NOVEL WEB Chapter 156: Chapter 156
The humid air of Angkor'thal clung thick with the scent of wet sandstone, ancient moss, and the faint, ozone tang of temporal energy. Within the cavernous Hall of Whispers in the Temple of Dawn's Echo, fractured moonlight streamed through vine-choked arches, illuminating dust motes dancing above intricate mosaics depicting Lunarians, Minks, and Three-Eyed Tribe members in ritualistic unity. The rhythmic gurgle of the River of Forgotten Time, flowing backwards just outside the massive stone doors, provided an eerie counterpoint to the scene within.
Charlie Leonard Wooley was a whirlwind of khaki and academic fervor. His pith helmet sat askew, tufts of brown hair escaping as he practically vibrated with excitement. He darted between towering bas-reliefs, his polished explorer boots scuffing millennia-old dust, his overloaded satchel spilling scrolls and ink bottles with every enthusiastic pivot. He brandished his Glyph-tracer loupe like a holy relic, projecting shaky holographic translations onto a mosaic showing stylized chains shattering under Nika's silhouette.
"Ahem!" Charlie cleared his throat, the sound echoing sharply off the high ceilings. "Observe! The synchronicity! The Lunarian fire-forged alloys here," he jabbed a finger at a glowing section of mosaic, nearly toppling a precariously balanced inkwell, "fused with the Mink Sulong electro-channeling conduits here! And the Three-Eyed Tribe's focal point! This isn't mere decoration, colleagues! This is a schematic! A collaborative energy matrix designed to amplify a singular, liberating frequency! The implications for Void Century socio-political structures are profound! It suggests a level of interspecies cooperation previously only hypothesized in the footnotes of seven of Kevin's Marginally Adequate Analysis of Pre-Deluvian Alliances – which was, frankly, riddled with basic transliteration errors, the buffoon!
He spun, gesturing wildly towards the colossal Arch of Tartarus' Shadow dominating the far end of the hall. "And that arch! It's curvature! The inverse runic patterning on the keystone! It's not just a seal against some mythical 'Sea Devourer'! It's a dimensional dampener! A counter-resonance field designed to contain conceptual entropy! Prasat Yama isn't merely a temple; it's a stabilization engine for...!" His lecture dissolved into excited muttering as he scribbled furiously in a crumbling notebook.
Perched on a fallen column, grease smudged across one cheek, Bianca Yvonne Clark watched Charlie with an expression of profound boredom. Her waist-length black hair was wrestled into a messy bun skewered by two pencils and a spanner. She wore her signature grease-stained overalls over a surprisingly delicate silk blouse patterned with tiny wrenches, currently unzipped to her waist. Her magnifying goggles were pushed up onto her forehead as she tinkered with a small, humming device covered in blinking dials she'd dubbed the "Éclair Empath."
"Like, wow, Charlie," Bianca drawled, not looking up from her gadget. She twisted a tiny screwdriver with intense focus, her expressive hands moving with precise, if slightly jerky, motions. "Ancient energy matrix. Conceptual entropy dampening. Super profound. Totally." She blew a stray strand of hair from her face. "Meanwhile, my Éclair is picking up, like, major residual Haki fluctuations near the big spooky arch. Way stronger than anything else in here. Like, Mihawk-level strong, maybe stronger? And it's all tangled up with, like, void-moss decay signatures and something else… cold? Really, really cold." She tapped the device. "Which is, like, fascinating, but also kinda makes me wanna recalibrate the Seastone-dust dispersion on my 'Baklava Blaster' adhesive drones. You know, like, just in case the spooky conceptual entropy decides to, like, un-dampen?"
Seated cross-legged on a smooth section of floor, her back against a stone face depicting a stern World Noble ancestor, Aurélie Nakano Takeko seemed an island of stillness amidst the chaos. Her long silver hair cascaded freely over minimalist black tactical hakama and a reinforced corset. The cursed black blade, Anathema, rested horizontally across her lower back, its obsidian scabbard drinking the dim light. Her focus, however, was entirely absorbed by a small, worn leather notebook balanced on her knee. A single pencil moved with deliberate, almost painful slowness across the page. Her steel-grey eyes were distant, fixed on some internal vista far removed from ancient temples and academic fervor.
Bianca sighed dramatically, abandoning her tinkering for a moment. She stretched, cracking her knuckles. "Soooo," she ventured, looking between the absorbed Aurélie and the still-muttering Charlie. "Like, how long are we planning to camp out in the spooky energy-matrix temple? Not that the ambiance isn't, like, totally gothic-chic, but the humidity is doing terrible things to my hair. And my tools. Like, serious corrosion risks."
Aurélie didn't look up. The pencil continued its slow dance across the paper. After a long moment, her silver eyebrow arched infinitesimally. Her gaze lifted, not to Bianca, but to Charlie, who was now carefully scraping a sample of peculiar black moss from the base of a mosaic with a tiny acid-free spray bottle in one hand and his loupe in the other. He was humming tunelessly.
"Charlie," Aurélie's voice cut through the humid air, cool and precise as a honed blade. It stopped his humming mid-note. "Does this... energy matrix... or the conceptual entropy dampener..." Her lips thinned slightly as she used his terms, "...contain anything pertinent to our objective?"
Charlie froze, the scraping tool hovering. He slowly straightened up, adjusting his pith helmet. "Ahem! Well! Objective retrieval, yes, of course!" He cleared his throat again, puffing out his chest slightly. "Assessment is ongoing, Guardian Nakano! The environment is rich with data! However..." He scanned the vast hall, his eyes lingering on scorch marks near the Arch and deep, recent gouges in the stone floor that definitely weren't ancient. "...to pinpoint specific vectors related to Marya's presence or immediate trajectory... requires further analysis. Deeper analysis! Prudent cataloging!" He gestured vaguely towards shadowed corridors leading deeper into the temple complex. "It would be materially advantageous to understand what specifically drew her here. What facet of this location aligned with her... pursuits."
Bianca snorted, fiddling with a dial on her Éclair Empath. "Uh, duh? Her mom's research? Like, the whole reason we're on this tropical guilt trip?"
"Precisely!" Charlie exclaimed, pointing a finger at Bianca, nearly dropping his moss sample. "Elisabeta Vaccaria! Her expertise lay in the hypothesized Primordial Currents – the fundamental flows of energy predating even the Void Century! Often dismissed as metaphysical conjecture by lesser minds, but here!" He swept his arm dramatically, encompassing the glowing mosaics and the ominous Arch. "The evidence is tangible! The Lunarian fire, the Mink lunar resonance, the Three-Eyed temporal perception... they were mapping it! Harnessing it! Or trying to contain its... wilder manifestations." He tapped his loupe thoughtfully against his chin. "If Marya is following her mother's path, this temple is a Rosetta Stone written in pure cosmic force!"
Aurélie's pencil had stopped moving. She observed the deep, fresh gouges in the flagstones near the Arch – gouges that spoke of immense, focused power applied with brutal efficiency, utterly unlike the weathering of centuries. Her gaze traced the path of destruction towards one of the towering Living Stone Guardians, an Apsara dancer frozen mid-pose. A massive chunk was missing from its shoulder, the edges sharp and clean, not eroded. She finally closed her notebook with a soft snap and tucked it securely into her waistband, the edges of poorly scrawled verse just visible.
"The damage," she stated flatly, rising to her feet with fluid grace, "is not ancient. It is recent. Violent." Her hand rested lightly near Anathema's hilt. "She gains distance while we catalog echoes."
Charlie blinked, following her gaze to the damaged guardian. "Ah! Recent? How can you be certain, Guardian? The petrification process, combined with the unique mineral composition influenced by the temporal mists and the River of Forgotten Time's reverse-osmosis effect, could theoretically accelerate superficial degradation in patterns mimicking..."
Aurélie cut him off with a look. It was the look she reserved for haikus and illogical battlefield decisions. "We should not linger."
Charlie deflated slightly, then rallied. "But! Ahem! Guardian Nakano! Just one more day! Perhaps two! Deeper into the sanctum! The lower levels near the Baray of Echoes! If Elisabeta studied Primordial Currents, she might have left markers, encoded notes in the resonance patterns! Or Marya might have! Clues to her next destination! Directionality is crucial!" He clutched his satchel protectively, scrolls threatening another escape. "Prudent investigation demands it!"
Bianca rolled her eyes, stuffing the Éclair Empath into a pouch on her overloaded corset-holster multitool belt. "Like, sure, Charlie. More ruins. More spooky energy readings. More you lecturing about Kevin's inadequacies. Sounds like a blast." She shot a look at Aurélie, her usual sarcasm laced with a flicker of genuine concern. "But seriously. If Marya and the Hawkeyes are already gone... sitting here while Charlie nerds out isn't exactly, like, speedy retrieval."
Aurélie stood poised between the fervent archaeologist and the pragmatic engineer, the cool weight of her impossible task settling around her like mist. The temple hummed with ancient, dangerous power, the air thick with the ghosts of lost alliances and the sharp scent of recent violence. The hunt was cold, the quarry moving further into shadows wielding a power that could unravel the world. Charlie's desperate plea for time hung in the air, counterpointed by the relentless, backward flow of the river outside – a reminder that time, even forgotten time, waits for no one, not even pedantic polyglots hunting apocalyptic secrets.
*****
The air in the Owl Library hung thick with the scent of ancient paper, damp timber, and the faint, sweet tang of Elbaf's moss-covered beams. Dust motes danced lazily in the shafts of late afternoon sunlight piercing the high, arched windows, illuminating towering shelves groaning under the weight of millennia. At a massive oak table, scarred by centuries of scholarly debate, sat three figures.
Dracule Marya Zaleska leaned back in her chair, her long raven hair, so like her father's, falling over the simple dark fabric of her leather jacket. The obsidian blade of Eternal Eclipse rested against the table leg, its crimson runes dormant but still casting an unnerving chill. Around her neck, the small Kogatana glinted dully. Her golden eyes, usually sharp as Mihawk's own, scanned the room with detached calm, missing nothing – the intricate carvings on the ceiling beams, the faint tremor in Ange's fingers as the archaeologist fidgeted, the way Saul's massive frame seemed to shrink slightly in the presence of so much fragile knowledge.
"Alright, Marya," Ange finally burst out, unable to contain her eagerness any longer. Her spectacles perched precariously on her nose, her usual vibrant energy barely contained. "The riddle! The one from the Temple of Dawn's Echo. Show us!"
Marya didn't react immediately. Her gaze lingered for a moment on Saul. The giant of Elbaf, once a Vice Admiral, now a guardian of lost knowledge, sat hunched over, his normally jovial face etched with a profound melancholy that deepened the lines around his eyes. The destruction of Ohara was a wound that never truly healed. Finally, with a fluid motion devoid of unnecessary flourish, Marya reached into a worn leather satchel at her feet. She withdrew two items: a large, carefully preserved sheet of thick paper bearing the deep, precise impressions of the Arch of Tartarus' Shadow, and her own personal notebook, its cover bound in what looked like sea-serpent hide, pages crammed with dense, meticulous script and complex diagrams.
Unfolding the rubbing on the table, the strange, angular glyphs seemed to pulse with an ancient energy under the library light. Saul leaned forward, his breath catching audibly. "The Poneglyph script..." he murmured, his voice thick with disbelief and a touch of awe. He looked from the rubbing to Marya, his expression a storm of confusion and dawning realization. "But... Ohara... Nico Robin... I thought..." He trailed off, unable to articulate the magnitude of his surprise. "How... how can you read this? The daughter of a Warlord?"
Marya met his gaze, her own golden eyes steady, unreadable pools. She didn't flinch at the implied accusation or the weight of his grief. She simply took a slow, deliberate breath, the air hissing slightly between her teeth. "It is a big world, Saul," she stated, her voice cool and measured, like water over smooth stones. "Vaster and older than the World Government would have us believe, holding more secrets than any single scholar, any single island, could ever fathom." Her fingers brushed the edge of the rubbing, tracing the outline of a glyph depicting a weeping figure. "This library alone," she gestured vaguely at the cavernous room filled with countless scrolls and texts from forgotten eras, "is proof enough that Ohara was not the sole cradle of forbidden knowledge. Revered? Yes. Unique? Hardly." A flicker of something cold, almost disdainful, touched her eyes. "Their mistake, perhaps, was assuming their influence, their reason, could sway powers built on fear and ignorance. Not everyone in this world is so... naive as to believe truth alone can topple empires built on lies."
Saul stared at her, his brow furrowed deeply. Her words hung in the air, challenging his deepest sorrows and the narrative he'd lived with for decades. The simple, brutal pragmatism in her statement about Ohara's fate was jarring, yet undeniably resonant. He slowly sat back, the massive oak chair creaking under his weight, his expression contemplative, the raw shock giving way to a troubled, thoughtful silence.
Ignoring the giant's internal struggle for the moment, Marya turned her attention back to the rubbing. Her gaze sharpened, focusing on the intricate symbols. She began to read aloud, her voice taking on a rhythmic cadence, translating the ancient words into the common tongue:
Verse I
"What roots drink the tears of the sky?
Four keepers born of flame, sight, storm, and flame's denied.
The tyrant's child must weep alone---
A crown undone, a debt atoned.
Verse II
Three keys forged in star, beast, and bone:
One charts the path where gods have flown,
One beats where leviathans groan,
One wears the face the world disowned.
Verse III
The dancer laughs where shadows part---
His joy the spark to mend the heart.
But blood must flow from six torn veins:
Sky's heir, moon's scorn, and D's old chains.
Verse IV
"When heaven's stars align as one,
Four shades shall rise where light has spun---
Serpent's wrath, Condor's toll,
Tiger's grace, and Tide's lost scroll.
Bound by chains of cosmic creed,
Their oath unlocks what shadows bleed."
She paused, then added the final line etched beneath, her tone dropping slightly: "Speak the price the Void demands, And sail where Lethe's gate commands."
As Marya read, Ange's initial excitement had morphed into intense concentration. Her fingers drummed a silent, frantic rhythm on the tabletop. But it was Verse III that snagged her focus like a fishhook. When Marya finished the line "But blood must flow from six torn veins", Ange practically vibrated, leaning so far forward she nearly knocked over an inkwell.
"Six torn veins!" Ange exclaimed, her voice echoing slightly too loud in the hushed library, making Bilbo's feathers ruffle. She ignored Saul's shushing gesture, her eyes wide behind her spectacles, fixed on the rubbing as if it might vanish. "Sky's heir, moon's scorn, and D's old chains... that's three! But it says six. Six specific bloodlines! What are the other three? It has to be specific lineages, tied to ancient powers!"
She tapped the verse frantically. "Look! 'Sky's heir' – Skypieans, obviously, descendants of the people who lived with the gods. 'Moon's scorn' – the Lunarians, persecuted by the World Government, driven from their home. 'D's old chains' – the bearers of the Will of D., shackled by history itself." Her mind raced. "Three more... three more veins of blood needed for this 'mending'. But what? Giants? Minks? Fish-Men? Or something... rarer?" The implications of a ritual demanding such specific sacrifices sent a visible shiver down her spine, mingling scholarly fervor with a dawning horror. "This isn't just prophecy, Marya. This is a recipe. And it demands a butcher's bill."
Marya observed Ange's fervent dissection with her usual detached calm. She didn't share the archaeologist's visible agitation, though a slight, almost imperceptible tightening around her own eyes betrayed her understanding of the verse's grim implications. Her fingers unconsciously brushed the faint, permanent black void veins visible on her forearm where her sleeve rode up – a stark reminder of prices already paid.
She offered no theories, no reassurances. She simply closed her notebook with a soft thump, the sound final in the sudden silence following Ange's outburst. A faint, almost wry smirk touched her lips as Biblo drifted towards her, bumping gently against her shoulder. "Nonsensical demands often lead to messy outcomes, Ange," she remarked dryly, her golden gaze flicking from the panicked scholar to the brooding giant and then back to the ominous rubbing. "Especially when ancient powers decide the price." The weight of the riddle, the blood it demanded, and the secrets it guarded settled over the library table, thick and heavy as the Elbaph twilight gathering outside the high windows.
The silence following Marya's dry pronouncement deepened, thick with the dust of millennia and the weight of impending bloodshed. Outside the high windows of the Owl Library, the Elbaf twilight deepened, painting the ancient stone walls in hues of violet and bruised orange. Biblo, the small, translucent jellyfish, pulsed with a soft, worried blue light beside Marya's shoulder, bumping gently against her raven hair as if seeking reassurance.
Saul, the giant, had leaned far back in his massive, oak-carved chair, the wood groaning in protest. His thick fingers stroked his beard, a low, rumbling hum vibrating in his chest. His eyes, usually warm with Elbaph's boisterous spirit, were distant, clouded by the shadows of the riddle. "The moon..." he muttered, the word a gravelly whisper lost in the vastness of the library. "...the moon, the moon..." He repeated it like a forgotten prayer, his gaze fixed on the vaulted ceiling where painted constellations swirled. "Always the moon..."
Ange, still buzzing from her own frantic dissection of the bloodlines, snapped her head towards him. "Saul? What about the moon? What are you muttering?" Her spectacles slid down her nose as she peered at him, the scholarly fervor momentarily replaced by confusion.
Saul's massive head slowly lowered, his eyes meeting Ange's with startling intensity. The melancholy of Ohara seemed momentarily pushed aside by the spark of an old, almost forgotten memory. "There used to be more than one," he stated, his voice low but resonant. "Up there. Not just the moon. Moons. Legends… whispers…" He tapped a thick finger against his temple. "Before the Void Century, perhaps."
Ange froze. Her eyes widened behind her lenses, the frantic energy coalescing into a single, brilliant point of realization. "More than one..." she breathed. Then, like a coiled spring released, she shot up from her chair, the legs scraping harshly on the stone floor. "Seven!" she gasped, already darting between towering bookshelves, her fingers trailing over spines with frantic familiarity. "Of course! The seven celestial bodies!" Her voice echoed back, slightly muffled by the stacks. "The old legends! The ones the World Government tried to bury!"
Moments later, she reappeared, staggering under the weight of a colossal, leather-bound tome that smelled of ozone and deep earth. She slammed it down onto the table with a thud that made Biblo jump and sent dust motes swirling in frantic eddies. Flipping pages with trembling hands, she found a specific illustration – a stylized depiction of the heavens with seven distinct orbs circling a central blue planet. She stabbed a finger onto the page, her nail landing squarely on two of the celestial bodies depicted not as simple spheres, but as stylized figures. "You are correct, Saul!" she declared, her voice trembling with excitement. "There were seven! And the legends say the forgotten tribes… or some of them… were descended from these celestial bodies! Look!" Her finger jabbed again. "The Three-Eyed Tribe – seers bound to the stars! And the Minks – guardians touched by the storm-light of the heavens! Their very powers are celestial echoes!"
Marya, who had been observing this flurry with her customary detached calm, her fingers resting lightly on the closed cover of her own notebook, finally stirred. A thoughtful frown touched her brow, the only outward sign of her inner calculations. "So," she murmured, her voice low and deliberate, cutting through Ange's excitement. "The blood of six. We know two of those races – Three-Eyed Tribe, Minks – are scattered across the seas, diminished perhaps, but not lost." Her golden eyes, sharp as her father's blade, lifted from the ancient illustration to meet Ange's gaze. "The Lunarians, however... 'Moon's scorn'... hunted nearly to extinction." She paused, her gaze turning inward for a heartbeat. "Which would be the sixth? And who, truly, is this 'dancer' who laughs where shadows part?"
Ange cocked her head, confusion momentarily replacing her scholarly triumph. How could Marya, daughter of a Warlord, seemingly figure this out so calmly? "The sixth...?" Ange started, but it was Saul who answered, his voice booming now, filled with the conviction of a remembered tale.
"The Sun God!" Saul declared, slamming a massive fist lightly on the table, making the tome jump. "Nika! The liberator! The one who brings the dawn with laughter! That's your dancer, girl!"
Marya blinked, once. Slowly. Then a low, utterly exasperated groan escaped her lips. She leaned back in her chair, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You think it's a sun deity," she stated flatly, the skepticism dripping from each word. "A mythical figure."
"Of course!" Ange cried, already springing back up, her eyes alight with the thrill of the academic chase. "It fits perfectly! 'His joy the spark to mend the heart' – the embodiment of liberation and hope!" She vanished back into the labyrinth of shelves before Marya could voice further doubt.
She returned moments later, clutching a smaller, older-looking scroll, its edges frayed. Unfurling it with reverence, she pointed triumphantly to faded illustrations: a stylized, grinning figure surrounded by breaking chains, rays of light emanating from its form. "See? Nika! The Sun God! The one who dances in the face of oppression! It has to be him!"
Marya stared at the ancient depiction. Then, without a word, she simply flopped her forehead forward onto the cool oak table with a soft, definitive thunk. Biblo pulsed a concerned, questioning pink above her bowed head. Another groan, muffled this time by the wood, vibrated against the tabletop. "How," came her voice, strained and incredulous from beneath her curtain of raven hair, "am I supposed to acquire that? The literal blood of a sun god?" The sheer, absurd impossibility of the demand hung in the air.
Saul paused mid-chuckle, his booming laugh dying abruptly in his throat. His eyes widened, a spark of horrific realization igniting within them. His massive wooden chair shrieked like a wounded beast as he surged to his feet, his head nearly brushing the library's high beams. Ange and Marya both snapped their heads up, startled by the sudden movement.
"Celestial Dragon!" Saul boomed, the words echoing off the stone walls. He pointed a thick finger first at the rubbing, then emphatically between the phrases on the parchment. "D's old chains! The moon's scorn! They are the scorn! The World Government, the Celestial Dragons – they are the tyrants who scorned the moon's children! The chains that bind the D!" His face was alight with the terrifying logic of it. "The blood of a Celestial Dragon! Willingly given! The 'tyrant's child' who weeps alone! That's the sixth blood!"
Marya didn't groan this time. She just stared at Saul, her golden eyes wide with a dawning horror that mirrored the sudden, chilling silence that had fallen over the library. The playful absurdity of chasing sun gods evaporated, replaced by the cold, brutal reality of Saul's deduction. Acquiring the blood of a Celestial Dragon wasn't just difficult; it was a declaration of war against the heavens themselves. Biblo pulsed a deep, ominous crimson, casting flickering shadows on Marya's suddenly pale face as she shared a look of pure, unadulterated dread with Ange. The riddle's price had just become terrifyingly tangible.