One Piece: Path to Power

Chapter 170: [170] Shards of the Past (III)

[2700 words]

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[Polemos Island, Year of 1440]

"Vetatatatata!"

"Morararara!"

Two boisterous laughs boomed across the grassy plains of Polemos Island. A duo of similar-looking men stood face-to-face, almost as if looking into a mirror. The only problem was that the mirror was way off in terms of height!

One of them was lean and cut, boasting a rather sleek physique that counted on speed and precision, standing at around 14 feet (4.27 m). On the other hand, the second brother sported a far muscular and bulky build, opting for strength and durability, towering at a little over twenty-and-a-half feet (6.9 m)!

They were the 20-year-old Zenora Veta and Zenora Mors!

Their stances suggested that a duel was imminent. Veta, the elder brother, was the first to attack. The man zoomed into the air, raising Konton passed down through generations. 

"One Sword Style: Beautiful Death!"

.

A deafening chirp of a peacock dominated the sky, flapping its way down under the embrace of Veta's sword.

Mors grinned, clenching his right hand into a fist. *Fwwm* A dense coat of Armament was quickly equipped, followed by the man jumping to the skies.

.

"Sky Scream!"

.

The raging punch sent out hounding winds that slammed onto the ground, tearing open giant chunks of earth.

*Fwmm!* A similar black gleam coated Veta's blade as he crashed into his brother.

BOOM!

The ear-rattling explosion echoed through the edges of Polemos as the brothers grinned on ahead.

Bam!

A secondary boom and the two were shot to opposite sides.

"Let's dial this up a notch," Mors muttered, cracking his neck. Veta hummed in agreement.

"..."

Slowly but surely, the dark markings across their bodies began to burn bright red, growing to the colour of blood.

*Hiss* The increased blood flow was due to the body demanding much more oxygen to function, so much so that the moisture around their pores evaporated into steam. 

Their dark pupils turned blood-red, reflecting an inner darkness that would send shivers down most men.

.

"One Sword Style: Dance of the Dead!"

.

"Sky Shriek!"

.

Once again, the two met without holding anything back, sending tremors down the island's roots. Trees were uprooted, the ground broke apart, and the air groaned under their clash.

…

The reign of the new Shadows started strong. Veta showed the same talent as the deceased Romo, earning him the nod from Konton. Meanwhile, Mors took on the Six Powers, warping them into his brute strength and iron fist.

However, a storm was soon to arrive five years later…

…

[Polemos Island, Year of 1445]

"L-Lord Mors!" a desperate voice rang through a sizeable wooden stronghold. A dark-haired man ran into the building, shaking in his boots.

"What is it?" came a heavy voice belonging to one of the Two Shadows of the Zenora.

The informant breathed in the majesty of the towering Mors, his vast shadow creating quite the shade. "S-Someone from the outside sea made landfall…Lord Veta is confronting them!"

Mors' eyebrow shot up while excitement brimmed in his eyes. "From the Outside!?"

The Zenora had long been away from the rest of the world. Naturally, the dangers beyond the confines of their home were a curious thought.

"Let's go!"

…

But Mors' inquisitive mindset was quickly turned upside down as he saw what had become of his older brother. 

Veta was laid out at the island's edge in a pool of his own blood. Mors smelled the iron scent, absently staring at his fallen brother.

In the distance was a warship departing from Polemos in a rush.

"..."

With dead eyes and a lost glance, Mors looked at the foggy sea, feeling the collection of presences.

Bang! 

The roar of a cannon went off as the cannonball rocketed toward the Zenora Shadow. It zoomed across the curtain of fog, inching toward Mors.

"Veta…" he muttered, swiping his right hand across to deflect the cannonball aside.

*Boom!* The explosion went off in the background while Mors' increasing crimson body was bubbling with rage. His Figures surged with heat and intensity, his eyes falling into madness.

The air trembled under the whizzing Mors as he leapt onboard the ship, his titanic weight forcing the intruders to crash to the ground.

"K-Kill this monster!" a pirate roared, rushing at the invader with a giant axe. 

Clang!

"!!!" The pirate was utterly stunned. It was as if his soul had left his body alongside the axe that had shattered from striking Mors' arm.

*Gulp* The man felt the cold embrace of death as Mors' blood-red eyes locked onto him.

'I thought I'd find lost riches through the fog…How did it end up like thi–!'

Pain flooded every fiber of his being as the Shadow's giant hand grabbed him by the head. Soon enough, he was lifted from his feet while the pressure around his cranium grew.

"You will pay with your lives."

The head popped like a grape, bathing Mors with fresh red. The headless body crumpled onto the floor and, with a bang, crushed under the Warborn's giant foot.

With smoke from his landing, fog from the environment, and blood from the enemies dripping down his enormous body, the other pirates had all but one fate waiting for them, considering the look on Mors' face.

BOOM!

…

A blood-covered Mors kneeled by his lifeless brother, absently staring at the corpse. "How could you die here, Veta…"

"L-Lord Veta lowered his guard when the invaders' leader took one of our young as their hostage," a nearby Zenora muttered.

Mors gritted his teeth to the point where blood fell down his lips. His hands clenched in defeat. "My foolish, naive brother…"

He reached out and closed Veta's empty eyes staring at the sky by lowering his eyelids. 'You were the best of us. I cannot do this without you…'

"Prepare for the funeral."

"Y-Yes!"

The nearby men felt a strong fear of Mors as they heard the voice void of emotions, almost as if all life and spirit had been drained out.

…

[The Next Week]

*Creak* A tiny wooden chest was slowly opened, unveiling the treasure within to the eyes of its beholder.

"One of those magical fruits," Mors commented, seeing the blood-red Devil Fruit in the shape of a heart.

[Fruit Image (in Discord)]

"Zenora Sosen, our saviour, left this for troubling times," a fossilized old lady's voice graced the towering man's ears. "It was as much of a treasure as his sword, Konton."

"Lady Kaguya," Mors muttered, seeing the half-dead woman. She was nearly 120 years old, yet clinging to life ever so dearly for the sake of her people.

"These are troubling times," she nodded, though her face turned stern. "Yet I feel a disconnection in your heart. Do not get consumed in your rage, Mors!"

The remaining Shadow of the Zenora was not amused, answering with a sneer, "Instead of waiting for our fate to come to an end, I'd rather go on the offence and secure it myself!"

Kaguya slammed the butt of her cane, eliciting a loud clang. "Don't be selfish, boy! You may have mastered your Figures, but how can you secure the lives of our young and old? Going beyond the fog will undo everything Lord Sosen did for us!"

Mors growled, glaring at the petite old lady with defiance.

"Enough! Zenora Sosen protected us in his own way; now, I will protect my people in my own way! The rest of you can remain on this small island while I go hunt down the ones who damned us here!"

Kagura was livid. Veins popped across her face as the fury burned from her eyes, conveyed in her increasingly crimson markings. "Do you wish to dishonour your brother even beyond his grav–"

She couldn't finish as Mors' thick hand shot out and grabbed her by the jaw, forcing her into silence.

"Do not bring Veta into this."

The booming voice was laced with threat, further amplified by the blood-red marks on his body and reddened pupils. Cracks spread across the stone floor, and the wooden walls began shaking.

"You think I haven't read that book?"

Kaguya, who was held into submission, widened her eyes.

Mors picked up on the shift in emotions: "I found it in my youth, the journal Lord Sosen busied himself with in his older years. You were wise to hide it after your husband's death."

The woman's face darkened. Her husband had hidden the truth of that journal even from her until his death, leaving it with her. She also chose to hide it since it contained matters that could drive a Warborn mad!

"He may have saved us from certain doom, but staying here is inevitable doom. Without Veta, I cannot see any life in this prison on an island. I will give the 'World Government' that spawned us hell they will never forget!"

"They played around with the lives of our ancestors, even labelling us to become their greatest weapons! I will show them just how great of a weapon we are!!!"

The anger-ridden voice began sending out dense pulses of weight. *Creak* *Snap!* The walls exploded into bits, sending tremors through Polemos.

Nearby guards fell to the floor, foaming at the mouths. Everything happened under the aged eyes of Kaguya, who could only fearfully listen.

'He can use it, just like Romo did!' the woman stiffened.

Mors saw the look in her eyes and felt little emotion in return. Mercilessly enough, he tossed her aside like a sack of potatoes, walking out the shredded doorway.

"Y-Your departure will spell death to us all!" she spat out, ignoring the aching pain from the many broken bones from the prior ragdolling.

"..."

Mors didn't look back; his eyes were void of emotion, burning bright red.

Every step he took beyond the house of the Shadow forced his body to change colour slowly.

Initially, the Zenora were born with dark skin and black markings that turned red under the berserk state. Yet for Mors, his dark skin was slowly turning red, something beyond unnatural.

Kaguya painfully pulled her body up, entirely shocked by the turn of events. "H-He's lost in his anger… what a terrible fate this has left us!"

…

"So the Berserk state can completely vilify a person, leading them to endless rage and anger," Damien insightfully concluded.

Indra, who was watching the clouds float away, couldn't help but nod with a sigh. "By training off a twin, one could master the Figures; with that, they could teach the others. But even that leaves cracks behind. In Mors' case, his original mission to protect his people through war quickly warped into nothing but hopeless vengeance."

Damien narrowed his eyes, recalling the familiar face of the old man he freed from Impel Down.

"So without the protection of Mors, the community would fall apart, slowly but surely," he said.

The thoughts were once again confirmed with the nod of the swordsman's head. "It was ten years since his departure, and our society was on the brink of destruction. Lady Kaguya died early on, and the sudden change brewed dismay in our people, leaving them even more victim to their frenzy state. From 1445 to 1455, it was just hell."

"By then, the power of the 'Bloodspawn' had reached the ends of the seas, even bringing the attention of the then-Fleet Admiral Endou, who eventually discovered the experiment files from over 150 years back."

A distracted Indra flicked a pebble with his finger into the sea below, absently stating, "An ambitious agent of Cipher Pol, Spandune the Hunter with his Trace-Trace Fruit, located the lost Polemos in 1455. Fearing an army of these 'Warborns,' the World Government sent assassins to recon and destroy the community."

Indra shook his head with frustration. "There were attacks carried out for the next five straight years. Thankfully, it was nearly impossible for large fleets to navigate through the fog, so they relied on brave bounty hunters and pirates. Five years of invasion and all that remained of our kind was a sole Elder and nine others…"

"...From thousands to a mere ten."

.

Damien sank into thought. 

His father's legacy also crossed paths with the Bloodspawn. An odd twist of fate now links the two of them.

"Zenora Mors was captured in the year 1460, twenty-six years ago. Matching with your timeline now."

Indra affirmed with a nod, but it was evident that there was something else left. With a slight tremor in his face in his voice, he revealed, "Yet a year later, a sliver of hope graced over Polemos."

"Another pair of twins," Damien deduced, slowly looking at the swordsman. "...You."

Indra glanced at Damien and saw the red eyes. 

"Twenty-five years ago today, a new pair of identical twins was born to the only woman of the remaining ten Zenora. Their names were…"

…

[Polemos Island, Year of 1461]

"...Zenora Indra and Zenora Asura."

The voice was tired and filled with aching pain, coming from an emaciated woman glancing at two newborns in her arms. The pain coursing through her body was effectively ignored, and she gently watched the two boys coo about. Indra seemed quite cheerful, swinging his tiny arms around while Asura was all curled up like a ball.

With cracked lips and hollow eyes, the woman offered her two children: "P-Please take care of them… Elder Kali."

Death took her right after—years of war and hardship, claiming her strength.

Kali, an older Warborn, cared little and pried two children from the dead woman's hands.

Kali was a haunting figure with sunken, glowing red eyes that seemed to pierce through the soul of anyone who dared to look at him. His body was burning red from years of mania. His unsettling grin and wild, unkempt hair gave the impression of a man unbound by sanity, a creature born from nightmares of a half-decade of war.

To make things worse, he even had Konton tied to his waist, unearned and stolen from Veta's grave.

[Kali Image (in Discord)]

.

Around the few that remained, the peaceful Polemos Island was in flames. Four-fifths of the island was either on fire or ashes, littered with charred and decomposing bodies of fallen Zenora but hundreds more of the money-hungry invaders.

They had lost everything Sosen had given them. The graves from earlier times were destroyed, and the history of the Zenora was gone with them.

Kali's smile widened, his cracked lips curling into something inhuman as he held the two fragile infants aloft, their tiny forms dwarfed by his gnarled hands. His voice was low at first, a growl laced with manic fervour that built into a thundering proclamation.

"These children... are the final hope of our people. But under my guidance, they will become more than mere children. They will be forged into weapons! Beasts! Demons!"

The elder's blood-red markings pulsed wildly, casting a sinister glow across his face as the flames in the distance mirrored his twisted intensity. His voice rose to a deafening crescendo, carried by the winds to the ears of the few surviving Zenora.

"With their rage, I will destroy the chains that bound us! With their power, I will crush the vermin who dared to spit on our kind! And when their wrath engulfs this cursed world, all will remember the name Zenora not as a clan—but as the embodiment of vengeance and war itself!"

The twins squirmed in his grasp, their soft cries swallowed by the haunting echoes of his laughter, "I will break them, mould them, and set them loose on a world unprepared for what it has wrought!"

Kali's glowing red eyes locked onto the burning horizon as if already seeing the devastation he would unleash. His final words came like a curse, leaving no doubt about his sinister intentions.

"They will not live as children. They will live as harbingers, as shadows of the Zenora—and I will ensure they become the greatest weapons this world has ever seen. Even if it destroys them!"

The twins' cries faded as Kali turned, his towering silhouette shrouded by flames and smoke. Around him, the remaining Zenora trembled in fear, none daring to stand against the mad guardian they had no choice but to follow.

To Be Continued…

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Author's Corner.

You might remember Spandune the Hunter from God Valley. He kicked off the ceremony, welcoming the Celestial Dragons to the holy ground. He was able to trace Mors back to Polemos, bringing war to their turf for five years straight. So, a decade of uncertainty with them slowly losing themselves, topped with five more years of invasion… It drove the survivors mad. What do you think will become of Indra and Asura with Kali teaching them?

Images are available on Discord alongside other niche details: https://discord.gg/aJHHHPvb6q