Using Brook's soul-stirring music as Key, the Straw Hat Pirates was able to delve deeper into the ruins filled with invisible barriers. The further they went, the more pronounced the feeling of time standing still became. The dust particles in the air seemed frozen in time, and the light took on a viscous texture. Occasionally, they would see strange fossilized creatures completely frozen in time—they retained their postures from life, yet, like insects in amber, they had lost all vitality.
"Time here... seems to have really stopped?" Chopper looked fearfully at a winged clouded leopard sculpture frozen in a leaping pose.
"It's not stopping," Allen corrected, his fingertips swirling with barely perceptible ripples of spacetime as he carefully sensed it. "It's becoming extremely slow, almost... eternally slow. We can move because our own 'flow of time' is different from here, but it's being slowly assimilated." He noticed that Usopp's movements seemed a little slower than usual.
This news made everyone even more vigilant. Nami urged Brook to hurry up and find the core as soon as possible to leave this place.
Finally, after traversing countless corridors and halls, they arrived at the deepest part of the ruins. It was an incredibly magnificent circular hall, its dome soaring high and supported by countless enormous white stone pillars. At the center of the hall, instead of the massive energy entity they had expected, was a suspended, slowly rotating, complex device composed of countless intricate gears and luminous runes—it was only a little over a meter tall, yet it emanated a tremendous power that influenced the entire spacetime of the ruins. Embedded at the center of the device was a transparent crystal that flickered constantly, beating like a heart.
"That's it!" Nami exclaimed, looking at the Log Pose was trembling violently and pointing directly at the device.
"Wow... so beautiful..." Chopper was captivated by the exquisite design of the device.
"Is this the source of the slowed-down time?" Franky excitedly tried to approach and study it, but Allen stopped him.
"Don't rush." Allen's gaze turned to the corner of the hall. There, stood three tall stone statues clad in tattered armor and wielding ancient weapons. Unlike the other frozen creatures, these three statues contained within them a faint yet tenacious Fire of Life, as well as... energy fluctuations originating from the same source as the central device.
As if sensing the intruders, the central device slightly accelerated its rotation, and the transparent crystal flickered. The next moment, the stone shells on the three statues peeled away inch by inch, revealing metallic bodies and humanoid outlines inside. Blue light shone in their eyes as they locked onto the Straw Hat Pirates.
"Intruder... detected... an abnormal time flow..." the lead guardian announced in a broken, metallic voice, "According to the ' Eternal Protocol '... to be... eliminated!"
Before the words were even finished, three guardians charged forward with a speed that belied their bulky appearance—almost instantaneous teleportation! They possessed immense strength, and their weapons whistled as they swung, tearing through the air. More troublesome was their apparent ability to manipulate the slow flow of time around them, making their movements even more difficult for onlookers to follow!
"So fast!" Zoro instantly drew his sword, blocking a giant axe that came crashing down. Sparks flew everywhere, and he felt a slight numbness in his arm.
Luffy activated Gear Second and slammed his rubber fist at another guardian, but the guardian dodged it with a subtle timing difference.
Ace's flamethrower was also deflected by a distorted time field.
Sanji's kicking techniques and Jinbe's Fish-Man Karate felt like hitting slippery eels; the power was dispersed and redirected.
"Their movements can predict our attacks!" Robin analyzed. The limbs generated by her ability also become abnormally slow when they get close to the guardians, making it difficult to form an effective restraint.
Usopp's ranged attacks were easily dodged or deflected.
Franky's artillery fire also had little effect.
"It wasn't a prediction," Allen calmly observed the battle, his spatial awareness clearly capturing the key point, "They created miniature ' Time Acceleration ' fields around themselves, which, relatively speaking, slowed down our movements. At the same time, they could sense the 'time information' carried by the attack and react in advance."
"What should we do?" Nami asked anxiously, knowing they would be in a very passive position if things continued this way.
"Use 'absolute speed' that Transcendence their Time Acceleration capabilities, or... interfere with their perception of time." Allen said, turning his gaze to Brook and Franky. " Franky, use your ' Franky Laser,' an attack that's near the speed of light; Time Acceleration has limited effect on it. Brook, use your music—not resonance, but creating 'time distortion' noise to interfere with their Time Perception!"
"Super~ Understood! Franky Laser Beam!" Franky's chest opened, and a blinding laser shot out instantly, causing one of the guardians to scramble and be unable to completely dodge, resulting in a section of his shoulder armor being melted through!
Brook understood and immediately changed the style of music, playing an extremely discordant melody with a broken and chaotic rhythm. This melody itself contained the chill of the underworld and the disturbance of souls, which indeed caused the guardian's movements to become slightly uncoordinated and stagnant!
"It worked!" Zoro seized the opportunity, unleashing the Three-Sword Style: Oni Giri! A flash of light, and a guardian's arm was severed at the shoulder!
" Gum-Gum - Elephant Gun Barrage!" Luffy's rapid-fire punches, like a storm, finally landed squarely on another Guardian's chest, sending him flying!
Ace gathered all his strength, "Divine Fire - Shiranui!" The flaming spear pierced through the time field, pinning the last guardian to the wall!
The blue light in the eyes of the three guardians quickly dimmed, and they turned back into still stone statues.
With the battle over, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Now, their gazes were focused on the time device in the center of the hall, which maintained the near-eternal silence of this ruin.