A/N: holy shit it's 3 AM and i just saw @Vonhjin subscribed to my patreon! My first patreon bro! Uwahhhhh IM FIRED UP!!
A/N: Read 20+ chapters ahead at {patreon.com/Glivaria}
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"Mr. 2?!" Mr. 3 gasped, pushing himself up from the sand. "You're still alive too?!"
Bon Clay stopped spinning Luffy and looked at the melting wax man. He immediately dropped into a fighting stance, kicking his leg high into the air. "Galdino! You cowardly scum! What are you doing here with Straw Boy?!"
"I was kidnapped!" Mr. 3 sobbed defensively.
"We're going to Level 6, Bon!" Luffy explained, his smile fading into a look of absolute, burning determination. "Ace is down there. He's my brother. They're going to execute him in two days. I have to save him."
Bon Clay's flamboyant demeanor instantly dropped. He looked at Luffy's serious eyes, understanding the sheer gravity of the mission. To break into Level 6 was to declare war on the very concept of death itself. Magellan guarded the lower levels personally.
"Level 6..." Bon Clay whispered.
Then, a massive, brilliant smile broke across his face. He struck another pose, pointing dramatically toward the horizon of the Starvation Hell.
"Then I shall accompany you! To the very depths of the abyss!" Bon Clay declared, striking his chest. "For a friend, no fire is too hot, no beast is too fierce! We march to Level 6!"
"Thanks, Bon!" Luffy grinned.
"Don't celebrate yet," Zoro interrupted, his lone eye locked on the massive, heavy stone archway at the end of the desert corridor. "The heat is getting worse. And my Haki is picking up a massive cluster of auras heading straight for us."
From the shadows of the archway, a platoon of Impel Down guards marched into the heat. But these weren't standard guards. They wore heavy, heat-resistant armor and carried loaded bazookas.
"Intruders!" the platoon captain roared, aiming his weapon. "Do not let them reach the stairs to the Blazing Hell! Fire!"
Sanji took a long drag of his cigarette, exhaling a thick plume of smoke into the burning air. He ignited his leg, the flames burning even brighter in the ambient heat of Level 3.
Luffy cracked his knuckles, the invisible, dense armor coiling around his fists.
"Smash them!" Luffy ordered.
⬛ ⬛ ⬛
[ LEVEL 1 — THE CRIMSON HELL ]
Silence.
It was an absolute, heavy, terrifying silence.
The constant, agonizing groans of the tortured prisoners and the clanking of iron chains had completely ceased. The only sound in the entirety of the Crimson Hell was the slow, methodical clicking of pristine black boots against the stone.
Light Yagami stood at the far end of the final cell block.
He hadn't drawn his sword once. His hands rested casually in the pockets of his dark trousers. He looked at the final cell.
Inside, a pirate with a bounty of 30 million Beli was huddled in the corner, shaking uncontrollably, his eyes wide with a madness born of absolute terror. He had watched the man in the black shirt walk down the corridor, and he had watched every single man in the cells simply fall dead without a finger being laid upon them.
"P-please..." the pirate begged, his voice a pathetic, broken whisper. "I'll do anything... I'll give you treasure..."
Light looked at him. The system panel hovered above the man's head.
[ Name: "Bloody" Karn ][ Green: 12 | Bad: 210,000 ]
A profoundly filthy soul. Vastly beyond the 5,000-point threshold for execution.
Light didn't speak. He simply raised his index finger.
A microscopic pulse of Internal Destruction Haki crossed the physical space. The pirate's heart ruptured instantly. He fell sideways against the cold stone, dead before he even realized the negotiation had failed.
[ Target Eliminated. +21,000 KP. ]
Light exhaled slowly. It wasn't a sigh of exhaustion; it was a breath of absolute, euphoric clarity. The process was perfect. It was a flawless algorithm of execution. Assess the variable, confirm the threshold, eliminate the anomaly, extract the value.
With a thought, he pulled up his master system panel.
[ KARMA SYSTEM ] [ KP: 1,845,000 ]
[ LIFE FORCE Lv.10 — Next: 1,000,000 KP ]
[ WEAPON ARTS Lv.5 (MAX) ]
[ OBSERVATION Lv.3 — Next: 3,000,000 KP ]
[ ARMAMENT Lv.4 — Next: 10,000,000 KP ]
[ CONQUEROR'S Lv.1 — Next: 2,000,000 KP ]
(Rokushiki MAX)
[ FORCE AUTHORITY (MAX) ]
Nearly two million points harvested from a single floor. And he knew, mathematically, that the bounties and the corresponding Karma values only increased exponentially the deeper he went.
Level 1 was sterile. Clean.
Light turned around, his black coat billowing slightly in the cold, damp draft. He walked toward the massive, jagged hole Luffy had punched through the floorboards leading to Level 2.
He didn't jump with reckless abandon. He coated his boots in Force Authority, manipulating the spatial kinetic energy to create a gentle, controlled descent. He drifted down into the suffocating stench of the Wild Beast Hell.
He landed softly on the stone floor of Level 2.
Immediately, a pack of five Manticores, driven into a frenzy by the scent of fresh blood and the chaotic aura Luffy had left behind, lunged from the shadows.
"Meat..." the lead beast growled, its human face contorting into a sadistic grin.
Light didn't even look at them.
His dark eyes flared.
A raw, untamed wave of Conqueror's Haki erupted from his core. He didn't have the mastery to aim it perfectly or restrict its radius yet, but he didn't need to. The sheer, crushing weight of his absolute willpower slammed into the corridor like a physical tidal wave.
The Manticores froze in mid-air. Their eyes rolled into the back of their heads, thick foam erupting from their mouths. They hit the stone floor with heavy thuds, completely unconscious, alongside a few weaker prisoners in the immediate nearby cells who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the blast radius.
Light stepped over the drooling bodies. His Level 3 Observation Haki expanded, sweeping across the massive, sprawling grid of Level 2. He pinpointed thousands of red, glowing auras locked in their reinforced cages, waiting to be harvested.
He could faintly hear the sounds of Luffy's group fighting on the level directly beneath him. The vanguard was doing its job perfectly, drawing every single guard's attention away from the real threat.
"Now for the second phase" Light whispered to the darkness, raising his hand toward the first cell block.