The Place Where Pluton Slept

Boom—!

A ten-thousand-meter waterfall was forcibly torn open by gravity, and the obsidian-black warship burst through the waves, crashing heavily into the ancient waters outside Wano Country known as Changying Port. Mist poured down like torrential rain, only to be violently pulverized by an invisible field of Extreme Pressure before it could touch the ship.

"Zehahaha! This damned waterfall's even fiercer than the last time we came!"

Keen's half-dragon form stood steadily at the bow. Water droplets still clung to his pink dragon scales as he shook his head and swept his blazing dragon eyes across the surroundings. Wano Country's sky was forever shrouded in strange gloom, but compared to the suffocating toxic clouds and factory smoke from Kaido's reign, the air now carried a few long-lost hints of cherry blossom fragrance tinged with rust.

"Reconstruction's going pretty well." Carina leaned against the mast, narrowing her beautiful eyes at the majestic Shogun's Residence atop the distant mountain. "Last time we came, half the Flower Capital was still burned down."

Rain said nothing. Dressed in black, he stood at the ship's prow, his dark gray vertical pupils gazing past the harbor toward the rolling mountains and sheer cliffs. The perception granted by his awakened Rock-Rock Fruit spread wildly through the earth beneath his feet. He could clearly "see" that deep beneath this island, within darkness sealed away for eight hundred years by lava and ancient rock strata, an unimaginably massive metallic object was breathing slowly and heavily.

"Vegapunk." Rain spoke coldly without turning around.

"I sense it! Very clearly!"

Vegapunk's main body clutched the jar containing the azure Ancient Energy Spark, his beard trembling wildly with excitement as streams of data flashed across his holographic glasses. "It's directly beneath the ruins of Onigashima, around three thousand meters down! The geological structure