Chapter 291: Underworld Palace?

Drake tried to turn his head, only to discover that his body was completely immobilized. Whatever was restraining him had locked his physical frame down entirely; the only parts of his body capable of movement were his mouth, eyes, and nose.

Left with no other alternative, Drake strained his eyes, peering intensely into the pitch-black void toward the origin of the voice.

Yet the dark was absolute—zero objects registered within his line of sight. As his lingering grogginess receded, Drake realized he was firmly bound by some manner of physical constraint. He instinctively prepared to flex his power and shatter the mechanism.

"Save your breath. It's completely useless—you're encased in pure, refined Sea-Prism Stone. As a Devil Fruit user, you'll never manage to break free."

The voice echoed once more, its flat, calm tone suggesting he accept his fate.

"Kuzan?" Drake finally recognized the owner of the voice. "It really is you, Kuzan! So this is where you've been hiding—you have no idea how much trouble I went through trying to track you down."

Confirming that Aokiji was still among the living, Drake felt a massive wave of relief wash over him.

"By the way, did you say Sea-Prism Stone?" Drake raised a brow. "So this is what Sea-Prism Stone feels like."

Drake strained to inspect his bindings, though the pitch-black ambient lighting made it impossible to discern the stone's physical form.

"Kuzan, where exactly are we?" Drake asked, voicing the question burning in his mind.

Where...

Aokiji fell silent for a brief moment before recounting his capture and everything he had managed to deduce about their location. Listening to the report, Drake's expression turned increasingly grave.

"So in short... you don't actually know where this place is either." Drake sorted through the details in his mind. From the looks of it, that mysterious entity, Im, possessed combat power that far exceeded the tier of a Marine Admiral.

If that were the case, wouldn't the allies fighting on the surface be in extreme danger?!

Sabo...

"Forget it—worrying down here won't change a thing. We need to break out of here immediately," Drake said, shaking his head.

"Don't waste your energy. We're not getting out," Aokiji replied, shaking his head. Their Devil Fruit powers were completely suppressed by the Sea-Prism Stone.

Whether it was the specialized metal chains binding him or the stone pillar encasing Drake, both mechanisms had been engineered explicitly for absolute containment—especially the pillar surrounding Drake.

It was an all-encompassing, zero-dead-angle restraint. Under those parameters, generating physical leverage was mathematically impossible—after all, a person required freedom of movement to exert force.

Locked down without a millimeter of room to maneuver, generating force was out of the question, to say nothing of breaking through such heavy stone.

His own situation was no better. Had escaping been possible, he would have broken free days ago; despite exhausting every technique in his arsenal over his period of captivity, he hadn't managed to loosen those chains by a fraction of an inch.

It made logical sense—how could an entity like Im leave them unattended without absolute confidence in his containment measures?

While Aokiji was lost in thought, the heavy crunch of shattering stone suddenly echoed right beside him. Drake asked in mild surprise, "What did you say?"

As he spoke, Drake casually dusted off his clothes and stepped up to stand right before Aokiji.

"Look at the state of you—looks like you've been put through the wringer these past few days." Drake blinked. Aokiji's usual lazy, relaxed composure was entirely absent; his vitality was severely depleted, and he looked as though he were hanging on by a thread.

"Hey, hey, hey—you can't go dying on me now! You're an official member of my crew!"

Seeing Aokiji frozen like a statue, Drake felt a jolt of alarm. Aokiji stared back, his eyes snapped wide in absolute, shock-stricken disbelief. "Y-You... how did you break out?!"

"Just... like this," Drake demonstrated casually, giving a slight flick of his finger.

BOOM!

With a heavy concussion, the dense arrays of specialized metal chains binding Aokiji snapped into pieces, tumbling to the floor.

"See? It's that simple."

Drake spread his hands in a casual, indifferent shrug.

What a joke!

Did Im honestly believe mere Sea-Prism Stone could hold him?

Sea-Prism Stone exerted absolute zero suppression over his actual power; a stone pillar of that tier was something he could obliterate with a simple wave of his hand—even if there were a dozen of them.

"Anyway, let's skip the small talk and get out of here," Drake said, waving his hand. He snapped his fingers, generating a burst of spatial friction that ignited a hovering ball of bright flame.

Aokiji stared blankly at Drake's receding back, a sense of total unreality gripping his mind. The heavy chains that had bound him for days had just... snapped like twig strands?

Stepping forward into the hallway, Drake suddenly halted his pace.

"What's wrong?" Aokiji asked, only to be struck speechless by the sight before him the very next second.

Previously, the absolute darkness of the subterranean chamber had obscured the surrounding architecture. Now, the hovering sphere of fire Drake had summoned cast a bright, unyielding light that laid every detail bare.

Calling this place a simple chamber was an absurd understatement—it was a gargantuan palace. No, it closely resembled a subterranean Underworld Palace!

The hall was vast beyond measure; the ceiling stretched dozens of meters overhead, while the surrounding walls receded far into the darkness beyond sight. Flanking their path stood various sinister, grotesque stone statues, displaying razor-sharp fangs and wide, glaring eyes.

Some depicted human figures, while others carved the shapes of terrifying beasts.

A few of the statues possessed massive stone pupils that flickered with a faint, eerie green light, looking as though they might spring to life at any microsecond.

"Just what... is this place?" Drake's brows knit tightly together. Something about the surrounding atmosphere felt deeply unnerving.

Suddenly, Drake's frame shivered. For reasons he couldn't explain, the ambient temperature in the air began to plunge rapidly. Had Drake not possessed absolute confidence in his personal strength and the system, he might have broken into a cold sweat right then and there.

Turning around, he discovered a thick layer of frost spreading across the floor behind his boots.

Standing directly at the epicenter of the ice was Aokiji.

Realizing what had just transpired, Drake's lips twitched subtly. So the sudden drop in temperature was just this guy showing off...

"Kuzan, I have a feeling we're about to stumble onto a massive discovery..." Drake shifted his focus toward the far end of the pathway flanked by the twin lines of stone statues.

"Come on, let me take a look at what kind of filthy secrets this Holy Land is hiding from the world!" Drake's lips curled into a subtle smirk. He had already checked with the system—their current coordinate placed them directly beneath the Holy Land, anchored deep within the interior of the Red Line itself!

Since he was certain this wasn't an actual Underworld Palace, there was zero reason to harbor any fear.

"Right!" Aokiji stepped forward, a blade forged of solid ice materializing in his grip. He, too, had picked up on the subtext...

While Drake and Aokiji advanced toward the far end of the grand hall, the battle between Dragon and Im atop the Holy Land reached a violent, cataclysmic pitch. Surrounding structures collapsed continuously into rubble, while the sky above shifted into wild, turbulent storms.

"Wind Dragon Assembly!" Dragon shifted his physical position rapidly, effortlessly commanding the surrounding atmospheric currents. Gales howled, condensing into massive, raging tempests.

Before long, the tempests high in the sky solidified into visible forms, a colossal wind dragon head slowly taking shape. The gargantuan dragon head—stretching over a hundred meters wide—resembled a massive, abyssal maw ready to devour heaven and earth.

Yet that was merely the beginning. A second dragon head materialized, followed immediately by a third...

As the number of dragon heads multiplied, their massive bodies began to solidify behind them, as the roaring shrieks of the tempests echoed across the heavens.

The apocalyptic scene resonated throughout the entirety of Mary Geoise, granting every combatant on the central plaza a crystal-clear view of the cataclysm.

The sight of multiple wind dragons massing in the sky was staggering beyond words, causing hearts to hammer wildly against ribs as troops stared up in speechless horror.

"W-What... what is that?!" High up in the atmosphere aboard the fighter aircraft, Chopper stared blankly at the sky.

"Commander Chopper, did something happen?! Why does the flight control stick feel so unstable?!" Usopp stammered, fighting desperately to maintain control of the yoke against the surging air currents.