The luxury of the so-called "suite" was truly shocking.
It was a massive suite that took up more than half of the top floor of the base.
The floors were covered in expensive velvet carpets, and the furniture was all made from precious materials.
Outside the massive floor-to-ceiling windows, the brightly lit port could be seen at night.
The room was divided into an inner bedroom and an outer sitting room.
The two areas were separated only by a carved archway and a hanging gauze curtain.
"You sleep in the outer room. You must report to me before you go out."
Gion walked into the room. She took off the coat from her shoulders and hung it on a rack.
Then she undid one button at her collar and let out a long sigh.
Playing along with Nelson all evening had left her exhausted, both mentally and physically.
Aiden, however, was completely relaxed. He walked straight to the sofa in the outer room and sat down.
He tested the softness and commented, "The place is nice. It's a lot more comfortable than sleeping on the ship."
Gion walked to the window and pulled half the curtains shut, blocking the view from outside.
She turned around and looked at Aiden, who was leaning lazily against the sofa. Her expression turned serious, losing the politeness she had shown at the banquet.
"Something is wrong here," Gion said directly.
She walked over and sat on the single-seat sofa opposite Aiden, folding her hands. "That Nelson has a problem, and it's a big one."
"I paid close attention on the way back just now." Gion frowned.
"In the streets here, I didn't see a single beggar. I didn't even see a poor person wearing patched clothes."
"I noticed that too."
Aiden sat on the sofa. At some point, he had picked up a crystal ornament from the banquet hall and was lightly tossing it in his hand.
"Commodore Gion, in a normal port town, a gap between the rich and the poor is unavoidable.
How could everyone be so wealthy and respectable?"
Aiden stopped moving. His fingers suddenly closed around the crystal ornament.
He looked up. Under the lamplight, a cold glint flickered in his dark eyes.
"Unless... the people at the bottom who weren't 'respectable' enough were all forcibly cleaned out."
"Cleaned out?" Gion's expression changed.
"As you know, my fruit power makes my senses much sharper than a normal person's."
Aiden's voice dropped. In the closed room, with only the two of them there, it sounded especially clear.
"Beneath the shiny floors of this base, there is a massive underground space."
"And..." Aiden frowned slightly, as if recalling the sensation.
"There's something down there that makes me very uncomfortable."
"An underground space? What about it makes you uncomfortable?" Gion pressed.
"I can't say for sure." Aiden shook his head.
"Anyway, it doesn't feel like a warehouse or a prison."
He thought of the "crystal statues" he had sensed earlier, and that strange feeling underground, as if something there had gone badly wrong.
"The secrets of this island are probably all hidden in that basement."
The room fell silent.
"We have to go check it out."
Gion made a quick decision. She stood up and placed her hand on the hilt of her sword, Konpira.
"We go tonight."
"No."
Aiden stood up as well, but lightly shook his head, stopping Gion before she could move.
"Commodore Gion, you have to stay here."
"Why?" Gion didn't understand. Then her eyes sharpened.
"Don't forget Vice Admiral Tsuru's order. I have to supervise you fully. I can't let you leave my sight."
"If we don't handle this properly, neither of us will find the truth tonight."
Aiden looked at Gion's serious face and gave a helpless shrug.
His tone relaxed a little. "Don't you trust me? As for Vice Admiral Tsuru's mission... let's treat it as a formality for tonight."
Seeing that Gion was about to argue again, Aiden stopped smiling and calmly laid out the situation.
"Did you notice Nelson's reaction after the banquet? Right now, he's like a startled bird. All his attention is on you."
Aiden pointed at the brightly lit base outside the window.
"You need to stay here. Keep the lights on. Call for a servant once in a while and ask for some late-night snacks.
Make it look like we're resting."
"As for the secrets hidden in the gutters..."
Aiden's body began to flicker, gradually turning into a mass of blue-white electricity.
His voice carried absolute confidence. "I'm the best choice for moving quietly."
Gion remained silent.
She looked at Aiden as he gradually transformed into his element. Her reason told her that he was right.
"...Fine."
Gion finally let go of her sword hilt, but she still stared at Aiden sternly.
"You are only allowed to scout. No unauthorized actions. Report back immediately after confirming the situation!"
Aiden's lips curled into a smile. He didn't answer directly. He only said, "Don't worry. I know what I'm doing."
Zizzle. With a soft sound, Aiden turned into a tiny arc of electricity.
He shot straight into the ventilation duct in the corner of the room and vanished instantly, leaving behind only a faint scent of ozone in the air.
The underground space beneath the base was deeper than Aiden had imagined, and unexpectedly... quiet.
The air was filled with a cold, dry smell mixed with some kind of special mineral.
Aiden reformed into his physical body in the shadows.
In front of him was a massive underground warehouse.
Several wooden crates were lined up neatly, half-covered by dust cloths.
There were also many "art pieces" displayed directly on shelves.
Aiden frowned slightly and walked closer.
Dozens of crystal-clear statues, giving off a faint cold glow, had been placed in different corners of the warehouse.
Aiden walked to the nearest one.
It was the figure of a burly man, frozen in the moment he fell backward.
His arms were raised instinctively to protect his face, as if he were trying to block some invisible horror.
Earlier upstairs, Aiden had only vaguely sensed the vibrations here through Observation Haki.
But now, standing in front of these things and looking at them with his own eyes, he felt an indescribable sense of horror.
"This workmanship..."
It was too realistic.
It wasn't just that the movements of the limbs were natural and smooth.
It was the hair-raising details.
In the faint light, Aiden could clearly see the bulging veins in the crystal statue's arms, the natural wrinkles in the clothes, and even the uneven ends of the hair.
The most chilling part was the expression.
On that crystal-like face, the eyes bulged and the mouth hung wide open. Every feature had been twisted by extreme terror.
The physical fear that erupts in the moment before death had been captured perfectly.
Rather than a carving, it looked more like... time had been forcibly frozen in that single second.
Aiden reached out his hand. His fingertips lightly touched the statue's arm.
It felt ice-cold and smooth as a mirror.
He pressed down a little harder.
It didn't move at all.
The material was incredibly hard, far harder than ordinary stone, almost on the level of steel.
If someone had wanted to carve fine details into something like this, it should have been impossible.
Aiden applied a little more pressure, wanting to test its internal structure, but quickly pulled his hand back.
He didn't dare use full force.
If he accidentally damaged this unknown crystal structure, or even left a tiny crack, it might alert the enemy.
"Not even the world's greatest sculptor could reproduce this kind of physical reaction, this kind of muscle tension, in a piece of crystal this hard..."
Aiden withdrew his hand and looked around.
It wasn't just this one.
In the corner, there was an old man kneeling on the ground and begging for mercy.
Farther away, there was a woman clutching a child...
An absurd and terrifying thought slowly took shape in Aiden's mind.
"What if... this isn't a carving?"
"What if... these are living people who were forced into this form in an instant by some kind of power?"
Aiden's eyes darkened.
He took a deep breath and steadied himself.
Invisible sensory waves, as gentle as wind, silently spread through the deathly quiet underground warehouse and wrapped around the cold crystal statues.
In that world of perception, there was no sound and no image.
There was only the most basic "breath" of all things.
The next second,
Aiden's eyes snapped open.
A trace of cold killing intent flashed through them.
He "heard" it.
Beneath the silence, inside those hard, cold crystal statues...
there were faint, chaotic, yet very real traces of life.
It was the last imprint left behind when life had been snatched away in an instant.
Like an afterimage burned into a negative, it recorded the final moment of their fear and despair.
These statues...
They were already dead.
Their bodies had been turned into hard crystal, but the proof that they had once been human was still sealed inside those immortal coffins.
This was not something human hands could create.
Aiden looked at the statues that still held their trembling poses even in death, and quickly reached a conclusion.
"To completely change the molecular structure of matter in an instant and turn a living body of flesh and blood into this cold crystal...
in this sea, only one kind of power can do that."
"A Devil Fruit ability."