NOVEL WEB Chapter 180: Chapter 180
The cobbled path back to the Heart Pirates' camp felt alive underfoot, vibrating with the distant pulse of Kurau City's industry. Carrot bounded ahead, her fluffy ears twitching, while Jelly wobbled beside her, enthusiastically describing the "sparkly springs" he'd seen near the market. Ikkaku and Jean Bart followed, laden with crates of salvaged thruster components and reinforced plating, their steps heavy but purposeful. A group of Minks trailed behind, hauling sacks of rare alloys on bamboo sleds, the air thick with the scent of hot metal, damp earth, and Jelly's faint, pleasant aroma of saltwater.
"Almost there!" Carrot chirped, turning to flash a grin at the sweating Jean Bart. "Those parts should have the sub flying like a startled squirrel!"
Ikkaku wiped her brow with a grease-streaked forearm. "Flying would be nice. Currently, it sinks like a stone with ambition."
Then, the world exploded.
Not with fire, but with movement. A bone-deep thrum shot up through the cobblestones, rattling teeth and making the crates in Jean Bart's arms clang violently. Jelly let out a startled "Bloop!" and wobbled precariously. Before anyone could react, the deafening ROOOOOAAAAAARRR tore through the jungle canopy – Zunesha's scream of agony, primal and terrifying. The ground didn't tremble; it lurched violently sideways.
Crates flew. Minks cried out, tumbling like discarded toys. Jean Bart, despite his immense strength, was thrown off balance, staggering into a bamboo thicket with a crash. Ikkaku hit the path hard, rolling to avoid a falling sack of alloys. Jelly splattered against a tree trunk, reforming with wide, startled eyes. Carrot, rabbit agility saving her, managed a desperate twist in mid-air, landing hard but on her feet, claws digging into the shuddering earth.
"What the hell's happening?!" Ikkaku roared, scrambling up, her eyes scanning the violently swaying trees.
"Zunesha!" gasped one of the Minks, clutching a dislocated shoulder, his face pale with terror. "He's never… never thrashed like this, gara!"
Jean Bart hauled himself upright, a deep frown etched on his face. "Like the whole island's been kicked." He instinctively moved to shield the group from potential falling debris.
Jelly quivered, his form rippling nervously. "Bad elephant? Very bad shake!"
As the terrible roar faded, replaced by the groans of stressed timber and distant panic, Carrot was already springing towards the city. "Sorry!" she yelled over her shoulder, her voice tight with urgency. "Gotta check on Lord Nekomamushi! He was sleeping high up!" She vanished into the chaotic foliage, a blur of white fur.
In Nekomamushi's Bamboo Tower:
The Cat Viper wasn't just flung from his bed; he was ejected. One moment deep in feline slumber, the next tangled in silken blankets against a far wall amidst scattered cushions and a shattered vase. He surged upright, fur bristling, eyes blazing with fury and disorientation, his massive frame radiating outrage. "WHAT IN THE BLUE SEAS IS GOING ON, MEOW?! SOUNDS LIKE THE WORLD'S ENDING!"
Carrot skidded into the room, breathless. "Lord Nekomamushi! It's Zunesha! He's… he's…!" Before she could explain, Wanda appeared at the doorway, her top slightly askew, her usual composure strained.
"Lord Nekomamushi," Wanda stated swiftly, bowing. "Land was sighted dead ahead. The Rain-Ruption malfunctioned entirely, spraying Zunesha's side. And… there may be a solution. The pirate, Marya Zaleska, believes she knows how to fix it, but she requires access to the Whale Tree."
Nekomamushi's eyes narrowed to slits. His tail lashed like a whip. "THE WHALE TREE?! THAT SACRED GROUND?! AND WHAT IS THAT IDIOT INUARASHI THINKING, MEOW?! IS HE JUST SITTING THERE SCRATCHING HIS FLEAS WHILE THE ISLAND SHAKES APART?!" He took a stomping step towards the door, claws unsheathed, radiating the intent to find his canine counterpart and "discuss" things physically.
Wanda smoothly stepped into his path, bowing lower, but her voice firm. "Please, Lord! We will convey your… strong feelings to Lord Inuarashi immediately and update you the moment the situation changes! Conserve your strength!"
Nekomamushi glared at her, his massive chest heaving. He looked from Wanda's determined face to Carrot's worried one, then back towards his rumpled bed. With a final, frustrated growl that shook the bamboo walls, he spun on his heel. "FINE, MEOW! SEE THAT YOU DO! AND TELL THAT DOG-BRAINED FOOL HE'D BETTER HAVE A GOOD EXPLANATION!" He stomped back to his bed, yanking the blankets with a snarl and rolling himself into an angry, muttering cocoon.
Carrot and Wanda exchanged a single, understanding glance. Without a word, they turned and moved. They weren't running; they were flowing through the chaotic city streets with predatory grace, leaping over scattered debris, weaving past panicked Minks, their focus absolute. They arrived at the Heart Pirates' camp to find controlled pandemonium – Hakuga frantically checking pressure gauges, Uni and Clione securing loose parts, Penguin and Shachi trying to stabilize a leaning thruster housing.
"Marya!" Wanda demanded, her voice cutting through the noise. "Where is she?"
Penguin looked up, wiping grease from his cheek, adopting an exaggerated look of innocence. "Marya? Dunno. Probably off brooding in a tree somewhere. You know how she is, always doing her own mysterious thing."
Shachi grinned, nudging Penguin. "Yeah, probably why the Captain likes her best. Always off on solo 'missions'. Remember that time she vanished for three days on Sabaody and came back with that weird glowing rock?"
"Still got that picture of her trying to eat Jean Bart's cooking without gagging," Penguin chuckled, pulling out a small, worn photograph from his pocket, flashing it briefly.
Wanda's eyes narrowed. The stalling was obvious, clumsy even. "Where. Is. Bepo?" she pressed, her tone losing its usual gentleness.
Carrot's ears perked up. "Yeah! Where's Bepo? He was with Marya earlier!"
Penguin and Shachi exchanged a quick, less confident glance. "Uh… Bepo? Think he's… calibrating something? Deep in navigator stuff. You know how he gets."
Wanda's gaze snapped between the flustered Heart Pirates, the absence of both Marya and Bepo, and then towards the towering silhouette of the Whale Tree dominating the skyline. Her eyes widened slightly as the pieces clicked: Atlas was also missing. Her lips pressed into a thin line. "Carrot," she said, her voice low and urgent.
Carrot followed Wanda's gaze, her own eyes widening in realization. "Oh… oh no. The Whale Tree?"
"Precisely," Wanda stated, already turning towards the jungle path leading northeast, her movements decisive. "We must hurry. Before sacred tradition collides head-on with desperate pirates… and a malfunctioning continent." They didn't run; they flowed into the emerald shadows, leaving Penguin and Shachi staring after them, the photograph forgotten, the camp suddenly feeling much smaller and more exposed under the trembling sky.
The air beneath the Whale Tree hung thick with ancient silence and the sharp scent of petrichor rising from disturbed moss. Pedro and Atlas emerged from the trembling foliage, their fur streaked with dirt, just as Marya and Bepo steadied themselves against the colossal root. Pedro stubbed out his cigarette on a knot of ancient wood, his lone eye sweeping the sacred space. "Time bleeds faster than a gutted sea-king, gara," he growled. "Where do we start?"
Marya adjusted her leather jacket, the Heart Pirate insignia stark against the gloom. "Lead the way," she said, her voice cool.
Pedro paused, scanning the towering roots and carved constellations. "That's the problem, Pirate. The inner workings… their location is lost knowledge, gara. Even to Guardians."
Bepo wrung his paws. "What do we do? If we can't find—"
"Quiet," Marya murmured, her gaze fixed on the Tree's heartwood. She pinched the bridge of her nose, then took a deep, centering breath. "I might know a way. Give me a minute."
Her eyes snapped open: One shone with a chilling, milky white luminescence, like fog over a midnight sea. The other was pure void black, depthless and consuming.
A scarab-shaped mark ignited on her forehead, burning with cold, silver light. Around them, the air thickened. Damp, swirling mist poured from her boots, coiling up the Whale Tree's roots like living smoke. It didn't smell of rain, but of age and void—cold stone and forgotten stars. The mist crackled, not with sound, but with palpable pressure, a hum that vibrated in the molars and made Atlas's fur stand on end.
"By the Great Trunk…" Atlas breathed, sapphire eyes wide.
"Power holder," Pedro stated, a new respect sharpening his tone. Bepo simply nodded, used to the impossible clinging to Marya.
The mist pulsed, tendrils probing crevices and carvings, illuminating hidden patterns in the wood with fleeting, silver highlights. Bepo leaned closer. "Found anything?"
Marya blinked. The mist vanished instantly, the scarab mark fading. The unnatural eyes returned to sharp gold. "Yes." She strode forward without hesitation, boots crunching on centuries of leaf litter. She led them around the root's massive curve to where the wood formed a seamless wall, facing the hidden north Pedro had described. To the Minks, it looked unchanged—just more ancient, weathered bark.
"Stand here," Marya commanded. She placed her palm flat against the wood. "See it now?"
As they clustered close, the subtle depression revealed itself—a colossal, perfect circle, wider than Jean Bart's arms could span, representing a moon. Around it, seven smaller depressions formed a precise celestial array. Etched along the curve, nearly erased by time, were angular, flowing runes. Pedro leaned in, squinting. "You can read that? That script… it's dead, gara. Lost before the Void Century."
Marya traced a rune with her fingertip. "Hidden," she corrected, her voice distant, academic. "Not lost. My mother chased whispers of it. There are archives that have… records." She straightened. "It's a lock. Needs electricity to open."
Atlas stepped forward immediately, pressing his palm against the central moon depression. Blue-white Electro surged from his hand, crackling across the ancient wood. The runes flickered faintly, but the door remained stubbornly sealed. Marya's brow furrowed. "Insufficient. Perhaps multiple points of contact?"
Pedro nodded grimly. "All three of us, then. Atlas, the moon. Bepo, take the largest star cluster. I'll take—"
"MARYA! ATLAS!" Wanda's voice, sharp with urgency, sliced through the grove.
Carrot's lighter call followed, "Bepo! Where are you, gara?"
Pedro cursed under his breath. Marya sighed, a sound of profound resignation. "Here we go."
Bepo looked anxiously between the door and the approaching voices. "What do we do?"
Marya's expression hardened into stoic resolve. "Nothing. It's not our decision anymore." She turned to face the newcomers as Wanda and Carrot burst into the clearing, breathing heavily.
Atlas stepped forward, fists clenched. "But Zunesha—"
"—isn't ours to save against their will," Marya cut him off, her voice cold. "If tradition outweighs survival, that's their choice."
Wanda skidded to a halt, relief warring with shock as she took in the massive, hidden impression. "We found you! Lord Nekomamushi and Lord Inuarashi have granted consent! Full access to the Whale Tree, gara!"
Carrot bounded over, eyes wide as saucers. "Ooooh! What is this? Did you find the secret compass, gara?"
Marya raised a single, skeptical brow. Atlas couldn't suppress a fierce grin.
Wanda stepped closer, her gaze locked on the celestial depressions. "This… this wasn't what they envisioned… but proceed."
Marya gestured to the door. "We need your assistance. This lock requires Electro. Multiple sources. Pedro believes all present Minks should channel it simultaneously."
Carrot vibrated with excitement. "Really? We get to help? Where do I push, gara?"
Pedro took charge, pointing. "Atlas, central moon. Wanda, the primary star cluster—here. Carrot, the secondary cluster—here. Bepo, the tertiary. I'll take the quaternary." He positioned them around the massive seal. "On my mark. Three… two… one… NOW!"
Five palms slammed against the ancient wood. A symphony of Electro erupted—Atlas's fierce blue-white, Pedro's controlled amber, Wanda's precise silver, Carrot's vibrant yellow, Bepo's crackling white-blue. The air sizzled with static, raising hairs and tasting metallic. The worn runes blazed to life, not glowing, but burning with pure, incandescent light. A deep, resonant THOOM echoed from within the tree, like a giant's heartbeat.
Centuries of dust exploded outward in a choking cloud. The celestial bodies carved into the wood flared—the moon pulsed silver, the stars ignited like captured supernovae—gold, crimson, azure, emerald. Lines of pure energy connected them, forming a complex, shimmering constellation across the Whale Tree's heart. With a groan of stone and timber that hadn't moved in a thousand years, the massive, seamless door began to recede inwards, revealing a yawning passage of pure, absolute darkness. The heart of the astrolabe lay open. The path to saving—or dooming—Zou stretched before them.
The choking dust of millennia settled as the door groaned open, revealing a throat of darkness. Pedro stepped forward first, his silhouette vanishing into the blackness. Atlas followed, claws scraping ancient stone. Marya moved like a shadow beside Bepo, whose panicked whisper ("Can't see a thing!") cut through the silence until he fumbled in his satchel. A soft click echoed, and a Den Den Mushi lamp bathed the corridor in trembling amber light, revealing walls carved with stories of sorrow.
Down, down they walked on a slope worn smooth by time. The air tasted of cold flint and forgotten tears. Carrot's voice, usually bright, was hushed. "Who carved these walls? It feels... heavy." The lamplight flickered over jagged reliefs: a colossal elephant bound in star-forged chains; Mink warriors with spears turned against kin; constellations shattered like glass. Condensation wept from stone eyes in a figure struck down under a bleeding moon.
"Zunesha's exile," Pedro murmured, tracing a fractured star-map with a calloused finger. Smoke curled from his cigarette, mingling with the damp. "The price of an ancient sin."
Marya paused before a scene of Mink battling Mink. "Conflict," she stated, her voice colder than the stone. "Between jailers and the jailed." A droplet fell from a carved tear duct, landing with a soft plink on her boot.
Bepo shivered, his fur bristling. "Why put this here? It's just... pain."
"To remember," Wanda whispered, her hand brushing faded scales etched beside a weeping root. "Power wielded without wisdom becomes its own prison." The weight of centuries pressed down with the cool, earthy air.
Halfway down, the oppressive blackness began to fray at the edges. Not daylight, but a sickly, shifting radiance spilled from an archway ahead—the fractured heartbeat of a dying star. The scent shifted: the sweet, resinous perfume of ancient sap turned cloying, undercut by the acrid sting of scorched metal and the deep, mineral breath of the earth below Zunesha's spine. A rhythmic THOOM vibrated through their boots, shaking dust from the ceiling like falling stars.
They emerged.
The Chamber of Celestial Sap yawned before them—a cathedral birthed by starlight and now screaming in its death throes. Walls of fossilized Whale Tree root, veined with rivers of luminous blue sap, pulsed erratically, casting shuddering light across a nightmare of broken grandeur. Seven channels of volcanic glass snaked across the floor like frozen serpents, carrying rivers of liquid light towards a central pool. But these were rivers in chaos. The East Blue's serene azure flickered like a guttering candle; the Grand Line's once-vibrant rainbow maelstrom now churned in a frozen, grotesque seizure, its colors bleeding into a sickly bruise; the New World's deep violet bled oily shadows like an infected wound. Where they met, a pool of quicksilver brilliance churned violently, reflecting the chamber's distress.
Above this wounded heart hovered the Pole Star Lens—or what remained of it. Once a flawless orb cradling a miniature nebula, it now held a storm of jagged light. Fractured internally, shards of trapped starlight tumbled violently within its crystal prison, casting strobing, frantic beams that stabbed the gloom like accusatory fingers. High above, the shaft lined with moonstone mirrors—the sacred lightwell to the heavens—stood dark and forsaken, its surfaces cracked and choked with centuries of neglect.
Towering over them all, seven colossal bronze rings groaned in metallic agony. Each represented a celestial sphere etched with star maps and tidal charts, but their dance was broken. The Grand Line ring hung jammed at a brutal angle, its intricate Wano-crafted gearwork snapped like brittle bone, teeth sheared clean off. Pistons formed from hardened sap, meant to glide with silent grace, were instead split open like rotten fruit, weeping thick, luminous fluid that pooled sluggishly on the volcanic glass floor, mixing with grit to form glowing, sticky puddles. On the far curved wall, the World Projection—a vast tapestry of solidified light and suspended mineral dust—flickered like a dying dream. The Red Line pulsed erratically, its jagged crimson light sputtering like a dying torch, its chaotic barrier field reduced to a static, bleeding scar across the image. The Grand Line's frozen torrent of light bled sickly colors into one another, a stagnant wound on the holographic sea. Zunesha's golden node pulsed wildly off-course, its trajectory lines fragmented and dissolving like smoke on the wind.
The air itself felt wrong. That deep, resonant THOOM of Zunesha's step vibrated up through their boots, a constant reminder of the living continent beneath them. It dueled with the tortured metal SCREEEE of grinding bronze, the sickening drip… drip… of vital sap leaking onto stone, the irregular tink-tink of crystal shards rattling inside the fractured Lens, and a persistent, nerve-shredding electrical whine screaming from deep, spider-webbing cracks marring the surfaces of crucial star-metal plates embedded in the walls. The smells warred too: wet earth and ancient stone battled the cloying sweetness of decaying sap cores, the sharp, dangerous bite of sparking electricity, and the greasy, acrid stench of overheated ancient oils seeping from the broken mechanisms.
Marya's golden eyes swept the chamber, analytical and cold as winter steel. They locked onto the sparking fissures in the star-metal plates flanking the frozen Grand Line channel, then snapped to the violently fractured Lens. Her Void-touched senses recognized the truth instantly—ruptured containment, a cosmic engine hemorrhaging raw energy. "The core calibration is shattered," she stated flatly, her voice cutting through the chamber's dirge. Her finger hovered near a crack in a star-metal plate, where angry blue sparks spat like venom. "This damage…" The crack pulsed with a malevolent light, hungry and unstable. "...it needs repair. Now."
Bepo stared, horrified, at the frozen Grand Line projection. The navigator in him recoiled at the stagnant chaos. "The currents..." he whimpered, his voice small against the mechanical groans, a shaking paw pointing at the unmoving swirls of light. "They're stuck! Like… like the Polar Tang run aground on a reef of broken stars!"
Pedro reached out, not to a machine, but to one of the weeping sap-pistons. His calloused fingers brushed the oozing fracture. "The Tree bleeds," he breathed, reverence warring with horror in his single eye. The luminous sap coated his fur, glowing faintly against the rust-red like a terrible brand. "Centuries of balance… undone."
The tortured groan of the Grand Line bronze ring echoed through the Chamber of Celestial Sap, a counterpoint to Zunesha's agonized THOOM vibrating through the volcanic glass floor. Atlas's Electro snapped like trapped lightning around his fists, his sapphire eyes fixed on the sparking fissure in the star-metal plate Marya had indicated. "Then we fix it! Where do we start? Pry that ring loose? Seal those cracks?" His voice was raw with impatience, mirroring the chamber's frantic, decaying energy.
Marya's gaze remained fixed on the fractured Pole Star Lens, its trapped light stabbing erratically. Her voice cut through the din, calm and decisive. "We bring the rest of the crew. Specifically, Ikkaku."
Wanda, standing near the frozen, sickly Grand Line projection, cocked her head. "The engineer?"
Bepo nodded vigorously, his white fur catching the strobing light. "She's the best! She rebuilt the Tang's reactor core after the Geyser Islands! If anyone can figure out these gears and pipes..." He gestured helplessly at the sheared Wano craftsmanship and weeping sap-pistons.
Pedro, wiping luminous sap from his fur, took a thoughtful drag from his cigarette. "Agreed. And we need our own. Forge Master, the elders who remember working star-metal before it became legend... their hands know the old ways." He looked at Wanda for confirmation.
Wanda nodded, her expression grave. "Yes. Their skills are vital. But Pedro... Marya..." She swept a hand around the cavernous, broken wonder surrounding them. The weight of history pressed down – the petrified roots whispering secrets, the fractured star maps etched into failing metal. "This chamber... it is the heart of a thousand years of faith, of exile. We cannot proceed further without Lord Nekomamushi and Lord Inuarashi. They must see this. They must decide who is entrusted with its repair... and its secrets."
Atlas whirled, a snarl tearing from his throat. "We don't have time! Listen to it!" Another tortured screech from the jammed bronze ring punctuated his words, followed by a shower of sparks from the star-metal crack. Dust rained from the ceiling. "Every step Zunesha takes towards that island is another tremor threatening to shake this whole place apart!"
Pedro's heavy palm landed firmly on Atlas's shoulder, not restraining, but grounding. The older Mink's single eye held centuries of understanding. "Peace, cub. Wanda speaks true. This isn't just machinery; it's our soul laid bare. The Dukes must bear witness." He exhaled a plume of smoke, the scent of tobacco mingling with the chamber's cloying sweetness and acrid tang. "It nears evening. Carrot," he turned to the rabbit Mink, her eyes wide but resolute, "you come with me. We go to Lord Nekomamushi. He will hear of this directly. Wanda," he nodded to her, "you speak with Lord Inuarashi. Tell him... tell him the Chamber of Tears is found, and it bleeds."
Marya gave a curt nod. "Bepo and I return to camp. We gather Ikkaku, Jean Bart for heavy lifting, and whatever tools they've salvaged. We'll brief them en route." Her golden eyes scanned the critical damage – the cracked Lens, the sparking star-metal, the leaking pistons. "We need welding torches, star-metal ingots if they exist, sealants rated for high energy... and lubricant that won't react with ancient sap."
"And me?" Atlas demanded, fists still clenched, the air crackling faintly around him. "Do I just stand here?"
Pedro met his gaze squarely. "Guard Duty, Atlas. The most crucial post." His voice dropped, low and serious. "No one enters. No one. Knowledge of this place, in its broken state... it could shatter the foundations of Zou more violently than Zunesha stumbling into land. Guard the threshold with your life."
Atlas's eyes widened, then narrowed. "Guard it? We're going to hide this? After everything?"
Pedro and Wanda exchanged a long, silent look filled with the weight of leadership and the fear of uncontrolled revelation. It was Wanda who spoke, her voice firm but carrying an undercurrent of profound unease. "We hide nothing permanently. But revealing this heart of hearts, this broken engine of our exile, to every Mink before the Dukes can understand it... before we even know if it can be mended... That, Atlas, is a spark in a powder keg. We wait for their word. Guard the door. Let nothing in or out."
The chamber seemed to hold its breath for a moment, the only sounds the grinding metal, the dripping sap, and the deep, wounded pulse of the continent beneath them. The path forward was fraught with political peril as much as mechanical failure, and the ticking clock was measured in Zunesha's pained footsteps. Pedro stubbed out his cigarette on a petrified root nodule. "Move. Time is the enemy we cannot fight with fists alone." Carrot gave a determined nod, already hopping towards the exit tunnel. Wanda turned with silent purpose. Marya gestured to Bepo, and they melted back into the sloping corridor, leaving Atlas alone in the cathedral of broken starlight, the blue sparks from the fissure reflecting in his eyes like trapped stars, the weight of a continent's secret pressing down on his shoulders. Guard duty had never felt so vast, or so terrifying.