The chamber hummed with the low song of ancient power – the resonant thrum of the ore pillars, the soothing pulse of the luminous ones, the sighing chill of the vapor columns. Marya moved with silent precision, her golden eyes tracing the intricate patterns formed by the pillars, mapping their geometric dance around the unseen center where the Tideglass fragment called. The air tasted of petrichor and glacial mist.
A flicker.
Not light, but motion. A darting shadow, low to the ground, slipping behind the massive base of a luminous pillar. Marya froze, her senses instantly sharpened. Her Observation Haki, usually a finely tuned radar, swept the chamber… and found nothing. No heat signature, no life force, no hostile intent. Only the humming pillars and the painted eyes of Freyja watching from the walls. Yet, the shadow moved again – a swift, fluid shape, barely larger than a house cat, darting from the cover of one pillar to another. Its form was indistinct, almost blurred, like heat haze over stone.
Impossible. Marya's brow furrowed, a rare crease of genuine perplexity. What creature could exist here, undetectable to Haki, moving through Freyja's sanctum? And why did its fleeting silhouette seem… feline? The image of Freyja's chariot cats from the mural flashed in her mind. Curiosity, cold and analytical, overrode caution. Distraction or not, this anomaly demanded investigation.
Her hand drifted to the worn leather grip of Eternal Eclipse slung across her back, a silent reassurance. She didn't draw it yet, but her posture shifted, becoming a coiled spring ready to release. She followed the flickering shadow, her boots silent on the seamless stone. It led her not deeper into the pillar forest towards the center, but away, towards a narrow archway she hadn't noticed before, partially concealed behind a cluster of vapor pillars whose mist swirled thickly. The shadow vanished through it.
The hallway beyond was narrow and dark, lit only by faint, intermittent veins of blue light snaking along the ceiling. The air grew colder, the scent of deep earth and ancient incense stronger. Marya moved with predatory grace, every sense straining against the unnatural silence and the absence of any detectable presence. The hallway ended abruptly, opening into a smaller, circular chamber. Unlike the grand pillar hall, this felt like a private sanctum. The walls were covered in intimate, faded murals: a young Freyja laughing with a giant cat, weaving simple Seidr lights, holding a glowing amber tear. The only light came from a single, softly glowing ore vein running through the center of the domed ceiling.
Silence. Emptiness.
Then, movement erupted from the shadows near the far wall. Not the cat-shadow this time, but a humanoid figure, small and slight, lunging towards her with startling speed, arms outstretched as if to embrace or attack. Instinct, honed by countless battles and the eerie wrongness of this place, took over. Marya didn't hesitate.
Eternal Eclipse cleared its sheath in a blur of darkness. The blade sang through the air with lethal precision, a horizontal arc aimed to bisect the charging figure at the waist. There was no resistance. No impact. No spray of blood. The blade passed through the figure like cutting smoke.
Marya blinked, her strike completing its arc with unsettling ease. Before her, the figure flickered violently, like a candle flame caught in a sudden draft. It solidified for a fraction of a second, revealing not a threat, but a girl. A young girl, perhaps ten years old, with wild, flowing hair the color of spun moonlight and eyes wide with an ancient, profound fear – eyes that mirrored the painted gaze of Freyja on the walls. She wore simple, archaic robes woven with shimmering threads. The image was translucent, shimmering with internal light.
The spectral child let out a soundless gasp, her flickering form recoiling in terror from the blade that hadn't touched her. She turned and darted behind the nearest pillar – a luminous one that pulsed gently – peeking out with those enormous, frightened eyes fixed on Marya and the dark sword held ready.
Marya slowly lowered Eternal Eclipse, but didn't sheathe it. Her gaze, sharp and calculating, locked onto the trembling apparition. The phantom cat had led her here. To this. A projection? A memory? A guardian spirit? The girl's face, the unmistakable echo of the goddess… it resonated with the murals, with the chariot cats, with the very essence of this place. The Tideglass fragment pulsed faintly in her awareness, its resonance seeming to entwine with the flickering light of the child Freyja hiding behind the pillar. The true nature of the key, it seemed, was far more complex than mere celestial blood. It was tied to the spirit of the Vanir goddess herself, perhaps trapped here as much as the Tideglass fragment. And this frightened echo was part of it.
*****
The sulfurous stink of Elbaph's geothermal vents hung heavy in the ruined throne room of Aurust Castle. Moonlight, fractured by the shattered stained-glass windows depicting ancient Vanir battles, streamed onto cracked flagstones where Saint Figarland Shamrock stood. He didn't pause to admire the desolation. Raising his left hand, the Abyss mark on his arm ignited – not with light, but with an intense, chilling absence of it. The air around the mark warped, sucking in dust motes and the faint moonlight, forming a localized vortex of pure void. With a silent step, Shamrock walked into the darkness. The vortex snapped shut behind him, leaving only the scent of ozone and a lingering, unnatural cold.
He reappeared instantly in the oppressive gloom of the Underworld. The transition was jarring – from moonlit ruins to the eternal twilight beneath Adam's roots. The air here tasted of frozen iron, decay, and the immense, ancient pressure of the World Tree above. Shamrock landed silently on the gritty, diamond-hard snow, his pristine white God's Knight regalia a stark, blasphemous contrast to the primordial darkness. He didn't spare a glance for the chained titan nearby.
But Loki sensed him. The Accursed Prince's head snapped up, linens covering his eyes doing nothing to mask the fury radiating from him. The Abyss mark on Shamrock's arm pulsed faintly, a beacon of everything Loki despised. "Shamrock!" Loki's voice boomed, shaking ice from nearby petrified trees, the chains groaning in protest as he strained. "Crawling out of the Gorisie's shadow like the vermin you are! Come to gloat? Or perhaps to finally free me so I can snap your spine like kindling?"
Shamrock didn't turn. He didn't even slow. His cold, impassive eyes scanned the frozen tundra, his superior Observation Haki already pinpointing the distant, chaotic signatures of battle and the fainter, sharper resonance he sought – Marya's path, deeper in. "I am not here for you, relic," Shamrock stated, his voice flat and devoid of inflection, carrying effortlessly through the frigid air. "Remain bound. Your irrelevance is your only shield." Without another word, his form blurred. Not mist, but pure, terrifying speed augmented by Haki. He became a streak of white and shadow, tearing across the obsidian plains towards the Frozen Tundra, leaving Loki's enraged roars echoing uselessly behind him.
CRUNCH! THUD! ROAR!
The sounds of battle intensified as Shamrock neared the Frozen Tundra of combat. He sensed them long before he saw them: the familiar, powerful Haki signatures of Gaban and Saul, interwoven with the lesser but fierce auras of Bjorn, Einar, Sigrun, Valgard, and Brenna. They were a maelstrom of violence amidst a renewed tide of primordial nightmares. Gaban was a whirlwind, Sea Breaker carving arcs of concussive blue force that shattered charging frost-wolves, Sky Cleaver humming as it sheared through the chitinous leg of a colossal ice-centipede. Saul wrestled a frost-bear twice his size, muscles straining as he forced its snapping jaws away from Sigrun, who braced her shield against a barrage of freezing venom from a serpent. Bjorn lowered his head and charged like a battering ram, Einar's arrows found glowing eyes in the gloom, Valgard's axes were a storm of steel, and Brenna darted with lethal precision.
Shamrock didn't engage. He didn't deviate. His objective was clear. Moving faster than sight, a silent, white-clad phantom, he skirted the very edge of the chaotic melee. His passage was a razor-sharp slice of concentrated will through the oppressive atmosphere – a fleeting, icy pressure that washed over the battling giants like a sudden arctic wind.
Gaban, mid-swing with Sky Cleaver decapitating a giant ice-roach, froze for a microsecond. Saul, heaving the frost-bear off balance, stiffened. Their eyes, seasoned by decades on the Grand Line, snapped towards the fleeting sensation – a presence as cold and sharp as Shamrock's saber, moving with impossible speed past them, deeper into the darkness. It was gone as quickly as it came, but the recognition was instant and chilling.
"What was that?" Saul growled, his voice low and dangerous, shoving the dazed bear away. His eyes met Gaban's across the battlefield, cutting through the chaos of roaring beasts and clashing steel.
Gaban's face, usually creased with battle-lust or wry humor, hardened into flint. He saw the direction of that fleeting, hateful presence – the same path Marya had taken. "Go!" Saul commanded, his voice a guttural roar that momentarily silenced the nearest beasts. "Don't let it reach her!"
Gaban didn't need telling twice. A fierce, protective fire ignited in his eyes. He slammed Sea Breaker and Sky Cleaver together in a deafening CLANG!, unleashing a shockwave that sent nearby creatures staggering. "Hold the line, you lot!" he bellowed to the warriors. Before the echoes faded, Gaban moved. Not with Shamrock's eerie, abyss-touched speed, but with the explosive, ground-shaking power of a veteran Roger Pirate. He kicked off so hard the frozen ground cratered beneath him, becoming a streaking blur of dark hair and gleaming axes, tearing off into the darkness after the God's Knight, leaving Saul and the giants to face the howling tide of the Underworld's fury alone. The race was on.
*****
The spectral child peeked out from behind the luminous pillar, moonlight hair shimmering like captured starlight despite the absence of any obvious source. Her wide, ancient eyes, filled with a fear that seemed millennia old, locked onto Marya. The air around her hummed with a fragile energy, tasting of aged air and petrichor.
Marya kept Eternal Eclipse lowered but ready, her golden eyes narrowed with intense scrutiny. "What are you?" Her voice was flat, cutting through the chamber's resonant hum.
The child flinched, shrinking back slightly before gathering a trembling courage. "I... I live here," she whispered, her voice echoing faintly, like wind chimes heard from far away. She gestured vaguely upwards with a translucent hand. "I seed the clouds... that make the rain solid." Her brow furrowed with childish concentration, struggling to articulate a cosmic function.
Marya's own brow creased. Solid rain? She glanced over her shoulder, back towards the vast hall of pillars – the Luminous ones pulsing life, the Ore pillars thrumming with power, the Vapor pillars sighing frost. Was this child connected to the Vapor pillars? The essence of water, ice, and sky? The Tideglass fragment's resonance pulsed stronger, intertwined with the girl's flickering light.
Emboldened by Marya's silence, the young Freyja took a hesitant step out from behind the pillar. As she did, her form rippled violently, like a reflection disturbed in a pond. She looked down at her shimmering hands and dress, her expression twisting into panic. "No! Not again!" she whimpered, her voice cracking.
Then, with a sudden, desperate surge, she rushed towards Marya. Not attacking, but pleading. She stopped just short, her translucent form trembling inches from the dark blade. Her ancient eyes, filled with a heartbreaking mix of hope and terror, searched Marya's stoic face. "Are you the Champion?" she breathed, the words trembling. "The one the whispers speak of? The one who can restore the balance? Re-weave the pattern before it frays too thin?"
Marya stared down at the desperate apparition of a goddess. Prophecies, champions, cosmic patterns – it was the language of dogma, of burdens she refused to shoulder. She let out a soft sigh, the sound heavy with dismissal. "I have no idea what you are talking about," she stated coolly, her gaze already shifting past the child, scanning the sanctum walls for hidden passages or the Tideglass fragment's source. "This… divine tapestry… it does not involve me."
The effect was immediate. The young Freyja's head dropped. Her shoulders slumped as if carrying the weight of collapsing worlds. The light within her dimmed, her form becoming even more insubstantial, fading at the edges like smoke. A soft, desolate sound, like a sob caught in a winter breeze, escaped her. "Oh."
Marya turned away, her focus returning to the Tideglass's pull. The child was a distraction, an echo, perhaps a security system malfunction. She took a step towards the chamber's far wall where the resonance felt strongest.
Immediately, the faint patter of bare feet on stone echoed, though the child made no sound. Marya glanced back. The young Freyja was scurrying after her, a translucent shadow clinging to her heels like a lost kitten, her earlier despair replaced by a hesitant, persistent curiosity. "Are you…" the child's voice piped up, small but clear, "...looking for the doorway? The one that holds the stars?"
Marya stopped. Slowly, deliberately, she turned her head, one sharp, dark eyebrow arching high on her forehead. Her golden eyes fixed on the flickering child. "Doorway?"
A spark of something – recognition, purpose – ignited in the young Freyja's ancient eyes. The despair vanished, replaced by a sudden, bright eagerness. She giggled, the sound like ice crystals tinkling. "This way!" she chirped, turning and darting ahead with surprising speed, her form flickering erratically like a guttering candle flame as she moved. She didn't run towards the walls Marya had been scanning, but deeper into the small sanctum, towards a section of mural depicting young Freyja weaving intricate patterns of Seidr light with a giant cat curled at her feet. "The Champion needs the key!" she called back over her shoulder, her voice fading slightly as her form became more translucent with distance and effort. "The pattern must be re-woven!" She reached the mural and pointed a shimmering finger towards a seemingly insignificant knot in the woven light design.
Marya watched the frantic, flickering guide, her expression unreadable. A doorway? The Tideglass? The child's words were cryptic nonsense… yet they pointed directly towards her objective. With a final glance at the spot the child indicated on the mural, Marya sheathed Eternal Eclipse with a decisive click. Distraction or key, the path was clear. She strode after the fading echo of the goddess, the Tideglass's resonance pulsing like a heartbeat beneath her feet, leading her towards the knot in the painted light.
*****
The frozen air of the Underworld whipped past Saint Figarland Shamrock as a blur of white and frozen-chilled energy. He moved with the silent, predatory grace granted by his Abyss mark, leaving no footprints on the diamond-hard snow, a ghost skating across the primordial dark. The chaotic resonance of Gaban's battle faded behind him, replaced by the deeper, more unsettling hum emanating from the structure ahead – the entrance Marya had forced.
He materialized at the base of the monumental staircase, his polished boots landing silently on the obsidian flagstones littered with debris. The scene before him was one of calculated devastation. Two colossal Valkyrie constructs lay in ruined heaps of dark, glass-like obsidian. Not shattered by brute force, but dismantled with chilling precision. Severed limbs lay cleanly separated from torsos; heads rested yards away from sparking neck stumps, their internal golden circuitry exposed and flickering erratically. The massive stone swords lay broken, but the damage spoke of targeted strikes, not wild destruction.
A cold, appreciative smirk touched Shamrock's lips. "Efficient," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper yet cutting through the low hum. His sharp eyes traced the clean cuts on the obsidian. "Not a single wasted motion." He knelt, gloved fingertips hovering inches above a severed forearm. He didn't need to touch it. His Observation Haki, refined and ruthless, swept over the remnants. It wasn't just the physical damage; it was the lingering residue – a sharp, cold, intensely focused will imprinted on the shattered stone and dying circuits. A Haki signature he'd felt before, briefly, amidst the chaos above. Familiar in its potency, chilling in its precision, like a familiar shadow.
Standing, his gaze swept upwards. The massive door within the celestial archway stood open. Not blasted apart, not pried open, but… unlocked. Seamlessly retracted into the walls. No signs of forced entry, no scorch marks from energy weapons, no stress fractures in the ancient Adam Wood and volcanic glass frame. Someone had simply… gained passage.
Shamrock's smirk vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating intensity. His hand instinctively rested on the elegant, deadly hilt of his rapier. Who, besides perhaps another Elder or someone bearing the direct mark of Imu, could bypass Vanir security keyed to "celestial heredity"? The implications slithered, unwelcome, into his strategic mind.
He ascended the steps, each footfall silent. As he crossed the threshold beneath the arch, the same beam of warm, golden light that had scanned Marya lanced down, enveloping him. It hummed against his Abyss mark, a brief, dissonant vibration, before recognizing the deeper, sanctioned authority within him – the bloodline privilege of the Figarlands. HISSSSS… CLUNK. The door remained open, confirming his access, but offering no answer
Stepping into the vast Hall of the Vanir Shieldmaidens, Shamrock paused. The scale was immense, the air thick with ancient power – the thrum of ore pillars, the pulse of luminous ones, the sigh of vapor columns. Murals of Freyja watched from the walls. But his focus was immediate, razor-sharp. His Observation Haki flared out, a net of cold intent cast over the chamber.
There.
A faint, fading warmth near a cluster of vapor pillars. The sharp, cold signature of Marya's Haki, intertwined with another resonance – something older, purer, yet fragmented. The Celestial Tideglass fragment. And… something else. A flicker, like a dying ember, of spectral energy. Childlike. Frightened.
His eyes, pale and pitiless, scanned the forest of pillars. They followed the trail – not towards the central convergence point where the Tideglass likely resided, but towards a smaller archway partially obscured by swirling vapor. The spectral residue was strongest there, mingled with Marya's cold signature heading deeper.
Shamrock didn't hesitate. His saber slid silently from its sheath, the slender, single edged blade catching the ambient light with a predatory gleam. He moved forward, not with haste, but with lethal, unhurried purpose. His polished boots made no sound on the seamless floor. He was a hunter entering the sanctum, saber held low and ready, his senses locked onto the fading echoes of his quarry, drawn deeper into the heart of Freyja's mystery. The only sound was the hum of ancient power and the near-silent whisper of his cloak as he vanished towards the smaller archway, following the trail into the shadows.