Impel Down, Third Sublevel.
Starvation Hell.
The air here was thick and searing, so hot it felt like every breath scraped sparks straight into your lungs.
Starvation Hell lay on the third sublevel, directly above Blazing Hell—the fourth level, a monstrous furnace that never slept. Heat bled upward without mercy, turning the corridor into a suffocating kiln.
Darren strolled through the dim passageways, eyes roaming with open curiosity. Behind him, Magellan was already drenched, sweat pouring down his face.
What Darren had told Sengoku earlier hadn't been entirely bluff.
Back when he was still a Marine, he'd never served at Impel Down. He'd never even set foot in this deep-sea prison.
The reason was simple: Impel Down existed to hold criminals.
But any pirate who drew Darren's attention only had two endings—death, or being dragged onto his side. There was never a third.
So the usual routine of capturing pirates alive and shipping them off to rot behind bars had never applied to him.
If anything, it saved him a lot of hassle.
"L-Let me out! I'll twist Garp's head off…!"
"Zephyr… that bastard isn't dead yet, is he? He beat me and still spared my life…"
"Hey, kid, nice outfit! Wanna come in and play with me?"
"Hahahaha! Kid… let me out and all the treasure I buried in the South Blue is yours! Gold, silver—more than you can carry!"
…
Hoarse curses and warped laughter seeped from every direction, as if shadows were whispering inside the cells.
But up close, most of the voices belonged to bodies that had withered into near-mummies—dehydrated, starved, and cooked by the heat until they barely had the strength to twitch. Whatever menace their words carried, their bodies couldn't back it up anymore.
"Uh… Chief Guard Wayne," Magellan asked carefully, wiping sweat from his brow, "why did you come to Impel Down this time? Do you… have a mission?"
He flicked the sweat aside.
A single droplet splattered onto a prisoner in the nearest cell.
The man convulsed on the spot. His face turned a sickly purple-black, and foam bubbled from his mouth as he spasmed like a fish on a dock.
Darren's lips twitched.
Magellan's Venom-Venom Fruit had gotten even nastier since the last time they'd met.
"I'm here to challenge the strongest inmates on the sixth level," Darren said, lighting a cigar as he moved down the stairs toward the fourth level.
"The sixth level?" Magellan froze. Then his eyes went wide. "Impel Down… actually has a sixth level!?"
To the public, the Great Prison had five underground levels, plus the surface level above the sea. The so-called sixth—Eternal Hell—was dismissed as rumor, a ghost story to scare children and pirates.
"It exists," Darren said, nodding faintly.
The moment he stepped into Blazing Hell, heat smashed into him like a wall. Dark crimson light flickered across the stone. Flames licked up through cracks in the floor, breathing like something alive.
The air had to be well past seventy degrees Celsius.
Darren didn't even blink.
"The sixth sublevel, Eternal Hell, is reserved for the worst criminals on the sea," he said evenly. "For example—Balorick Redfield. 'Red the Aloof.' He's down there right now."
Magellan sucked in a sharp breath, suddenly aware of the prison beneath his feet in a completely different way.
A legendary pirate… in the same building as me?
"…So if the Government ever captured me," Magellan muttered, half to himself, "I'd theoretically be sent to Eternal Hell too."
Darren chuckled. "More like you'd be publicly executed."
Magellan: "..."
You think you're funny?
After a beat, Magellan swallowed and tried again. "If Eternal Hell is real, those criminals must be sealed in separate cells. You could challenge them one by one. If you need keys, I can request them from the warden."
"No need," Darren said, waving it away.
Magellan blinked, thrown off balance.
By then they'd already passed through the furnace of Blazing Hell and entered the frozen depths of the fifth level—Freezing Hell.
The temperature dropped like a blade.
White swallowed everything, as though the world had been buried under ice and snow. The violent shift left Magellan's skin raw and cracked, his face flushed and stinging.
Darren simply sped up. In under two minutes he reached the far end of the level and stopped before a massive gate.
"It's real…" Magellan stared, stunned.
With Observation Haki, he could feel it—waves of violent, savage presence pulsing behind the barrier. Monstrous auras, one after another, piled like teeth in the dark, as if the gate truly sealed off Hell itself.
And Darren…
A sharp, eager light crept into his eyes.
He'd been fascinated by Impel Down for a long time. Back when he'd still been Supreme Commander of the North Blue, he'd even entertained the idea of requesting a transfer here once he stepped down.
At the time, his training had been accelerating at a terrifying pace. He'd imagined "continuing his studies" by fighting his way down from the first level to the sixth—clearing each floor like an examination. By the time he reached Eternal Hell, he would have "graduated."
Real men conquer all six levels.
Back then, he'd believed that clearing the entire prison would guarantee he'd reach Admiral-level strength—and if some hidden monster was sealed in Eternal Hell, maybe he'd even leap straight into the realm of legends.
A childish fantasy.
Then Marineford happened. Orders shifted. He was thrown into the Elite Officer Training Camp.
One event after another, until he came back to himself with blood on his hands—slaughtering his way across Felsek Island.
Now, at last, the inauguration ceremony for the Commander of the Knights of God had created a gap large enough to slip through.
And for the Darren of today, everything above Eternal Hell was just scenery.
I won't let a single one escape.
His eyes burned as he raised his hand.
Blue lightning snapped from his fingertips. The lock shattered.
The reinforced gate groaned—and slowly, slowly swung open.
To be continued...