Saint Saturn led Blackbeard onward, taking an increasingly secluded route that carried them deeper and deeper.
Until they entered an old sector dating back to Egghead's earliest construction, long since forgotten or sealed away.
The walls around them were no longer smooth alloy, and faded indicator lights flickered across their surfaces.
Finally, they stopped in the center of an enormous circular hall beneath a towering dome.
The hall's floor was uneven, and a massive Ancient Robot lay slumped there.
Before the robot was a pattern pieced together from geometric shapes.
Together, they formed a gigantic Pentagram Formation covering the entire floor of the hall.
This was precisely where, back when the World Government helped Vegapunk build Egghead,
it had secretly installed the "Five-Pointed Star Formation."
Its original purpose went without saying (everyone knew).
Seeing Saint Saturn stop without going any farther, Blackbeard frowned and instinctively grew wary.
"Hey, Lord Elder, why aren't we moving?"
He looked around the hall, feeling even more uncomfortable here than among the ruins outside.
"Is this place... safe?"
"Safe?" With his back to Blackbeard, Saint Saturn spoke in a flat, emotionless voice. "Of course not."
He slowly turned, lightly tapping his cane against one point of the pentagram beneath his feet with a sharp click.
"As long as we're still on this island, we can't keep 'hiding' forever."
"Heavenquake's Observation Haki can sense far more than you imagine.
Simply taking evasive routes won't buy us much time."
"What do you mean by that?" Blackbeard instinctively stepped back, putting some distance between himself and Saint Saturn.
Suddenly, he had an extremely bad feeling.
And sure enough, just then...
A terrifying surge of Conqueror's Haki, crushing and domineering, so familiar that it made his very soul tremble,
swept in from afar without warning, pinpointing and engulfing the