Endless nothingness.
This was the only sensation Zoro felt at that moment.
After being swallowed by the out-of-control spatio-temporal energy, his consciousness fell into a bizarre nightmare.
The concept of time was completely stripped away here; a moment could last an eternity, and a century could be as short as an instant.
Space was stretched, twisted, and folded; he felt his body sometimes pulled into an infinitely long noodle, and sometimes compressed into an invisible singularity.
Multicolored light bands, like lifeless giant snakes, coiled around him, dragging him, trying to tear him into his most primitive particles.
The profound darkness, like the maw of a devouring beast, continuously eroded his will.
Countless phantoms of shattered worlds flashed before his eyes.
He saw burning cities, frozen oceans, winged behemoths flying in a sky made of crystal, and even a bizarre world entirely composed of gears and steam.
Every phantom was filled with an aura of chaos and destruction; they were the remnants of countless worlds in the spatio-temporal turbulence.
If an ordinary person were to fall into this place, their mind would likely be overwhelmed by the vast information flow within a thousandth of a second, and their soul and body would turn to nothingness.
But Zoro was not an ordinary person.
He was the man determined to become the World's Greatest Swordsman; his will had long been tempered in countless life-or-death battles, purer than the hardest diamond.
"I... haven't... become the World's Greatest Swordsman yet..."
"How can I... die in this... hellhole..."
He clung to this faint obsession deep within his heart, like grasping a life-saving straw in an abyss.
This obsession became his final barrier against all erosion.
More importantly, he was not alone.
He could still feel the touch of the three swords in his hands.
wado ichimonji emitted a cool yet tenacious aura, like the last wish of a close friend, constantly reminding him of his promise with Kuina, stabilizing his nearly collapsing sword heart.
sandai kitetsu's ominous Demon Qi, in this chaos, was like a fish in water; it greedily absorbed the surrounding negative energy, forming a thin protective film.
And the most crucial one was "Enma"!
This demonic blade, capable of forcibly drawing out its user's Haki, now displayed its terrifying other side.
It was like a thirsty black hole; after Zoro's Haki was exhausted, it began to spontaneously and frantically absorb the scattered spatio-temporal energy around it!
Those violent forces, enough to tear apart gods and demons, were transformed into a pure energy after being absorbed by Enma, which in turn nourished Zoro's collapsing body.
Enma was protecting its master! Or rather, it was protecting its future "food."
Who knows how long passed, perhaps a second, perhaps a thousand years.
Just as Zoro's consciousness was about to be completely extinguished by the endless darkness, a faint point of light suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision.
That point of light was initially only the size of a needle tip, but in this void of only chaos and darkness, it appeared incredibly conspicuous.
It emitted a warm, peaceful, and life-filled aura, completely out of place with everything around it.
The instinct for survival made Zoro focus all his attention on that point of light.
It was expanding.
It was approaching.
A gentle yet irresistible pulling force came from the light point, as if calling him, the lost traveler, home.
Zoro no longer resisted; he gave up control of his body and used his last ounce of strength to "swim" towards the direction of that light point.
When his fingertips finally touched that warm light, the world seemed to be paused.
His consciousness completely plunged into a deep darkness.
And his body, like a meteor freed from its shackles, broke through that thin world barrier, passed through a colorful aurora, and plummeted straight down towards a vast, boundless, and sky-blue expanse below.