Chapter 69: The Warden and the Dark King
The silence in the Level 6 corridor was profound, broken only by the drip of venom and the ragged breaths of newly-freed monsters. Rayleigh's words hung in the toxic air, a declaration so unexpected it had momentarily frozen the chaos.
Magellan stared, his fury at the jailbreak warring with sheer disbelief. The Dark King, a prisoner he had been ordered to break, was now offering to stand with him against a common, far more immediate threat: the unleashed horrors of Eternal Hell.
The prisoners—Douglas Bullet, his mechanical fist clenching; Avalo Pizarro, a cruel smile playing on his lips; Catarina Devon, cackling softly—they all processed it. Rayleigh wasn't just refusing to join them; he was actively choosing to be their jailer.
"You've gone senile, Rayleigh," Crocodile's voice grated from further down the corridor where he'd paused, sensing the shift. "Sentiment in a place like this gets you killed."
"It's not sentiment," Rayleigh said calmly, raising his borrowed sword. His Haki, a deep, steady crimson, coated the blade. It wasn't the overwhelming burst of a conqueror; it was the refined, unbreakable will of a master. "It's a transaction. And a preference. I'd rather deal with a warden who follows rules, however harsh, than with animals who make their own in a slaughterhouse."
He took a step forward, placing himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Magellan. The warden, after a final second of stunned hesitation, gave a grim, approving nod. The enemy of his enemy, in this most desperate moment, was an ally.
"Fine words from a man in chains a moment ago," Douglas Bullet rumbled, stepping out of his cell fully. His massive form seemed to fill the corridor. "But words won't stop us. Neither will an old legend and a poison-spewing jailer."
"We don't need to stop you all," Magellan hissed, venom dripping from his jaws. "Just enough of you. Just long enough." He knew the logistics. The gates, the elevators, the seastone traps—they could bottle up this riot if they held the chokepoint. But they had to hold it now.
"Heh… hehehe…" A new, familiar laugh echoed from the stairwell entrance. Teach, Blackbeard, emerged, flanked by his core crew—Laffitte, Burgess, Doc Q. Shiryu of the Rain stood slightly apart, a smirk on his face. "Zehahaha! Look at this! The great Dark King playing Marine! What a scene!"
Blackbeard's eyes, however, weren't on Rayleigh. They darted past the standoff, searching the cells. He wasn't here just to escape; he was here to recruit. His gaze landed on the most powerful, the most unhinged. "Bullet! Pizarro! Devon! Join me! This old era is crumbling! Whitebeard is fighting his last war! A new age is coming, and I will be its king! With your strength, we can take anything! Zehahaha!"
He was making his pitch amidst the impending battle, a testament to his audacity.
Rayleigh ignored him, his focus on the immediate physical threat. "Magellan, the big one is mine. You handle the area."
Before Magellan could agree, Rayleigh moved. Not with the flashy speed of his youth, but with a terrifying economy of motion that closed the distance to Douglas Bullet in a blink. His sword, sheathed in supreme Armament Haki, thrust not at Bullet's heart, but at the space before him—a feint that forced the brawler to commit his guard.
"Old man! You chose wrong!" Bullet roared, his own Haki-flared fist meeting the blade in a concussion of force that shook dust from the ceiling.
As they clashed, the dam broke.
Avalo Pizarro, seeing an opening, lunged for the stairwell. A wall of vibrant, rose-colored venom erupted in his path—Magellan's Hydra. Multiple dragon heads of poison shot forth, forcing Pizarro back with a snarl.
"None of you are leaving this floor!" Magellan declared, becoming a one-man toxic barricade.
But there were too many. Catarina Devon transformed, her body shifting into a monstrous, bestial form as she scrambled along the wall, trying to bypass the fight. Other prisoners, seeing the two strongest distracted, made a frenzied rush for the exit Blackbeard had come from.
Chaos erupted in the narrow space. Haki-enhanced blows traded with venomous waves and wild, desperate attacks. It was a brutal, close-quarters melee where a single mistake meant death or capture.
Rayleigh and Bullet were the epicenter. Bullet's strength was monstrous, each punch capable of shattering battleships. But Rayleigh's skill was transcendent. He didn't meet force with force; he deflected, redirected, used Bullet's own momentum against him. His sword was a flickering extension of his will, finding gaps in the mechanical armor, scoring lines on Bullet's Haki-toughened skin. It was a masterclass in high-level combat, but Rayleigh was breathing heavily. The toll of his imprisonment and the CP0 torture was real. He was fighting on spirit and borrowed time.
Magellan was a zone of death. Poison mist filled the corridor, and prisoners who inhaled it fell, convulsing. He fought with the desperate fury of a man defending his life's work. But even he couldn't cover every angle. A few prisoners, including a sly, fast-moving figure, slipped through the toxic gauntlet and up the stairs.
Blackbeard watched the carnage, laughing. This was perfect. The strong would prove themselves here. The survivors would be worthy crewmates. He made no move to help anyone, simply observing, his greedy eyes cataloging power.
From the shadows of an empty cell he had vacated, a spectral thread of awareness observed it all. It was a tiny, dormant fragment of Levi's Reiatsu, left behind like a surveillance bug during his earlier experiments. It had no will of its own, but it recorded the spiritual signatures, the conflicts, the outcomes.
The fragment felt Rayleigh's determined, yet weary soul, holding the line based on a twisted debt to his captor. It felt Magellan's righteous, toxic fury. It felt the raging, malignant auras of the escaping monsters. And it felt Blackbeard's voracious, opportunistic darkness.
Back on the frozen bay of Marineford, amidst his own high-stakes performance, a fraction of Levi's consciousness received the impression. A slight, cold smile touched his lips, invisible to all.
Good, he thought. The prison riot is proceeding. Rayleigh is playing his part. The strong are being filtered. And Blackbeard is gathering his monsters.
It was all useful data. The chaos in Impel Down wasn't a setback; it was a sorting mechanism. The prisoners who escaped would become problems for the World Government, drawing resources and attention. The ones Blackbeard recruited would become a concentrated threat, a future enemy to be neatly dealt with. And Rayleigh… Rayleigh was now irreversibly tied to Levi through a chain of perceived debt and subtle spiritual manipulation. A piece on the board, moving as predicted.
The duel with Whitebeard demanded his primary focus. But in the back of his mind, the game in the shadows was progressing beautifully. Every conflict, every burst of chaos, was just another step in his long, calculated climb to a position where no prison could hold him, and no government could command him.
(End of Chapter)
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