"Woo... woo... woo..."
Beneath the pitch-black night sky, a piercing siren wailed across the sea.
On the outer walls of Impel Down, countless enormous searchlights shone straight into the sky, sweeping across the sea for any sign of movement.
Around eight warships were stationed around Impel Down, leaving no suspicious trace unchecked.
The entrance to Impel Down was packed with fully armed guards and wardens.
As Warden Chief, Shiryu of the Rain personally held command there, a cigar clenched between his teeth.
On Impel Down's above-sea first level, as well as Levels 1 through 6, countless guards and wardens hurried back and forth.
"Quick, check over there! Shiki might be hiding there..."
"Don't miss a single blind spot!"
"You lot, guard that area!"
...
All the prisoners were stunned, and at the same time, faintly excited.
"Shiki? You mean the legendary Great Pirate Shiki? Did he break out...?"
Meanwhile, in the monitoring room on the above-sea first level.
Director Nicholas and Deputy Director Magellan were stationed there, their eyes fixed tightly on every surveillance feed. The moment anything happened, they would be able to make arrangements and move out at once.
Perhaps it was only his imagination, but Magellan felt that Nicholas's expression seemed strange. The Director did not look as though he was anxious about the whereabouts of Shiki the Golden Lion, but about something else entirely...
Just then, Nicholas suddenly turned to Magellan and asked, "Have any of the prisoners in LV6 said anything?"
"Uh... Sorry, Director. Those criminals all look like they're waiting to laugh at us..."
"Is that so? Then do you think Shiki has already escaped?"
Magellan thought for a moment.
"Probably not. The only way out of Impel Down is through the main gate, but we haven't seen any trace of Shiki on the surveillance feeds."
"Then where do you think Shiki is hiding right now...?"
"Well..."
To be honest, Magellan had no answer at that moment. After thinking it over, he still said, "Could it be related to the prisoner disappearances that guard mentioned...?"
Nicholas's brow instantly furrowed.
Just then, a cry of alarm rang out from within the monitoring room, immediately drawing both their attention.
"What's going on?"
On the screens around them, the surveillance feeds were vanishing one by one, turning into patches of static. At the same time, the screams of guards and wardens kept coming through.
The guards in charge of monitoring the feeds panicked at once.
In a place as vast as Impel Down, losing those surveillance feeds meant they had completely lost their eyes and ears.
But Magellan looked at the locations and speed at which the feeds were disappearing and immediately reacted.
"Shiki is on the road from LV5 to LV4. Director, I'll take people down."
"I appreciate it."
Without wasting any time, Magellan quickly took the elevator toward LV4.
...
Impel Down, LV5.5, Nicholas's secret laboratory.
With the help of Ayala's Devil Fruit ability, a Devil Fruit appeared almost every half hour.
At first, Dr. Furumi had looked down on the crude Devil Fruit extraction device, but as the Devil Fruits were extracted from one test subject after another, his gaze gradually turned incredulous.
"How is this possible... The Devil Fruit extraction device that has stumped countless scientists for nearly a thousand years is actually this simple..."
Dr. Furumi felt as if his entire worldview had been overturned.
Still, he quickly figured it out.
"Perhaps it's precisely because we made something simple far too complicated that we... But that isn't surprising. Forget the value of the Seastone needed to make such a massive stone coffin. Devil Fruits themselves are so precious that hardly anyone would use them for experiments so casually..."
At that point, Dr. Furumi's expression turned faintly regretful. Then he raised his head and looked at the boy in front of him with some shock.
"You really are lucky."
Yemu did not deny it. He looked at Ayala, Lillilu, and Kuromu as they busied themselves.
"Yeah... luck is the one thing I'm not lacking right now."
After saying that, he turned to Dr. Furumi's slightly hunched figure.
"We don't need to help here for now, and the owner of this place won't be coming back anytime soon. Dr. Furumi, would you be interested in showing me around the laboratory? I'm very interested in the experiments you and Nicholas were conducting."
Dr. Furumi froze at first, then sighed.
"No problem. You're my boss now, after all. Follow me."
Dr. Furumi took the lead and began walking. Seeing that, Yemu turned to Lillilu.
"I'll leave this place to you."
"Don't worry. If anyone shows up, I'll hide us. I've already destroyed the souls of these corpses directly, so even if Nicholas comes here, he won't notice anything wrong."
"Mm."
...
Before long, Yemu and Dr. Furumi arrived in a brightly lit laboratory.
Looking at the dense array of equipment around him, Yemu asked curiously, "Although I already heard plenty from you and that Celestial Dragon named Nicholas the day before yesterday, I still want to hear it from you. What exactly did he have you working on?"
"I see..."
Dr. Furumi seemed to understand something.
He did not hide anything as he explained.
"It's simple. Nicholas used to be a Celestial Dragon, so he knows certain secrets known only to Celestial Dragons, including immortality. That's why he wanted me to study the power of Devil Fruits and obtain an ability that would let him live forever, just like Devil Fruits themselves."
Hearing that, Yemu recalled Lillilu's words and asked, "Isn't Nicholas a cyborg? He isn't a Devil Fruit user. Even if you managed to research it, what use would it be to him?"
Dr. Furumi looked at Yemu strangely.
"You don't know?"
Yemu was taken aback.
"Know what?"
Dr. Furumi understood.
"It seems you really don't know. I thought that since you could create something like that divine creation, you must know some of the secrets..."
"You may have misunderstood. Kuromu wasn't created by me. He's a product of Reykjavik, which was destroyed by the World Government 700 years ago. The four brothers had been sealed in ice beneath the sea the whole time. By a twist of fate, I rescued them, and they joined my pirate crew."
In an instant, Dr. Furumi's eyes went wide. Then he spoke as though everything had suddenly clicked into place.
"Reykjavik, the nation of technology. So that's it. No wonder... Then you really are lucky..."
At that point, Dr. Furumi explained carefully.
"In truth, Nicholas's modification technology and the divine creations you possess are, in a sense, the same. The difference is that Nicholas transformed himself into a cyborg, while those divine creations were made that way from the beginning. Of course, the two are not on the same technical level. And your companion does not seem to be a true divine creation either... though from the outside, there is hardly any difference."
"Then what exactly are the divine creations you're talking about, Dr. Furumi?"
Yemu asked curiously.
At that moment, Dr. Furumi hesitated slightly. After thinking it over, he still said,
"If the records are correct, those divine creations were made in this world by the God-kin. Aside from Uranus and Pluton, they were the most primitive lifeforms... the original form of life in this world."