Chapter 291: Poneglyph!
Ian had completely misunderstood. The small dwarf soldiers left here were originally intended to guard this place. In other words, their programs had already been input from the start. Even though they had been on standby for so many years without energy, the moment they regained mobility, their first thought was still to carry out their mission. The programs in their minds had not been erased by Ian's charging.
This could only mean that Ian was still stuck with the luck of an unlucky guy; good fortune wasn't coming his way just yet...
As he called for Baby-5 to act, Ian had already drawn his Thousand Cherry Blossoms from its sheath. With one slash, he cut through the spear thrust by a dwarf soldier and struck him directly.
The blade, hardened with black Armament Haki, carried immense force, easily cleaving through half of the dwarf soldier's body. The soldier fell to the ground, sparks flashing a few times from his body, and then stopped moving.
Weak! Ian was a bit surprised. He had thought these dwarf soldiers would have decent combat ability, but how did one go down so easily?
However, he quickly noticed a problem: because these dwarf soldiers were machines, they were utterly fearless. Taking down one, another immediately lunged at him. Even though they were no match for Ian, they kept charging forward relentlessly, thrusting their spears at him. Combined with their short stature, it was almost impossible to guard against. Ian nearly got hit in the groin from below by two dwarf soldiers!
Breaking out in a cold sweat, Ian got a bit angry. These little bastards were playing dirty!
Baby-5 was originally standing behind Ian, using her mortar to bombard the dwarf soldiers and provide support. But at that moment, she noticed Ian raising one hand above his head, a ball of orange flame flickering in his palm.
Seeing this, Baby-5's heart skipped a beat, and she quickly retreated a few steps. Sure enough, the next second, Ian's hand suddenly swept down in front of him!
A blazing flame shot out from his hand, forming a huge fan shape, and then roared forward, engulfing the dwarf soldiers that had just charged in!
One Hundred and Eight Styles: Great Serpent's Sweep!
With a large amount of diamonds, Ian had been doing dozens of consecutive draws from time to time. The card he had just switched to was a recently drawn four-star card: Kyo Kusanagi! Since Ian already had plenty of fire-using cards, he hadn't planned on using this one much. But now, facing so many dwarf soldiers, he decided to use this card's skill!
Great Serpent's Sweep was a solid area-of-effect skill. The flame it unleashed swept forward, engulfing a large number of dwarf soldiers. All the dwarves touched by the fire were scorched by the high heat, losing power and collapsing to the ground. This single Great Serpent's Sweep cleared out over a hundred dwarves, leaving an open space in front of Ian, while the air around them still reeked of intense heat.
With room to maneuver, Ian stopped using Great Serpent's Sweep. Holding Thousand Cherry Blossoms, he quickly weaved through the dwarf soldiers. He had learned the Flash Slash skill from the earlier card of Kensuke Maeda, and it proved useful here.
Ian's figure turned into streaks of white light, flashing continuously through the crowd. Each flash of his blade cut a dwarf soldier in two. With him drawing the aggro up front, Baby-5 unleashed her full firepower behind him, bombarding the dwarf soldiers relentlessly.
After about three minutes, there were no dwarf soldiers left standing in the hall...
Sheathing Thousand Cherry Blossoms, Ian looked at the wreckage scattered around and felt quite frustrated. Fighting these mechanical soldiers gave him no sense of accomplishment, and on top of that, he had nearly been hit in the groin.
Whoever designed these soldiers' height was definitely a public enemy of all men and should be dragged out and shot for half an hour...
Though he had gotten a bit of exercise, Ian was troubled by the words the mechanical soldiers had spoken when they woke up. They had said, "Intruders, eliminate Blue Sea people, guard the ruins!" The "intruders" part was easy to understand, but what did "eliminate Blue Sea people" mean? Could it be that the Blue Sea people were the ones who had attacked the sky island, forcing the Skypieans of this city to flee?
And what about these ruins? They just seemed to be some murals. Was it worth placing so many mechanical soldiers to guard them?
Thinking this, Ian felt something was off and muttered to himself, "Could it be that there's something else worth guarding here?"
With that thought, he turned to Baby-5 and said, "Search this hall more carefully. See if there are any other mechanisms!"
Baby-5 was taken aback. "Like those movable bricks upstairs?"
"Maybe, or maybe other types of mechanisms," Ian replied. "You're a girl, more detail-oriented, so try to be as thorough as possible."
So the two of them began searching the underground hall. After two hours, Ian and Baby-5 had scoured every corner of the hall but found nothing that seemed like a mechanism.
When they regrouped, Baby-5 looked exhausted, and even Ian felt a bit deflated. Had he guessed wrong? Was this hidden underground hall really just built to protect these murals?
But just then, Baby-5 stared blankly at something behind Ian.
"What's wrong?" Ian asked her, puzzled.
"We've searched everywhere else, but it seems there's one place we haven't checked," Baby-5 said, pointing behind Ian. "Right there!"
Ian turned around and saw that Baby-5 was pointing at the hollow spherical device that had recharged the dwarf soldiers and brought them back to life earlier!
Seeing this, Ian suddenly slapped his forehead. It seemed they really had overlooked it. They hadn't searched around that device!
It was like a blind spot—the hollow sphere was too conspicuous, and since Ian had always thought it was just a charging power supply device, he had subconsciously ignored it.
The two walked over and stood before the device again. Ian circled it once but didn't touch any of its buttons. Instead, he lifted his leg and gave the device a hard kick!
Squeak, squeak! After Ian's kick, the device slid a short distance, scraping against the floor with a harsh sound.
Then a strange scene unfolded. When the device was kicked aside, a square stone block beneath it slowly rose up, finally stopping with a click.
So that was it. When Ian had circled the device earlier, he noticed a gap between it and the floor that seemed a bit large, suggesting something might be hidden there. After a little experimentation, he had uncovered the final secret.
Looking at this large square stone, Ian felt puzzled and couldn't help but walk around it. When he reached the front of the stone and saw what was carved on it, he was struck as if by lightning!
A... a Poneglyph!?
When Ian saw the strange characters carved on the front of the stone, his eyes nearly popped out!
He hadn't realized what it was at first, but the moment he saw the side covered in writing, he finally knew what it was!
What the hell! There was a Poneglyph in these ruins!?
This discovery came so suddenly that Ian had no time to prepare. After figuring out what it was, a storm of emotions raged in his heart...
Ian knew very well that there were thirty Poneglyphs in total. Four of them were red Road Poneglyphs, pointing to four locations. If those four locations could be found and marked on a sea chart, the point where they intersected would be the location of the final island, Laugh Tale.
Besides these four red Poneglyphs, nine others contained "information" about the final island, Laugh Tale. These nine were also known as the True Poneglyphs.
As for the remaining Poneglyphs beyond these thirteen, they recorded other things, such as the history of ancient kingdoms from long ago, or information about the three Ancient Weapons.
The Poneglyph Ian and his group found in the ruins was not red, so it wasn't one of the Road Poneglyphs. But since Ian couldn't read the ancient script on it, he didn't know whether this Poneglyph contained information about Laugh Tale.
Regardless, this was the most significant discovery Ian and his group had made since arriving at the sky island of Barron Gray Terminal!
The fact that a Poneglyph existed here made Ian wonder if the gap in this sky island's recorded history corresponded to the Void Century...
That was highly possible.