Secret tunnel

A small village beside the sea...

This was a calm village with not much life around it, only the sound of seagulls could be heard coming from the seaside and the salty air of the sea could be felt...

A very common fishermen village...

The sun came out and shined in this village from the horizon revealing everything in this seaside village...

Empty streets, damaged houses, golden statues, and dust everywhere... Apparently, no one came to this village for a very long time already...

But something quite weird around the streets of this village...

Many fine curved golden statues in different humanoid shapes can be seen everywhere around this empty town...

If one looked carefully he will find that these statues were actually zombie bodies that turned into gold... And even the ground around these statues was affected somehow and became golden ground...

In this quiet and weird village sky... A cloud of dark smoke appeared...

The cloud moved fast and soon it reached the center of the village... But suddenly the cloud disappeared from the void leaving some dust behind that disappeared soon after...

"We are here..." Gray who suddenly appeared in the village street from the void looked around him and said with a calm smile on his face...

Apparently, he was in quite a good mood seeing the familiar picture in from of him...

"Mary should be here right...." Perona appeared beside Gray and said with a happy smile not losing to Gray's smile...

"Ugh, I really don't like staying in that space..." Niala also appeared beside Gray and looked at him with some resentment...

Unlike Perona, Gray didn't let her stay inside the castle, but in another space, he made similar to the castle... but not as conformable as the castle...

After all, his castle ring has many secrets and treasures that he himself wasn't sure about them yet... So naturally, he won't allow her to enter easily...

Gray didn't care about Niala's complaining and looked at the paper that was moving forward and followed in his palm...

According to what he saw in the orb and the paper leading, the small village in front of him should be where Mary was staying right now...

It has been two days since the forest episode, in these two days, Gray didn't try to waste time anymore and kept moving toward Mary...

At first, he thought, that he will meet her along the way, after all, like him, the others should be moving in each other direction at the same time...

Especially Mary and Legolas... These two are lightning and light...

But looks like... That wasn't the case... At least for Mary...

"Look, golden statues! Mary should be here!" Perona saw the gold statues inside the village and said with excitement on her face...

It has been four years already for her and Gray... Four entire years, without seeing the others...

The smile on her face can't be hidden when she saw the familiar golden statues!!!

Nagini around Gray's shoulder also looked around with curiosity...

She also has a great expectation of seeing Gray and Perona's partners...

From the legend she knows, Mary should be the evil and the most destructive one between Gray's partners... Well... that's what Perona said...

Though seeing the smile on Perona's face, she doesn't think Mary was as evil as Perona said...

So she was looking forward to seeing them in a way or another... After all, Mary and the others should also be her future partners...

After entering the village, Gray walked around with a weird look in his eyes...

The village was so calm, and dusty, one can hardly see any sign of life activity here...

But weirdly they didn't find Mary's traces at all... Other than the golden statues that should be made by Mary nothing else can be found here...

"Hmmm... I can't feel Mary's breath here at all... has she left already?" Perona looked around and said with some disappointment...

It was just a small village, with her Haki, she should feel Mary's existence directly... But till now, she felt nothing...

So she thought that Mary already left toward the others...

However, unlike her, Gray's sense for this village only kept getting weirder every second... And from what the paper shows, he can see that Mary didn't leave the village in a real sense...

"Go..." Gray suddenly took Mary's Vivre Card and used tracing magic on it...

With Gray's action, the Vivre Card as if it was injected with life, floated up and started moving around as if it was looking for something...

"What is this?" Niala looked at the Vivre Card that moved around magically without any help and asked with interest...

"Tracing magic..." Gray answered...

There were many types of this magic... The one Gray used was a new type he made to cooperate with the Vivre Card especially.

It was easy since he understands the principle of this magic...

And the Vivre Card follows the owner by itself magically... So his magic worked perfectly with this paper...

Soon under their eyes, the paper as if it found something started moving between the houses of the village going somewhere, unlike the usual life paper that goes in one direction...

Seeing this, Gray and the other ran behind it...

"Here?" Under the leadership of the paper, soon Gray found himself standing in the front of an empty field and the paper kept moving in a circle above the ground...

"Your magic didn't work?" Niala looked around and asked with a smile... Like the rest of the village, other than dust, only dust...

"Not really..." Gray smiled and didn't care about Niala's bad smile...

Perona and Nagini might not feel it, but Gray felt something...

With this feeling, Gray pointed his palm at the ground in front of him...

With his hand movement, the ground under them started shaking... And cracks in a circle started forming in the ground in front of them...

Seeing this, Gray turned his palm up...

*BOOM*

With his palm turning, the ground couldn't resist for a second and the ground in front of them raised up!

"Gate?" Seeing this, Perona and Niala were surprised... The normal ground in front of them turned out to be an iron gate in cover??

Seeing the huge metal gate in front of him, Gray didn't change his expression... and waved his hand to the left...

*BOOM* The huge metal gate flew to the left and destroyed a huge house not far away from them...

As the huge metal gate was removed, a huge hole appeared in front of them...

Gray and the others looked at the hole and found that it was a deep hole covered in metal going deep to the ground with a few metal pipes here and there...

From what he can see, this tunnel should be an elevator tunnel... A huge elevator...

"A secret tunnel +.+" Niala saw the hole in front of them and her eyes shined with stars... Apparently, she found something making her very interested!

Somehow... Niala's face reminded Gray of a certain Straw Hat...

"Look... Mary's paper going down..." Perona saw the paper still moved by itself and flew down...

"Follow..." Gray saw this and waved his hand again...

Even though he doesn't know what he will find there, but what he knows was that Mary should be down there...

With his hand moving a few pieces of metal gathered in front of them blending together making a big plate of metal enough for the three of them to step on...

Niala was the first to step on it and Gray and Perona after...

Gray watched the lively Niala that couldn't wait to go down there and had an unknown meaning in his eyes...

Niala... In these few days, Gray got a little understanding in this girl...

How to put it in a few words... This girl... Have nothing to fear...

Under Gray's control, the three of them fell all the way down...

Along the way, the world lost its light, so Perona released a few shining ghosts around them allowing them to see the way in front of them...

"Just how deep is this tunnel..." Under his control, Gray found that this tunnel was so deep...

No wonder he didn't realize the existence of this place when he came to the village for the first time...

Following the paper all the way down, Finally Gray and the others saw the end of the tunnel... But he found it was blocked again...

*BOOM*

Gray removed the block in front of him and fell down to the real end of this tunnel...

"This is... Elevator?" Perona looked at the big elevator room they fell into and said with some surprise...

As said before... this tunnel was really an elevator tunnel and the block was actually the elevator's ceiling...

"Let's go.." Gray didn't look around and walked to the elevator door and open it forcefully...

What appeared in front of them, was another tunnel...

A long dark tunnel with metal walls all over...