Whoosh!
Raleigh arrived beside Enel with wind-assisted speed, finding him staring intently at an altar before him.
"Enel, what have you discovered?"
Raleigh descended from the sky and immediately asked.
Enel withdrew his attention, turning to Raleigh with a puzzled expression.
"Commander Raleigh, I passed by this altar several times without searching it, but just now I suddenly felt something was wrong."
"Given Shandora's level of civilization, how could such an important altar be made of stone slabs? It should be golden plates like everything else here."
Only after hearing Enel's explanation did Raleigh notice the pitch-black, gleaming stone slab on the altar.
He, too, showed a confused expression.
If Enel hadn't pointed it out, Raleigh wouldn't have sensed anything unusual.
For an altar, having an entire large stone slab was already quite impressive by normal standards.
Enel stepped forward, reached out, and knocked on the stone slab, which emitted a dull, heavy sound.
"Just now I tried channeling my Rumble-Rumble Fruit ability into the slab, and I concluded that this area is hollow. There's something hidden beneath the stone slab."
"This shows that this stone slab must have been created by Shandora's people using secret methods to block Observation Haki (Mantra) perception."
Raleigh wasn't particularly surprised. This world was full of miraculous things that defied scientific explanation—the most compelling evidence being Devil Fruits and the three types of Haki.
Since these things existed, it was perfectly normal for the ancient Shandora residents to create a stone slab that could block Haki.
Looking at the black stone slab before him, Raleigh couldn't resist reaching out to touch it.
Zap.
"Hmm, this familiar weakness... this is the characteristic of Seastone."
The moment Raleigh touched it, he identified what material was mixed into the so-called stone slab.
He couldn't be sure about other components, but it definitely contained Seastone particles or fine Seastone powder, draining his energy slightly.
"We'll have to use Armament Haki."
Raleigh's right hand quickly became coated in Armament Haki, turning jet-black and metallic.
Without modern tools, Raleigh could only use his Haki to grind away at this unusual altar.
The stone soon began to tremble, with debris continuously falling off around it.
Crack, crack.
Pieces of stone, large and small, fell from the altar's slab.
Following Raleigh's instructions, Enel collected the fallen stone fragments into his pockets.
"These will be very useful. When we return to the Grand Line, we can give them to the Doctor! This way, we can also have something that blocks Observation Haki."
"It must be made of some special material mixed with Seastone powder and larger Seastone particles."
After just a few words, the originally thick stone slab had already developed extensive cracks, with one fissure reaching deep into the slab.
"Break open for me!"
Raleigh increased the output of Armament Haki in his hand, and the frequency of the slab cracking accelerated.
Boom!
The slab completely split apart, shattering into pieces scattered everywhere.
Enel's guess was indeed correct. After the giant slab was destroyed, a dark opening was revealed beneath it.
"There really is something here," Enel said excitedly, then flashed into a bolt of lightning and rushed straight into the hole.
Raleigh's hand shot out, but he still failed to grab Enel, who possessed the speed of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit! With no other choice, Raleigh closely followed behind Enel.
As soon as they entered the hole, both Raleigh and Enel maximized their Observation Haki to guard against any potential ambushes.
Buzz...
The lightning in Enel's hand flickered continuously, providing a dim but sufficient light for the two. Following the path of the tunnel, Raleigh and Enel chose to move forward.
At the end was an underground cavern with a relatively large space.
Though not as vast as the underground caverns Raleigh had seen in coal mines back in the Blue Sea, it was not small either.
And this place was nothing like the architectural style of Shandora outside—everything here was made of rough stone, with rows of dwellings constructed from it.
Crack.
Raleigh's hand froze mid-air.
He had intended to push a door open to see if what was inside was what he needed.
But before Raleigh could even figure out how to open it, the wooden door of the stone house fell off its hinges in response to the wind pressure of his movement.
With a slight exertion of force, Raleigh crushed the wooden door as if it had no structural integrity left.
"The passage of time here is too long. Judging by the degree of decay of the wooden door, it must be at least seven or eight hundred years old."
Raleigh casually placed the shattered remnants aside, and he and Enel entered the house to inspect its contents.
There wasn't much inside the room—only a few murals painted on the walls.
Raleigh focused intently, as ancient murals generally represented the life events of the house's owner or the history of a people.
After stabilizing his lightning into a steady light source, Enel also followed Raleigh's gaze to look at the murals on the wall.
The first mural depicted an extremely vast city. Judging by its scale and layout, this city appeared even more prosperous and expansive than Shandora.
Several individuals with small wings on their backs were operating peculiar instruments, seemingly engaged in some form of production.
This was evident from the clearly defined division of labor depicted below, where most focused solely on perfecting their specific assigned tasks.
The second mural continued from where the first one ended.
The number of small, robot-like figures created by the people in the mural kept increasing. However, resources seemed to be running low. The residents of the winged tribe were prepared.
They took everything they could carry from the city, leaving behind what couldn't be moved.
The only things they brought with them when departing were the small Automata they had created.
The winged tribe and their created machines stood aboard a massive ship flying toward the sky.
If Raleigh wasn't mistaken, this vessel looked suspiciously like the Ark Maxim.
As for why ancient technology was more advanced than the present, Raleigh could only attribute it to the "efforts" of the World Government over the Void Century.
Under their influence, the technological strength of various kingdoms not only regressed, but many nations even retreated from the brink of becoming technological societies to primitive agricultural kingdoms in one fell swoop.
The third mural was distinctly different. In this painting, the winged tribe was divided into three factions by the artist.
One group resembled the current Skypieans, who flew toward the clouds in the sky.
The second group was similar to the present-day Shandia People, who flew down to an island on the Grand Line (Jaya).
The third group were winged people with slightly different, larger wings, whose choice was completely different—they flew toward the end of the sea.
These three murals likely depicted the origin of all the winged races in the current world.
If Raleigh's guess was correct, these tribes all came from the moon, which would explain why they all worshipped the earth.
Because the moon—what Enel called the Fairy Vearth—was the Infinite Earth they had lost.