One Piece: Max-Level Observation Haki from the Start

Chapter 212: The Core of the Spirit Projection

Athena crouched at the shattered edge of the ship's forward viewport, staring down into the pit glowing with violet light. Instinctively, she held her breath, hardly daring to exhale.

Because within the pit, arranged in some strange and deliberate order, were tens of thousands of swollen cocoons.

Unlike the black cocoons in the previous brood chambers, these were all a dark violet, glowing faintly with an eerie light.

Thus, even without any ancient shipborne illumination—those systems that had endured for millions of years—the pit was still clearly visible.

The violet cocoons were more than twice the size of the black ones. They stood upright rather than hanging inverted, and their outlines were sharply defined. The lifeforms sealed within were clearly visible, their features and forms distinguishable.

It was as though these were not cocoons wrapped in some unknown membrane at all—but the beings themselves, frozen rigid in this unnatural posture.

Nuwa's voice rang through the psychic link connecting the Myth Squad:

"Something's wrong with their orientation! These beings… it's like they're worshipping, arrayed in this posture as if venerating some special existence at the very center!"

Athena, who was scouting, stiffened. Looking closer, she saw it—yes, all the faces within the violet cocoons were turned toward the center of the pit.

Yet from her vantage point, overlooking nearly the whole cavity, the center appeared utterly empty. Nothing stood there—just a patch of ground perhaps three meters across.

That bare ground was carpeted in dark-red moss, but aside from that, there was nothing.

Even after repeated, cautious psychic scans, Athena's conclusion remained the same: there was nothing there.

Through Nuwa's psychic sharing, Roya also beheld the pit below—and at once saw it clearly. The arrangement of these cocoons corresponded precisely to the silhouette and key nodes of that crimson spiritual projection he had glimpsed in the Warp!

By themselves, the violet cocoons were difficult to read. But if one included the pattern of dark-red moss on the ground, the alignment became unmistakable—the two overlapped almost perfectly.

And the "empty" patch at the center—that was the core of the spirit projection.

The moss trailed out from the base of every violet cocoon, all converging upon that central ground.

Once, something had stood upon that moss, receiving their worship. But now, it was gone.

Roya's eyes narrowed. He did not recklessly probe the spot with psychic sense to find what had vanished. Instead, he sent a quiet warning to Nuwa:

"Careful. That charlatan of a god has already awakened."

From the contents of the pit, Roya at last understood the true nature of the dark god squatting within this wreck, feeding upon the blood of the planet's natives.

The god's original body had long since perished. Yet its mighty spirit had endured, refusing to fade.

Now, everything it wrought here through the ship's wreckage was for a single purpose: to forge itself a new body.

Using the genes and flesh of the planet's natives as raw material, it sought to fashion a vessel capable of holding its vast spirit—and one best attuned to communion with the Warp.

To achieve this, it had first scattered countless seeds of consciousness, planting them within the corpses of the slaughtered natives, nurturing them into vampiric demons driven only by bloodlust.

These demons were like worker ants in a hive, existing only to gather resources.

At set intervals, under the god's command, they hunted.

The blood they harvested was brought here, poured into the cocoons it had so carefully prepared.

Yes—every violet cocoon in this cavern was a potential vessel for the dark god's rebirth.

True, the husk once enthroned upon the central moss had been the strongest of them all.

But this very arrangement revealed the god's cunning and malice.

The central vessel was powerful, but any cocoon could be placed there for strengthening, quickly catching up.

What seemed a layout designed to concentrate all power on a single core was, in fact, a trap for outside foes—mere sleight of hand.

Should invaders break into the cavern and even destroy the central, strongest body—if they ignored the others, the god could seize the chance to strike back, or else slip away in another vessel.

For the truth was this: the god's true work was not in that central husk, but in stockpiling blood. By drawing out its energy and genetic patterns, it was weaving new traits into its reserve vessels, evolving them toward the perfect form it desired.

"How much native blood was drained to fuel this breeding chamber? Nuwa, destroy it. Leave not a single vessel standing!"

By now, Roya had fully uncovered the demon god's designs. His only concern was whether this entity, like the Star Dragon before it, possessed the ability to escape into the Warp as pure spirit.

The cocoons below could indeed incarnate the god—but they were too weak to hold its full spiritual power.

Thus, if the god attempted escape, it could only abandon all material vessels and flee into the Warp as a spirit.

Having reasoned this through, Roya did not hesitate. Even as he ordered Nuwa to attack, he poured his vast psychic sense into the Warp, threads of unseen, intangible silk weaving themselves into layer upon layer of veils around the demon god, binding it tight.

The Myth Squad leapt from the viewport, diving into the pit to launch their assault.

Sensing danger, the god stirred. Its spirit, still slumbering while calculating paths of evolution, shuddered with unease.

But the ripples of energy this produced in the Warp were immediately unraveled by Roya's silken threads.

At that same moment, from the violet glow of the pit emerged a towering monster, its skin a strange dark purple, its muscles bulging with explosive power.

It gave a single leap, soaring over ten meters into the air. From its back, membranous wings of skin and bone snapped open, beating furiously as it hurtled through the air straight at Mars, the first of the squad to descend.

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