Pirate: I, Ace, am the King of Eclipse!

The anchor sank into a crevice in the rock, and Sabo led his men to inspect the hull's blowers. Several wind-blown warheads, despite their high temperatures from continuous operation, hadn't cracked, and the lunar environment hadn't caused the gold circuit to malfunction. After recording the data from the first flight, Geno locked the still-hot control stick to prevent accidental activation and another bounce on the ground.

Karina first confirmed the power and supplies needed for the return journey. The fact that the moon is breathable doesn't mean there's fresh water and food. The ship's reserves are enough for everyone to stay for a while, but if no further discoveries are made underground, they won't stay here long.

"We've arrived," Ace said.

Enel was the first to leap off the deck. He stepped onto the rough, greyish-white rocks, and his Observation Haki immediately spread out in all directions. In the past, on Apayado, his Observation Haki could hear the sounds of the entire island. Now, he spared no effort to find the people living on this sacred land.

One second, two seconds, until a minute passed, and the mental landscape remained empty.

The wind swept through the craters. Apart from the Eclipse crew who had just disembarked, there was no sign of life nearby.

There were no subjects, no food, and no legendary, bountiful territory. As far as the eye could see, there was only gray rock, as cold and hard as a graveyard that had been dead for many years.

Enel still wouldn't stop, pushing his Observation Haki even further. The result remained the same.

"How could this be..."

He stood there, his earlier urgency gradually freezing on his face. The vast earth that had sustained him for six years was completely incompatible with this barren wasteland before him, devoid even of grass.

Ace led the others nearby and glanced at him: "Different from what you expected?"

Bucky kicked aside a pebble and peered inside for a long time: "This is the infinite land you keep talking about? There are plenty of rocks, but not a single green thing to be found."

Leona pulled out her boning knife and tapped it twice on a nearby rock. "We can breathe air, but that's all. If there's not even any living thing here, what are we going to cook for tonight?"

As each truthful word reached his ears, Enel's chest heaved heavier and heavier. His past ability to execute anyone on Skypiea stemmed largely from this belief. Now, witnessing its end, all that belief remained were cold, lifeless stones.

Ace walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder: "It's good that you saw it clearly. The godhood you're looking for isn't here, and staying on a pile of dead rocks won't prove anything."

Enel turned to look at him.

“If your dream is over, just find another one.” Ace pointed to the blue planet beneath his feet. “If you want boundless territory and real fun, go back to the sea and fight those monsters. The strong there won’t kneel and call you a god; they’ll just smash your thunder head-on.”

After saying that, Ace turned to Bucky and said, "Bring the wine down. Since there's enough space, let's have a banquet here tonight to celebrate that our Thunder Helmsman has finally woken up from his dream."

"We should have done this a long time ago!" Bucky turned and rushed towards the cabin. "I was thinking about those barrels of liquor as soon as we took off!"

Others began moving firewood, food, and barrels of wine. No one mocked Enel for his earlier lapse in behavior, and no one left him alone in the wasteland.

Enel felt the remaining weight on his shoulder and looked at the group of guys who were already preparing to start a fire. He remained silent for a moment.

For the past six years, he has only been surrounded by fear and obedience. Now that his dream has shattered in front of everyone, instead of ridicule, he is greeted with a banquet in which he has been included.

Staying in this dead land, at best I can only be a god without subjects.

Returning to that monster-infested ocean below seems much more interesting.

Chapter 78 Beating Up Space Pirates

Enel was still staring blankly into the distance when a muffled sound suddenly came from behind the crater.

It looked like some heavy object had hit the rock wall.

Sabo put down the firewood he had just picked up, and Urki stopped stroking his prayer beads. Bailey perched on Karina's shoulder, his feathers standing on end.

"Gah! Someone's here! A bunch of tin cans!"

A row of short figures quickly emerged from behind the crater. They were clad in bulky protective suits, some with helmets shaped like animals, and carried various firearms. More companions emerged from the crater, quickly forming a large group.

The leader of the space pirates, wearing a helmet that looked like a groundhog, had his eyes light up when he saw the Eclipse.

"Hehehe! After digging for gold under the ruins for so many days, some people from Qinghai have actually delivered a ship to our doorstep!" He raised his gun and waved it behind him. "Take them down and seize that ship to use as our mothership!"

The space pirates roared and charged down the hillside.

Enel drew his golden staff, blue arcs of electricity crackling along his arm and the staff itself. He needed a place to unleash the fire burning in his chest, and these people had arrived just in time.

"Are you the natives of this land?" Enel gritted his teeth, Armament Haki spreading across his golden staff. "Why did you have to come here at this time to die?"

The captain of the space pirates, completely oblivious to the danger, pulled the trigger first: "Fire! Smash them to pieces!"

A dozen or so energy beams shot from the gun barrels, weaving into a net across the wasteland. The Eclipse members neither dodged nor attacked. Everyone could see that this fight was meant for Enel.

With a flash of lightning, he had vanished from in front of the camp.

The energy beam pierced through the afterimage, burning a row of charred holes in the rock. Enel appeared in the center of the pirate crew, gripping his golden staff with both hands, and swung it at the oncoming leader.

Three months ago, when faced with such an enemy, he would only send down lightning bolts from a distance. Now, when he swings his staff, his legs, waist, and shoulders work together, his Armament Haki completely covering the staff, while high-voltage lightning coils around the outermost layer.

The black and gold staff struck the spacesuit.

The protective shell first caved inward, then the electric arc poured in through the crack. The pirate captain spat out a mouthful of blood, flew dozens of meters, and embedded himself in the rock wall of the crater.

The remaining pirates hesitated for a moment, then turned and ran.

"This is the place I've been chasing for six years? A bunch of rats that only know how to burrow, guarding a pile of worthless, rotten rocks!"

Enel transformed into lightning and gave chase. His Observation Haki locked onto the direction of everyone's escape, and his golden staff rained down. Each time he appeared, a protective suit was dented by Armament Haki, and the person inside, along with their weapon, was sent flying.

He didn't use divine punishment or sweep the battlefield with a wide-range lightning strike; he simply relied on his physical skills to knock down dozens of space pirates one by one.

Half a minute later, the wasteland fell silent again.

Space pirates lay scattered across the crater, all the indicator lights on their protective suits extinguished. Enel stood amidst the wreckage, panting, sparks still dripping from his golden staff. He had vented much of his anger, but looking at the desolation around him, he still felt an unsettling emptiness.

He glanced down at his hands, which were covered in Armament Haki. For the past three months, Sabo, Yamato, and Leona had taken turns forcing him into close combat, forcing him to rely on his lightning elemental form alone. Those space pirates earlier weren't even worthy opponents, yet they had forced him to fully integrate his lightning, Observation Haki, and Armament Haki for the first time.

If he were still the same person who only wanted to sit high above and unleash divine punishment, he would probably have blown the pirates and the surrounding rock formations to smithereens by now, leaving no equipment to investigate. The wreckage scattered across the ground, however, has pointed everyone to new clues.

Sabo walked to the edge of the pit and glanced at the battlefield: "Looks like this was really quite a shock. They didn't even need to use lightning strikes, they had to personally knock them down one by one."

Bucky had already rushed into the wreckage with a sack, rummaging through each pocket: "Not a single gold coin? Coming out to rob and still so poor, all you've got are wires and gears!"

Bailey flew over and pecked open a bag, saw that it was still full of parts, and immediately threw it away in disgust: "Ugh! Poor bastard! No money!"

Geno squatted down next to a tattered spacesuit. He disassembled the chest component, pulled out a section of integrated circuit that glowed blue, and picked up a laser gun to examine the internal structure.

“Miniature energy storage pumps, and the wiring wasn’t just cobbled together on the spot.” Geno held the parts up to the light. “It’s hard to find this kind of thing in Qinghai. If this planet’s surface was just rock, these guys who only know how to rob wouldn’t have been able to build this equipment themselves.”

He followed the direction the space pirates had come from and walked to the edge of a meteorite crater. At the bottom of the crater were large layers of weathered rock, and the surface still bore traces of excavation.

The mechanical exoskeleton emitted a depressurization sound, and Geno raised the powered warhammer, slamming it into the bottom of the pit.

The rock strata collapsed with a roar, and rubble slid to both sides. A corner of dark metal emerged from the dust.

"Come and take a look, everyone!"

The group rushed to the edge of the pit. Geno cleared away the surrounding soil, and the outline buried underground grew larger and larger.

It was a colossal gate forged from an unknown alloy, its surface covered with gears and conductive circuits, extending deep into the depths that the crater could not conceal. It had slumbered beneath the moon for countless years, yet its sheer size still made the Eclipse spacecraft appear minuscule in comparison.

Ace looked down at the giant gate, then at Enel.

Beneath this wasteland, another world is clearly buried.

Chapter 79 Entering the Dungeon, Enel's Heart Returns

The group descended along the pit wall to the giant door. The door was covered with gears and geometric conductive channels. Dust covered most of the structure, but it was still clear that it was not something hastily erected by space pirates.

Jeno examined the door closely for a moment, then reached out and brushed aside a patch of rust: "The equipment must have been dug out from inside. The gravity bolt behind the door is locked; to force it open from the outside, we'd need to find the activation key first."

Before he could finish speaking, Enel had already jumped down from the top of the pit.

He stood in the center of the giant gate, looking at the circuits that bore some resemblance to the Ark's Proverbs. The infinite land did not offer him the subjects and divine kingdom he had imagined, but this underground gate seemed to have been waiting specifically for the arrival of lightning.

Enel placed his hands on the two protruding metal spheres: "Let me see what you've buried here."

Tens of millions of volts of current surged into the metal sphere simultaneously. Circuits that had been dormant for years lit up one after another, and blue light quickly filled the entire door. A deep mechanical sound emanated from underground, causing the nearby rock strata to vibrate.

The gears meshed again, and the bolts locked behind the doors popped open one by one. The two massive doors slid back to the left and right, and a cold, dusty smell rushed out from the dark passage.

Geno turned on the searchlight on his robotic arm and was the first to step inside. The passageway descended, then suddenly opened up at the end. An ancient mechanical city, buried deep inside the moon, appeared before the pillar of light.

Tall metal buildings filled the underground space, with pipes and tracks crisscrossing the area. In the central square of the city, hundreds and thousands of small robots were piled up. They were only half a meter tall, with cylindrical bodies and mustaches, looking like a batch of tin toys that had been abandoned for too long, their shells already rusted.

Karina flicked out a specially made gold coin, sending it rolling along the empty tracks deeper into the city. The Message-Message Fruit didn't pick up any conversation, only the occasional soft clatter of gears loosening. Sabo led his men to check both sides of the plaza, confirming there were no ambushes nearby. The space pirates had clearly only dug up the outer equipment and hadn't truly opened up the underground city yet.

Jeno walked up to a thick power pipe and scraped off the surface rust. The inside of the pipe was still intact, and the sealant at the joints hadn't completely failed even after hundreds of years. He looked at it faster and faster, wishing he could tear the entire wall back to the Eclipse on the spot.

Enel stopped at the entrance of the square.

The divine kingdom did not appear. What lay before him was still a dead city, only now the stones had been replaced by abandoned machinery. The homeland he had pursued for six years seemed to have been nothing more than a ruin abandoned from beginning to end.

"enough."

Enel raised his golden staff, and two hundred million volts of lightning exploded from his entire body.

"This thing doesn't even deserve to be called Infinite Land! It's all going to disappear!"

A bolt of lightning struck the plaza, its fine crackling spreading along the buildings and the ground. The expected melting and explosion did not occur; instead, large patches of blue veins lit up the materials within the city, diverting the falling lightning in various directions.

The city, like a sponge that had been dry for many years, absorbed all the electricity released by Enel.

The sound of gears turning echoed continuously.

The little robots in the square all lit up with red lights. They wobbled as they crawled out of the dust, formed a crooked square formation, and then simultaneously saluted Enel in mid-air.

"Thank God for the energy!"

The electronic sounds, like those of a leaky circuit, echoed through the city.

Enel hovered in the air, looking at his hands and then at the tiny robots below with practically zero combat power. For a moment, he even forgot to retract his lightning. He had intended to destroy the city, but the divine punishment had only recharged a bunch of tin toys.

The robot at the front, with its short legs, ran to his feet and repeated its thanks. The robots behind it began to disperse, some sweeping the square, some pushing aside abandoned containers blocking the road, and several others running towards the power control area to channel the electrical energy injected by Enel to the dormant buildings.

Lights illuminated the city from its center outwards. The outlines of tracks, elevators, and large machinery emerged from the darkness, and the once-silent underground space gradually began to hum. Enel's attack hadn't destroyed anything; instead, it had reawakened the entire ancient city.

Uroki looked at the busy little robots, his smile widening: "At least they do treat you like a god."

Enel's forehead twitched. Normally, he would have already struck them with lightning, but now he wasn't even sure if these machines were living beings.

Jeno had already rushed to the side wall, not having time to care about his expression. He picked up a robot with one hand to inspect its structure, and wiped the dust off the wall with the other.

"This energy conversion circuit is much more complete than the equipment outside. And the murals too, come and see!"

The murals, with their ancient hieroglyphics, documented the city's past. Geno followed the patterns and quickly pieced together the general content.

"Hundreds of years ago, the winged race living here were not gods. They left on balloons because the moon's resources were exhausted and they could no longer survive there, so they migrated to the blue planet below."

The ancestors of the Sky Islanders and Shandians did not come from the Kingdom of God, but were a group of space refugees who fled their resource-depleted homeland.

The lightning on Enel's body extinguished. The golden staff slipped from his hand and landed on the metal plaza, bouncing twice.

He saw the barren city abandoned by his ancestors as his final resting place, and for this purpose, he ruled the Sky Island, built the Ark, and even prepared to destroy all those who refused to obey him. Now, having reached the end, he discovers that this path never offered him the divine position he desired.