The underground plaza lay shrouded in silence.
Aeridar twirled a plain-looking black glove in his fingers, idly testing its stretch. To his surprise, it extended far without the slightest tear, highly elastic, yet utterly impervious to blade or flame.
This wasn’t some common item. It had properties that marked it as rare, possibly legendary.
"A mistake... cough, cough... Should’ve buried you down here when I had the chance... cough, cough..." rasped the bloodied man sprawled on the stone floor—’Lion’. His fierce, beast-like eyes were fixed on Aeridar with venom, even as he hacked up gouts of blood.
This underground palace was no mere tomb, it was laced with self-destruct mechanisms. If triggered, it could collapse half the entire structure. But the true kill switch lay deep within its core, sealed behind a lock that could only be opened with a unique key. And that key was in Vito’s hands.
"I figured as much," Aeridar said coolly, tilting his head with a wolfish glint in his eyes. "That’s why I chose the direct approach; cripple you first to avoid complications."
He stepped closer, his boots echoing against the hollow stone. Meeting ’Lion’s’ gaze head-on, he spoke again, voice dropping to a cold monotone. "Where’s the map to the treasure? I’m running out of patience."
"Cough, cough... Why the hell would I tell you?" ’Lion’ wheezed, his smirk weak but defiant. "Go to hell."
Aeridar’s eyes darkened. "You really want to anger me, you mangy beast?"
"Heh... cough, cough... You’ll never find it... not in this life... cough, cough..." The old lion’s mocking laughter mingled with the blood in his throat, creating a sickly, gurgling sound.
Aeridar crouched slowly, close enough that the sneer on his lips became a threat all its own. "Is that so? Then I’ll just go to the nearest town and look for it there. And if I don’t find it—" he paused, savoring the words, "—I’ll kill one person every ten minutes. Then I’ll raze the entire town to ash. Sound good?"
’Lion’s’ expression changed instantly, terror overtaking fury. He jolted forward despite the blood running freely from his mouth. "You bastard! Cough! They’re innocent! Just civilians! They don’t know anything! If you touch them, you—you cough cough... you call yourself a pirate with a shred of honor?"
"I am a pirate," Aeridar snapped, cutting him off with a mad grin, pointing to himself with pride. "A filthy, blood-soaked pirate. Out here on the sea, freedom belongs to pirates, and so does power. This ocean’s ruled by the law of the strong. Don’t talk to me about honor. I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I want. That’s the pirate’s code."
Everyone has a savage instinct buried deep in their soul.
Most people just keep it shackled in the dark, hidden behind civility. That’s why people scream into the wind atop mountains, or cry their lungs out facing the endless sea, because there’s no one to judge them in the emptiness.
Aeridar had once been a man of the modern world, steeped in the illusions of order and law. But even in that so-called civilization, the law of the jungle still ruled, only hidden under suits and lies.
He knew well: if you didn’t have the strength or status to break the rules, then the rules would break you.
And those with power? They were the ones who made the rules.
"Even if the town is full of trained fighters," Aeridar continued coldly, "without you, and without your ’ace,’ who could possibly stand against me? I have dozens of top officers under my command. Over a thousand loyal men. Flattening that town would be, what... the effort of destroying three more?"
He locked eyes with ’Lion’, voice low but unmistakably lethal. "So, choose. Will you surrender the map... or sacrifice the town?"
He already knew the answer.
These people had lived in secret for centuries. That town wasn’t just shelter, it was their legacy. Their bloodlines. Most of the townsfolk were descendants of the fallen Gamas Kingdom. If they were wiped out here, the kingdom’s final spark would vanish forever.
Guarding this underground sanctum was his duty. But so was protecting the last remnants of his homeland.
"You..." The old man glared with seething hatred, the kind born from helplessness.
Aeridar didn’t flinch. "Time’s up. Three seconds to choose."
He raised three fingers.
"I... I choose..." The change was immediate, ’Lion’s’ face flushed with life, as though that single choice had briefly rekindled his soul. "...I’ll hand over the map!"
Aeridar asked flatly, only three words leaving his mouth.
Exactly what he expected.
"The map... it’s on the mountain summit. Under the third raised root, clockwise, from the largest pine tree... three meters deep. There’s a stone box buried there. The box is indestructible, turn it half a rotation counterclockwise and it opens. The map’s inside."
The words spilled out in a single breath.
The ’Lion’ was barely hanging on.
"Just kill me already."
He’d given such detailed instructions for one reason: he feared Aeridar’s wrath. If Aeridar came up empty-handed, he might just wipe the entire town off the map in a fit of rage.
"Hiding it that well, huh? I’ll give you that," Aeridar chuckled darkly. "But if you’re lying... you know what that means."
Without waiting for a reply, he pressed his hand to the man’s chest. A pulse of force surged out.
The ’Lion’ died, without Aeridar ever learning his true name.
"An indestructible stone box... same material as the Poneglyphs?" Aeridar muttered, stroking his chin, his mind replaying the Lion’s final words.
Slipping his gloves back into his coat pocket, Aeridar spared the corpse not a single glance and turned to leave.
Thanks to his sharp memory, he retraced his steps effortlessly, sidestepping the traps that hadn’t yet been destroyed. He made it back to the surface without a scratch.
Now he ascended the mountain, following the Lion’s directions. It didn’t take long before he reached the summit of Mount Pyramid.
The mountaintop was wild, overgrown with grass, teeming with twisted trees, and littered with strange boulders worn by time. But among them all, one pine tree stood out.
And not just by a little.
Its trunk was over five meters thick, towering more than sixty meters into the air. Its roots twisted out of the ground like the arms of some ancient beast—thick, gnarled, almost alive.
"Third root, clockwise... three meters down..."
Aeridar murmured as he raised his fist, and slammed it into the earth beside the root.
The impact blasted a crater into the dark soil.
One more punch. The second strike dug three meters deep.
There, nestled in the earth, was the stone box, just as described. It was no larger than his palm, compact but weighty, its surface engraved with faint patterns of erosion-resistant stone.
He reached in, pulled it free, and brushed off the dirt.
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