Alubarna, late at night.
Lin Yan and Ace moved swiftly through the shadows of the palace buildings like two ghosts. After their meeting that day, King Cobra had provided a detailed map of the palace, marking a secret passage that led straight to the Funeral Temple-an escape route the Nefertari Royal Family had built to preserve historical documents in times of crisis.
"Bro, are you sure Crocodile isn't in the Funeral Temple?" Ace asked quietly. They were lying on a palace rooftop, twenty meters above the concealed entrance to the passage.
"No." Lin Yan's eyes glowed faintly crimson-gold in the darkness, a sign that his Observation Haki was fully active. "But I can sense a large number of presences moving from the direction of Rainbase. Crocodile's main force is probably converging on Alubarna. It's a smokescreen he's deliberately thrown up-to make us think he's deploying his troops. In reality, the Funeral Temple might be empty, or it might be... full of traps."
"And we're still going?"
"The more obvious the trap, the more reason to go." Lin Yan jumped from the roof and landed silently. "Because Crocodile won't expect us to break in before he's finished setting it up. We're exploiting the timing."
Ace jumped down after him, and they approached the hidden entrance. It looked like an ordinary palace wall, but following the map's instructions, Lin Yan tapped the third brick seven times in a particular sequence.
Click-!
The wall recessed inward, revealing a narrow passage barely wide enough for one person. It was pitch-black inside and smelled of years-old mildew.
"Stay close." Lin Yan entered first, lighting a small flame at his fingertip. He kept its temperature extremely low, producing light without heat to avoid triggering any possible heat-sensitive mechanisms.
The passage sloped downward, its walls covered in ancient murals. By the firelight, Ace saw scenes depicting Alabasta's history: enormous ships making landfall, the founding of the kingdom, a war against some gigantic creature... and a figure wreathed in golden flames, holding a banner bearing the sun and fire.
"Bro, look at this." Ace pointed at the figure. "Your mother..."
"Yeah." Lin Yan kept walking. "The Nefertari Family, who founded Alabasta, were allies of the D Clan back then. After the war of the Void Century, they chose to submit to the World Government in exchange for their kingdom's survival, but secretly preserved the truth of history. There should be more records in the Funeral Temple."
They continued onward. The passage grew deeper, and the air grew drier. According to the map, the Funeral Temple lay fifty meters beneath the palace. It had been ancient Alabasta's royal tomb before being converted into an archive.
Ten minutes later, light appeared ahead.
It was neither firelight nor lamplight, but a soft blue fluorescence from some kind of luminous ore embedded in the walls. At the end of the passage stood a heavy stone door, carved with reliefs of the sun and an eagle-the Nefertari Royal Family's crest.
"We're here." Lin Yan pressed his hand against the door and sensed what lay beyond. His Observation Haki penetrated the stone, returning an image of the interior-
An enormous circular hall, over a hundred meters in diameter. A stone platform stood at its center, with a metal box resting on top. Closely packed bookshelves lined the hall, piled with ancient scrolls and stone tablets. There were no signs of life, but...
"Something's wrong with the floor." Lin Yan frowned. "There's a hollow space beneath the entire hall, filled with quicksand. One wrong step, and the floor will collapse and bury you alive in it."
"A trap?" Ace asked.
"More than that." Lin Yan withdrew his hand. "There's Seastone powder mixed into the quicksand. Once an ability user falls in, their Devil Fruit powers will be suppressed. The more they struggle, the faster they'll sink. Crocodile really spared no expense dealing with us."
Seastone powder was extremely precious. A single gram was worth as much as ten kilograms of gold. Filling the space beneath the entire hall would require an astronomical quantity.
"Then how do we get in?" Ace looked at the stone door. "We can't exactly fly across, can we?"
"That's exactly what we'll do." Lin Yan pressed both hands against the stone door, flames flowing from his palms. They were not high-temperature flames, but "Shaping Flame"-the fire spread along the crack like a living thing, seeped into the lock, then solidified into the shape of a key.
Click.
The lock opened.
Lin Yan pushed the stone door open, and the sight before them made both him and Ace draw sharp breaths.
The hall was even grander than he had sensed. Its dome rose thirty meters overhead, painted with a mural of a starry sky. The stars actually glowed faintly-they were made from embedded luminous ore. The surrounding bookshelves stood in orderly rows like a library, holding what must have been tens of thousands of scrolls.
But most striking of all were the stone platform at the center and the metal box atop it. The box's surface was covered in Ancient Script, and it was giving off a faint golden glow.
"Is that the key fragment?" Ace asked.
"It should be." Instead of stepping inside immediately, Lin Yan picked up a small stone from the ground and tossed it into the hall.
The stone landed.
Rumble-!!!
The floor within a five-meter radius of the impact instantly collapsed! Quicksand surged out like a living thing and swallowed the stone. Then the floor returned to its original state-new slabs rose from below to fill the gap. The entire process took less than three seconds.
"A self-repairing mechanism..." Lin Yan's gaze grew grave. "Crocodile hired a skilled trap maker. This isn't a simple trap anymore. It's an entire 'living' defense system."
"Then what do we do?"
"Use your flames to lay a path." Lin Yan looked at Ace. "Blue Flame can temporarily solidify quicksand, right?"
Ace's eyes lit up. "Right! Its penetrating heat can vitrify the sand grains and form a hard shell! Bro, you're a genius!"
He stepped up to the doorway and pressed both hands to the ground. Blue-white flames spread forward along the floor. Wherever they passed, the stone slabs remained unmelted, but the quicksand beneath them melted under the intense heat and solidified into a hard, glassy foundation.
A two-meter-wide "glass road" quickly formed, leading straight to the central platform.
"Let's go." Lin Yan stepped lightly onto the glass road. Ace followed behind, maintaining the flames.
Thirty meters, twenty meters, ten meters...
They drew closer and closer to the platform.
But just as they reached the middle of the hall, something suddenly changed.
Hum-!!!
The starry mural on the dome erupted with blinding light! As though activated, the luminous ores projected countless beams, weaving a three-dimensional web of light through the hall!
"Watch out!" Lin Yan shoved Ace aside. "It's a laser array!"
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh-!!!
Dozens of lasers shot toward them from different angles, so hot they ionized the air! Lin Yan instantly transformed into crimson-gold flames. The lasers passed through him and burned deep holes in the wall behind.
Ace was not so lucky. A laser grazed his left arm, slicing cleanly through the brim of his cowboy hat and leaving a charred wound on his arm.
"Damn it!" Ace cried in pain. "These lasers can hurt us even in elemental form!"
"They aren't ordinary lasers." Lin Yan darted through the array, his Observation Haki fully active as he predicted each beam's trajectory. "There's an energy field containing Seastone mixed into them. Crocodile's really trying to kill us."
The laser barrage grew denser, forcing them to split up and dodge. Lin Yan maneuvered through the air using Geppo, while Ace rolled along the glass road to evade the beams. But there were simply too many lasers, and soon both were driven into corners.
"Bro! We can't keep this up!" Ace shouted. "On three, we charge together! You clear the way with a flame barrier, and I'll grab the box!"
"Right!" Lin Yan brought his palms together, gathering crimson-gold flames into a massive shield before him. "Three, two, one-go!"
Both burst into motion at once!
Lin Yan charged forward with the flame shield raised. Lasers struck it, throwing off dazzling sparks. Ace followed close behind, blue-white flames burning around his hands, ready for anything unexpected.
Five meters, three meters, one meter!
Ace's hand was about to touch the metal box-
Clang!!!
A hand coated in Armament Haki suddenly reached out from beneath the platform and seized Ace's wrist!
"What?!" Ace exclaimed in shock.
The platform exploded, and a towering figure leaped out from below! He was a burly bald man in a black suit, his skin gleaming like metal and both arms transformed into sharp blades!
"Mr. 1?!" Ace recognized him. "How did you-"
"I hid here and waited for you to take the bait," Mr. 1 said coldly. His fingers tightened, and the bones in Ace's wrist grated together. "The boss already anticipated that you'd sneak in early. So he had me wait here... for you to come to me."
He swung his other bladed hand at Ace's neck!
At the critical moment, Lin Yan arrived.
"Let go of my little brother."
His voice was as cold as ice from the deepest underworld.
He extended his right index finger, a point of intensely white-hot light gathering at its tip-plasma compressed to a temperature of fifty thousand degrees. Though only the size of a needlepoint, it had enough power to pierce a warship's armor.
"Flame Emperor Finger Pistol · White-hot Point."
He thrust a single finger at the space between Mr. 1's eyebrows.
Sensing a lethal threat, Mr. 1 instinctively let go and retreated. But Lin Yan's Finger Pistol was too fast, and it still grazed his forehead.
Hiss-!
There was no blood, no open wound.
The heat had instantly carbonized the wound. A charred hole one centimeter across appeared on Mr. 1's forehead, reaching all the way to his skull. The agony drew a muffled groan from him as he staggered backward.
Ace seized the chance to break free, kicking Mr. 1 in the chest and using the force to flip backward and land.
"Bro, are you okay?" Ace looked at Lin Yan, only to find his brother's face unusually pale.
"The laser array took too much out of me..." Lin Yan panted. "Maintaining the flame barrier needs continuous output. My stamina... is almost at its limit."
His body swayed slightly, and the flame shield began to flicker unsteadily. Yet the laser array continued, the luminous ores in the dome growing brighter and brighter. Clearly, their energy supply was still abundant.
Clutching the wound on his head, Mr. 1 grinned viciously. "Looks like you've reached your limit. Then this is where it ends-"
He crossed his bladed arms and spun at high speed:
"Dust Slash Speed Blade · Tornado!"
He became a tornado of blades and charged at Lin Yan!
Ace tried to block him, but the lasers had already left him covered in injuries, and he moved a beat too slowly.
Just as the blades were about to strike Lin Yan-
"You're not hurting the captain!"
A cool female voice came from the entrance.
Immediately afterward, countless arms sprouted from thin air around Mr. 1. Some seized his wrists, some pressed down on his shoulders, and others even covered his eyes!
"What?!" Mr. 1 cried in shock and fury.
The arms wrenched hard!
Crack-!
Both of Mr. 1's arms were forcibly broken! The blades reverted to their original form and hung limply at his sides. Screaming, he fell to his knees, unable to fight.
The laser array suddenly stopped.
The light from the dome dimmed, as though the luminous ores had lost their power supply.
Lin Yan and Ace turned toward the entrance.
Nico Robin stood there, one hand pressed against a mechanism on the wall. Behind her, Tashigi stood guard with her sword drawn, Chopper carried a medical bag, and Isuka and several other combatants were fully armed.
"Robin..." Lin Yan froze. "How did you-"
"Tashigi was worried about you two acting alone, so she notified us with a Flame Dial." Robin walked over to the platform, picked up the metal box, and nodded after examining it. "It's genuine. Crocodile used it as bait to finish you off here."
She looked at Lin Yan, her gaze complicated:
"You knew it was a trap. Why did you still come?"
"Because..." Lin Yan barely steadied himself and gave a bitter smile. "Some things have to be retrieved. Even when you know it's a trap."
Robin fell silent for a few seconds, then said:
"Let's leave first. Once Crocodile realizes he's lost contact with Mr. 1, he'll soon bring people here. Going back through the passage we came in would take too long. I know another way-"
She walked to a bookshelf on the western side of the hall and pulled out three scrolls in a specific sequence. The shelf slowly slid aside, revealing a hidden passage behind it.
"This is an emergency passage built in ancient times. It leads straight to the palace perimeter. Let's go."
The others supported Lin Yan and Ace and quickly entered the passage.
Five minutes after they left, Crocodile arrived at the Funeral Temple with a large group of agents. At the sight of the unconscious Mr. 1 and the empty platform, his expression turned thunderous.
"Mr. 1, wake up!" He kicked the burly man on the floor.
Mr. 1 barely opened his eyes. "Boss... they... through the western passage..."
"Useless!" Crocodile stomped on Mr. 1, breaking his ribs. "So many of you, and you couldn't even stop two wounded men!"
He looked toward the open passage entrance on the western side, killing intent flashing in his eyes.
"But... you won't escape."
"Alubarna is already sealed in an inescapable net."
"Tomorrow, I'll make sure... every last one of you dies here!"
Before you continue