"Enel, didn't you dream of returning to the Endless Vearth? I'll grant that wish! We're heading to the moon—the Endless Vearth—right now!"
Bardock had thought it over carefully. He couldn't just ignore the moon out of fear of the World Government's retaliation; they absolutely had to make the trip, and they had to do it now.
There was an old saying: When people accuse you of possessing weapons of mass destruction, you'd better actually have them.
If the moon hid ancient technology that the World Government genuinely feared, it was best to secure it in his own hands as early as possible. That way, when they inevitably clashed, his crew wouldn't be completely defenseless. Whether for his own ambitions or to protect the friends and crewmates he had gathered, Bardock knew he would eventually stand in direct opposition to the World Government.
"Are you serious?"
With a crackle of lightning, Enel appeared on the deck. He looked highly skeptical. This lifelong dream of his was coming true far too easily; the whole situation felt incredibly surreal.
"Of course! You have the fastest movement speed, so go notify the others to pack up. We are departing immediately!"
Having made his decision, Bardock didn't waste another second. He headed down to Upper Yard to have Gan Fall and the Shandian Chief prepare their provisions. The Blue Sea seeds they had distributed to the locals a few months ago had yielded a massive harvest of fruits and vegetables. Because Upper Yard had been launched into the sky, the unique environment caused plants and animals alike to grow to massive proportions, and the crops were no exception.
Utilizing his massive Mantra range and teleport-like speed, Enel rapidly relayed the orders to everyone scattered across Upper Yard.
Usually, getting the former 'God' to run basic errands required quite a bit of forceful coercion from Bardock. But now that it involved traveling to the Endless Vearth, Enel was even more proactive than his captain.
Once everything was fully stocked and ready, the golden White Dragon took to the skies. Bardock was finally relieved of his piloting duties; Enel was officially the helmsman, powering the ship's massive rotors with his own electricity.
Robin looked up into the starry sky. "Bardock, what exactly is the moon like?"
"Yeah, Captain! What's it like up there? Are there a bunch of rabbits living on it?" Chopper asked, his eyes wide with childish curiosity.
"Stop daydreaming, Chopper. There's no way rabbits live on the moon!" Perona teased, poking the reindeer's cheek. "I bet it's filled with humans just like us."
The rest of the crew turned to Bardock. By now, they completely trusted that their captain possessed highly classified intel on almost everything.
Bardock looked at Perona with genuine admiration. "Actually, Perona is right. Humans did live on the moon a long time ago. Though today, there's probably nothing left but ruins. Technically speaking, we've already met plenty of descendants of the Moon Dwellers."
"The Skypieans, right?" Robin's brilliant mind instantly connected the historical dots. "Enel's ultimate goal was to return to the Endless Vearth, which implies the ancestors of Birka originally migrated from the moon down to the sky. And since the Birkans and the Angel Island Skypieans share very similar cultures, physical traits, and customs, they must be branches of the exact same origin."
Robin paused, her brow furrowing slightly. "But the Shandians also share similar customs. They wear similar wing decorations on their backs and worship their own gods. Is there a deeper historical connection there?"
Bardock shrugged playfully. "That, I don't know. I only have bits and pieces of intel. It's not like I've personally been to the moon before."
BZZT!
A flash of lightning illuminated the deck as Enel, having just finished charging the ship's batteries, materialized next to them. He cast a complicated frown at Bardock. "The ancient Birkan legends do explicitly state that our ancestors descended to the Blue Planet and scattered across the world. But even in Birka, nobody takes those old fairy tales seriously anymore. I imagine the other Sky Islands have completely forgotten the legends altogether."
"No point in overthinking it. We'll find out the truth once we get there," Bardock said. He suddenly remembered a certain Dr. Tsukimi down on the Blue Sea—an old man who somehow knew how to manufacture self-aware, moon-tech automatons. If Bardock ever got the chance, he would definitely need to pay that man a visit.
After several days of continuous upward flight, the surface of the moon finally came into clear view.
Simply put... it was a massive disappointment.
"What the heck is this? This is the Endless Vearth? How could anyone possibly live in a place like this?" Perona grimaced, staring at the barren, aggressively cratered gray surface, desperately searching for any signs of a bustling civilization.
"It seems logical to conclude that the Moon Dwellers migrated to Sky Island precisely because they could no longer survive in this wasteland," Daz Bonez observed calmly.
"It's fascinating, though," Bardock muttered. "We are at a significantly higher altitude than Sky Island, practically in outer space, yet it isn't any harder to breathe."
Bardock had been carefully monitoring the crew's breathing throughout the entire ascent. He definitely didn't want his crew to accidentally suffocate in the vacuum of space. But bizarrely, the moon seemed to possess its own breathable atmosphere.
Enel stood at the bow of the ship, staring at his lifelong, idealized 'Endless Vearth'. He was completely speechless. This desolate rock was absolutely nothing like the promised holy land he had envisioned.
He had already cast his Mantra over nearly half of the lunar surface. He hadn't detected a single beating heart.
"I'm going ahead to scout," Enel muttered darkly. With a sharp crackle of electricity, he vanished from the ship.
Soon after, the distant, echoing boom of thunder occasionally rolled across the barren landscape. Hearing it, Bardock chuckled internally; the fact that thunder could be heard meant there was definitely a dense enough atmosphere to carry sound waves.
KRACK-A-BOOOM!
Enel reappeared on the deck, his face terrifyingly dark. "I've swept the area. The Endless Vearth is completely barren. There isn't a single living creature with a heartbeat on this entire rock."
"What about ruins? Did you spot any ancient structures?" Bardock asked. He explicitly remembered that there was a massive, perfectly intact underground city on the moon—a city that shared the exact same name as Enel's hometown: Birka. That underground city was his primary objective.
"There appear to be some surface ruins in that direction," Enel pointed a finger lazily. "But my Mantra is only good for detecting living things. If you want to dig through dead rocks, you'll have to do it yourselves."
The 'God' of lightning was thoroughly disillusioned and had completely lost his motivation.
"Robin, Perona, the scouting is up to you two. Focus your search underground. Any surface structures would have been eroded to dust by the sheer passage of time," Bardock ordered, steering the ship toward the coordinates Enel had pointed out.
Robin immediately activated her Flower-Flower Fruit, while Perona unleashed a massive swarm of Hollows. Over the past few months of intense training, their mastery over their scouting abilities had grown leaps and bounds.
While Robin's sprouting eyes were superior for surface-level reconnaissance, Perona's intangible ghosts were the ultimate tool for subterranean exploration. It didn't take long for one of her Hollows to phase through the crust and discover a colossal underground metropolis.
"I found it! The entrance is right here!" Perona guided the crew to what looked like an ordinary, rocky mountain wall. "But my ghosts can't physically interact with the door to open it, and it's pitch black inside."
Robin stepped up to the rock face, sprouting several arms to test the surface. "I've tried pushing it. Behind this rock is a set of massive, electrically driven metal doors. The power grid has clearly been dead for centuries. With my current physical strength, I can't force them open."
Bardock casually walked up and tapped the rocky facade with the Jingu Bang. The heavy stone instantly crumbled into fine dust, revealing a pristine, high-tech metallic blast door hidden beneath.
"Incredible metallurgical technology. These doors look like they were installed yesterday," Bardock praised.
"I'll go inside and take a look!" Enel said, his interest suddenly rekindled. If this was a genuine underground city, it likely held the ancient secrets of his ancestors.
Transforming into pure lightning, Enel effortlessly phased straight through the solid metal doors.
A few moments of silence passed. Then, a deep, heavy mechanical hum vibrated through the ground. The ancient electrical grid roared to life, and with a series of loud, metallic clanks, the massive blast doors slowly slid open, finally revealing the hidden lunar city to the crew.