue enjoying the dream."

Time stood still and returned to normal, and the deep blue world returned to normal as well.

"Ah!" The pain did not subside with time, and Arthur knelt on the ground, clutching his head and screaming.

The screams were like thunder, and the pain was a hundred times worse than when absorbing the powers of multiple Devil Fruits.

It's as if a part of his soul has been cut off, making him no longer whole.

"What's wrong?! You've gone crazy again!"

"We didn't do anything to you!"

Gloria, Torituma, and Shakky, dressed in cheongsams, stared in horror at the pained Arthur.

They haven't done anything these past two days; they've just passively endured it.

"What exactly am I..." Arthur finally spoke as the pain subsided with time.

"What is it? Why is that power within you?"

The power to control souls, the power of the soul prison—the power is in another's hands.

He had initially thought it had disappeared, but he couldn't find it when he went to the town of Wells to look for it.

Arthur suddenly realized that the people he killed in this life might have been absorbed by the other version of himself.

"What's missing?!" Arthur's heart pounded rapidly. He grabbed his clothes and put them on, guessing what was going on.

"What exactly is missing? What part of my soul has been taken away?!"

The empresses remained silent upon seeing Arthur's appearance, merely observing his strange behavior.

When Arthur turned his gaze to them, he wondered if he had lost interest in them because he had just finished.

It's as if a certain desire is missing, a primal desire.

He wasn't sure; he could only guess.

After being reborn, he naturally did not want to die. As his strength grew, his mind became more and more stable in this new life.

He gradually became unwilling to disappear, but the feeling of being instantly killed just now left him with no way to resist his other self.

He was so strong that he seemed inhuman, so strong that even he was shocked.

Cooper kicked open the palace door and rushed into the room following the sound of pain, arriving at Arthur's side to check on him.

"Ku! What happened?" Cooper's sharp gaze swept over the three empresses, staring at them suspiciously.

"What did you do to him?"

Xia Qi calmly picked up the cigarette pack, lit it, and explained,

"He suddenly became like this, and we are the victims, but it seems like we saw something terrible."

"The world's strongest man, the captain of the Ice Pirates, actually has a weakness?"

Arthur put on his clothes, still sweating profusely and shrouded in fear.

It turns out that it wasn't something he could control; it turned out that he was the one being controlled.

After completing the handover ceremony for the fourth empress, on the third day, Arthur finally took the three empresses aboard the Wings of Victory and set sail from the Kingdom of Women.

All the burdens of the nation were placed on the shoulders of a 22-year-old woman named Boa Hancock.

……

The next day, late at night.

On a calm, windless night sea, Arthur sat on the deck, gazing up at the stars.

I felt my own insignificance and the sense of being controlled again, and surprisingly, it came from myself.

"Go cook your own meal! I'm not your maid!"

"But he let us on the ship himself! As the cook, shouldn't you be responsible for feeding us?"

"Ugh! I've had enough! I only want to serve him!"

The women's argument drifted down the ship's corridor, but Arthur had neither the inclination nor the desire to listen.

Despite his womanizing ways, he had not touched Gion in the past thirty years.

"Did it steal my lust?" After a day of searching, Arthur realized that he had lost something yesterday.

This left him incredibly frustrated and extremely depressed.

I just wanted to find a way to prevent myself from being swallowed up, but I never expected that the exit would provoke another version of myself.

With absolute control over the soul and overwhelming overall abilities, he had absolutely no power to resist the other him.

This made him feel like a puppet.

Despite having gone through so much, she still couldn't escape her own grasp.

"What's wrong with me enjoying myself! You heartless machine!"

Arthur was utterly dejected and got up to walk towards the captain's cabin.

He lay alone on the sofa, cigarettes and alcohol in hand, lost in thought.

The same thing happened for the next few days.

He never left the captain's cabin, drowning his sorrows in cigarettes and alcohol, unable to resolve his inner contradictions.

I don't know how much time passed before the captain's cabin door was finally pushed open.

Gion walked straight in, looking at Arthur with surprise.

The alcohol was seeping out of his body, and he felt a stinging sensation as soon as it came near his nostrils.

"What's wrong?" Gion asked softly, her voice lowered to a very gentle tone, as Arthur lay on the sofa behind the desk.

"Are you in a bad mood? Or did something happen? Share it with others, don't try to be strong all by yourself."

After being awakened by Gion, Arthur, his eyes filled with tears, covered his forehead and said to her:

"It's nothing... I'm just having internal conflicts."

This was the first time Gion had seen Arthur with such a vulnerable expression, and she didn't think he was alright.

Did he regret it because so many people died?

Or did something happen in the Land of Women?

Gion began to analyze and speculate on her own, trying to cheer Arthur up.

"The ship has been drifting aimlessly on the sea for many days. Everyone needs a captain. Cheer up."

“Nothing, let’s head to Mary Geoise next,” Arthur ordered her. “I have some things I want to discuss with them, how this war should end.”