Author's Note: Looking for a system novel? Be sure to check out my other story:
I Was ¥1.8 Million in Debt When the Legacy System Chose Me — a grounded rags-to-riches journey featuring business, romance, self-improvement and empire-building.
Please add it to your library, give it some powerstones and give them a read. Thank you for the support!
50 Powerstones on my system novel equals 3 extra chapters. While 100 Powerstones here equals 3 extra chapters.
---
Deep beneath the colossal wooden foundations of Elbaf, where the sprawling roots of Yggdrasil coiled through cold stone like the limbs of some ancient sleeping god, light had no place.
Shadows stretched long and jagged across the lower beast pens. In the dark vaults beneath the central village, hooded figures moved with quiet, practiced efficiency. They were Prince Loki's personal attendants, carrying out their master's orders while the settlement above went about its morning unaware of what was stirring beneath its feet.
Bundles of dried, foul-smelling herbs were set alight inside narrow stone smoke tunnels. The attendants worked heavy bellows, forcing thick, choking clouds deeper into the caverns until the beasts within began to snarl, pace, and throw themselves against their restraints. Barrels of raw meat and fresh blood were then poured into specially carved channels, creating powerful scent trails that led toward the upper ramps and directly beneath the heart of the village.
Then the drums began.
The sound was low and relentless, a steady thrum that travelled through the stone and into the bones. The iron-skinned war drums had been designed generations ago to provoke dangerous beasts before ceremonial hunts, and their maddening rhythm worked exactly as intended.
Heavy securing pins were pulled from the gates. Reinforced wooden barriers groaned as they swung open, and the lower vaults erupted into chaos.
An ironhide boar charged first, its tusks large enough to tear through a fortress wall. A white cave wolf followed, frost clinging to its bristling fur as it snapped blindly at the smoke. Behind them came a six-horned elk, a frost-tusk mammoth, a winged serpent, and a stone-backed ape bred to challenge giant warriors. Terrified, enraged, and driven forward by blood, smoke, and the pounding drums, the creatures surged into the prepared tunnels and began their violent climb toward the village above.
High above the pens, inside a private hall carved into one of Yggdrasil's enormous fallen branches, Prince Loki reclined across a massive stone bench as though he were watching a festival arranged in his honour.
A projection Den Den Mushi sat upon a carved pedestal beside him, casting a grainy image across the far wall. The shifting light revealed the lower terraces of the village, where the first signs of confusion were already beginning to spread. Giants stopped in the streets as vibrations passed through the ground. Civilians began pointing toward the paths leading up from the lower levels.
Loki raised a barrel-sized horn of mead with one hand and drained half of it in a single gulp. Honeyed foam spilled into his unkempt beard as he threw his head back and laughed, the booming sound rattling the wooden beams overhead.
His enormous greatsword rested against the bench beside him, its double-edged blade cold and spotless. Loki needed no legendary weapon or ancient trick to prove his birthright. His size, strength, and royal blood were more than enough in his mind. Thin strands of black lightning flickered around his shoulders before vanishing, the sign of a Conqueror whose power was immense but wild, driven more by pride than discipline.
"Look at them scurry!" Loki grinned, his white teeth gleaming in the dim hall. "Let those old fools on the council see how fragile their precious peace really is. Once the screaming starts, they'll remember that strength is the only thing that matters."
He took another long drink, watching the confusion spread as though the fear of his own people were nothing more than the opening performance of a play created for his amusement.
"And when it's over," he continued, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, "they'll have no choice but to acknowledge who truly rules this land."
Far beneath the prince's laughter, in the deepest stone dungeon of Elbaf, the air was freezing and thick with the smell of wet iron, moss, and ancient earth.
Giovanni sat cross-legged on the slick floor of his cell. Chains forged from dense giant metal bound his wrists, waist, and chest, anchoring him directly to the bedrock beneath the prison.
His breathing was slow, controlled, and quiet.
Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Inside his chest, his spirit felt like a star being forced into a cage. Giovanni's Haki had always been explosive, a violent storm that answered anger and danger by tearing outward. In the past, he would have broken the restraints, shattered the walls, and worried about the consequences after the dust settled.
Scopper Gaban's rough voice returned to him from memory.
"Real strength isn't letting the storm tear the roof off, kid. Any fool can throw a tantrum with Conqueror's Haki. Sovereign stillness means forcing the entire hurricane through the eye of a needle. Don't let it spread. Make it heavier."
Sweat gathered across Giovanni's forehead and ran down the side of his face. Veins stood out along his neck and forearms as he fought against his own instincts, dragging every trace of his violent aura back toward the centre of his chest.
The air around him trembled beneath the pressure, but not a single spark of black lightning escaped.
He was finally learning how to hold the blade by its handle instead of cutting himself on the edge.
Without disturbing that fragile stillness, Giovanni extended his Observation Haki upward. He did not release it like a wave or allow his presence to wash across the prison. Instead, he spread his awareness through the rock in thin, silent strands, threading it between the roots and foundations above.
The lives within the village appeared in his mind as separate flames burning in the dark.
He sensed Ida's large, steady presence near one of the upper halls. Gerd's bright and familiar aura moved along a residential path not far from her clinic. Near the market, Toki's calm presence remained close to Hiyori's smaller, energetic flame. Around them were hundreds of civilians, giants and guests alike, beginning what should have been an ordinary day.
Then the web trembled.
A violent burst of fear spread through the underground passages. Distant screams followed, faint through the stone but unmistakable.
Giovanni's eyes remained closed, though his jaw tightened. Through his Observation Haki, he felt several enormous presences forcing their way upward. The creatures were panicked rather than malicious, driven into a frenzy as they tore through barriers and climbed toward the crowded terraces of the central village.
Outside the iron-reinforced door of his cell, two young giant guards stood watch with long spears clutched in both hands. They exchanged uncertain glances when a faint vibration passed beneath their boots.
"Did you feel that?" one of them muttered, looking down the dark corridor. "Are they working on the roots above us?"
"The elders didn't mention any construction," the other replied, tightening his grip around the shaft of his weapon.
"Monstors?" Giovanni said from inside the cell.
His voice was frighteningly calm, barely louder than a whisper, yet it carried clearly through the bars.
The two guards spun toward him and raised their spears, the massive points aimed through the gaps in the door.
"Silence, pirate!" the first guard barked, though the slight tremble in his voice betrayed him. "You think we'll open the gate because of some cheap trick? You're here for attacking our warriors on the shore."
"I'm not trying to trick you." Giovanni did not move or open his eyes. His hands remained loose upon his knees as he continued forcing the pressure in his chest inward. "Beasts are entering the central village. There are children in their path. Gerd is up there. Lady Toki and Hiyori are up there. Send someone to confirm it, or open this door."
"We answer to the elders, not a prisoner," the second guard snapped as he stepped closer. "You'll remain where you are until the council decides what to do with you."
Giovanni swallowed and kept his fingers relaxed. Every instinct demanded that he rise, tear the chains apart, and blast his way through the prison before anyone else could be hurt.
He forced himself to remain seated.
'Ida is up there. The elders have warriors. They can handle it.'
He had spent too long solving every problem with brute force. Gaban's lesson meant nothing if the first hint of danger made him abandon it. He needed to trust the people above him, even if every part of him hated remaining still.
The chaos in the village continued to grow.
Giovanni tracked the ironhide boar as it smashed through a line of wooden stalls, scattering splintered timber across the market path. The white cave wolf bounded onto a residential terrace, snapping at fleeing civilians. Ida's presence began moving quickly toward one threat, while Gerd rushed several younger giant children behind a stone barrier.
Then Giovanni's attention fixed upon the central plaza.
The frost-tusk mammoth broke through the village floor in an explosion of shattered stone and earth. Smoke streamed from its hide as it threw its head from side to side, half-blind and terrified. Giants scattered before it, but the creature's panic drove it directly toward the terrace where Toki and Hiyori stood.
Toki grabbed Hiyori's hand and pulled her back. The girl stumbled over a broken length of timber and fell hard against the stone.
The mammoth raised one enormous foot.
Through Future Sight, Giovanni saw the next three seconds with perfect clarity.
He saw the foot descend.
He saw Toki throw herself forward.
He saw Hiyori disappear beneath it.
Giovanni's breathing stopped.
The temperature inside the dungeon seemed to plummet. His Haki did not explode outward. Instead, it compressed with such force that the dust suspended in the cell was driven against the walls. Hairline fractures spread silently through the bedrock beneath him.
The power trapped within his chest pressed against his ribs like a furnace.
Above, a thunderous impact shook the entire prison.
The village floor buckled as the first beast crashed through, sending broken stone, dirt, and fragments of wood raining into the lower corridors. The two young guards stumbled and caught themselves against the wall as the dungeon shook around them.
"W-what was that?" the first guard shouted, his discipline finally giving way to fear. "The floor above us is collapsing!"
Inside the cell, the giant-metal chains binding Giovanni did not snap.
They bent.
The links groaned beneath a terrible pressure concentrated into precise points rather than released throughout the prison. The restraints twisted slowly around his wrists, as though invisible hands were crushing the metal from within.
Giovanni opened his eyes.
There was no dramatic burst of light and no wave of Conqueror's Haki tearing through the corridor. His gaze was cold, focused, and utterly still. The pressure filling the cell was quieter than anything the guards had ever felt, and that silence made it far more frightening.
He looked through the iron bars at the two trembling giants.
"Move away from the door," Giovanni said quietly.
---
Find 10 early chapters and daily chapters on my patreon
[Patreon.com/tenten100?]