Next Bonus, 100!!
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Marineford!
The three Admirals sat in their designated chairs beneath the execution platform.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku surveyed the meticulously arranged defensive lines, his expression grim and calculating.
To reach Marineford, the Whitebeard fleet had to punch through several layers of Marine blockades.
The moment Whitebeard launched his assault, he would be forced to reveal the size and composition of his armada.
From there, the Marines could simply bleed them out, utilizing the overwhelming numerical and geographical advantage of the base to dictate the terms of a massive naval battle.
Furthermore, intelligence from the New World indicated that Kaido was mobilizing to strike Whitebeard's undefended rear.
In Sengoku's mind, this would inevitably force Whitebeard to push for a rapid, reckless engagement.
Anticipating this, Sengoku had deployed a ring of fifty heavily armed Marine warships around Marineford.
The plan was airtight. The moment Whitebeard breached the Gates of Justice, regardless of his vector of approach, the Marines would launch a coordinated naval strike, intending to crush the Whitebeard fleet before they ever set foot on land.
It was a flawless, lethal deployment.
Yet, as the scheduled hour of execution drew closer, there was still no sign of the Whitebeard armada.
The seasoned Fleet Admiral's brow furrowed.
He radioed his commanders, warning them to remain hyper-vigilant. Whitebeard could strike from anywhere at any moment. They could not afford a single lapse in concentration.
Just as the tension reached a fever pitch...
Forty-three allied pirate crews from the New World, all flying Whitebeard's colors, suddenly materialized near the Sabaody Archipelago.
They immediately drew the attention and fire of the outer Marine cordons.
But within that massive allied fleet...
There was no sign of Whitebeard's main force or the Moby Dick.
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Impel Down, Surface Level.
Having fought their way up from Level 1, Luffy's group crashed out of a stairwell and found themselves face-to-face with the Blackbeard Pirates, who had used the elevators to bypass Magellan entirely.
"What's going on here?"
"Zehahahaha! Well, this is an unexpected reunion!" Teach roared with laughter, staring down the corridor.
As the dust settled, the figures emerged from the gloom.
Luffy, leading the charge, ground to a halt at the sound of that sickeningly familiar laugh. He locked eyes with Teach.
Luffy's eyes darkened with raw fury. "Blackbeard... Teach!"
Behind him, Jinbe, Ivankov, and the others slowed their pace, assessing the threat.
"Oh! If it isn't Straw Hat Luffy!" Teach mocked. "You're still kicking? That's a shame. Your brother Ace is about to lose his head on the execution stand, you know!"
He threw his head back and laughed, twisting the knife.
"You bastard! I'm going to kill you!" Luffy screamed, launching himself forward.
"Hold on, Luffy!" Jinbe grabbed his shoulder, holding him back. "Now is not the time to get bogged down in a fight with him. We have to keep moving."
Teach opened his mouth to deliver another taunt, but Laffitte dropped silently from the ceiling, landing beside him. He leaned in and whispered, "Captain. There's a ship docked outside. It's flying the Black Dragon flag."
"What??" Teach jumped, his eyes going wide. "Jin is here??"
"Change of plans! We're leaving! Now!"
Without another word, Teach and his crew bolted for the exit.
Luffy and the others cautiously followed them out.
They watched as Blackbeard's crew frantically scrambled aboard a massive raft and desperately rowed away from the docks.
And there, moored securely to the pier, was a colossal, ironclad warship.
The Black Dragon flag snapped in the wind.
Ivankov's eyes widened in realization. "That man who blocked our path below... that was King Jin?"
No wonder Blackbeard had run like a whipped dog.
"To get from Impel Down to Marineford, we have to pass through the Gates of Justice," Jinbe said, analyzing the situation.
"The sea currents around the gates are designed to flow in a massive, reverse whirlpool. There's no way to sail around them."
"The only way through is to open the gates, and the controls for that are located inside the prison's central security room. Someone has to manually operate them."
"Do Blackbeard and his crew not know that?"
"No, they know," Inazuma said coolly. "I saw Shiryu with them. He was the Head Jailer here. He knows exactly how the system works. Since they came up via the main elevator, they must have already compromised the control room on their way up. The Gates of Justice are likely open."
"Then we need to move!" Ivankov urged. "Let's hijack a warship and follow them!"
They sprinted for a docked Marine vessel.
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Level 2!
Magellan glared down the ruined corridor as a figure slowly emerged from the shadows.
"The Red Count... Patrick Redfield."
He was a tall, incredibly slender old man. His white hair was braided into two long tails that rested on his shoulders. He wore the standard black-and-white striped prison uniform, and his eyebrows were a striking, vibrant red.
Even dressed in prison garb, he possessed an undeniable air of aristocratic elegance.
"Magellan," the old man said politely. "Do step aside."
"Hey, old man, why are you asking so nicely?"
A hulking, immensely muscular man stepped out behind Redfield, his voice laced with impatience.
Magellan's eyes narrowed. "Douglas Bullet, the 'Demon Heir.' And Byrnndi World, the 'World Destroyer.'"
"Hahaha! I've been frozen in ice for decades, and people still remember my name! I'm honored!" Byrnndi World laughed loudly. He wore a distinctive horned helmet.
"You've unleashed absolute monsters," Magellan hissed. "If I let you leave this place, the world itself will tremble."
"Cut the crap! How much fight do you have left in you??" Bullet roared, launching himself into the air and driving a massive fist toward Magellan.
Having been imprisoned for so long, their stamina was not at its peak. In a straight, drawn-out fight, they weren't guaranteed to beat Magellan.
Their strategy was simple: bleed him out first.
"Venom Demon!"
Magellan unleashed three colossal, dragon-shaped constructs of pure, lethal venom.
They lunged at Bullet.
After ordering Domino and the guards to pursue the escaping prisoners, Magellan had specifically chosen Level 2 as his battlefield. The confined space allowed him to maximize the effectiveness of his overwhelming venom and poison gas.
BOOM!
Bullet's savage punch shattered one of the venom dragons.
But a torrent of toxic sludge splashed toward him.
Bullet frowned. He knew exactly how lethal Magellan's poison was. Unwilling to risk contact, he flipped backward, landing heavily and cracking the floor.
But the floor itself was quickly filling with venom.
Bullet threw a punch at the empty air, generating a massive shockwave that blasted the venom away, creating a safe landing zone.
"Are you two just going to stand there and watch??" Bullet yelled, annoyed.
"..." Byrnndi World lunged at Magellan.
"More-More: Fifty-Fold Punch!"
His fighting style was pure, unadulterated savagery.
BOOM!
The resulting shockwave from the amplified punch blasted through the wave of venom.
It also slammed into a massive chunk of stone that had suddenly fallen from the ceiling, shattering it into fragments that scattered through the swirling poison gas.
Then... more stones began to fall.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Huge boulders crashed into the corridor.
Stones? Falling from above?
Redfield looked up.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
A massive, gaping void had appeared in the ceiling.
The history of Impel Down's construction was lost to time, but it vastly predated the World Government. Each subterranean level was colossally huge, larger than most mid-sized islands. Who had possessed the architectural genius to build it was a mystery.
But right now... the entirety of Level 1 had simply vanished.
It wasn't just Redfield.
Bullet, World, and Magellan—all of them paused in their fight, dodging the falling debris, sensing that something was horribly wrong.
Suddenly, Redfield moved.
He drew a cane sword he had scavenged along the way. With blinding speed, he slashed at a falling boulder.
CLANG!
His blade was effortlessly blocked.
Only then did he see the figure standing atop the massive chunk of falling rock.
A man, holding a black-bladed katana with one hand, had parried his strike.
"Excellent Observation Haki, Red Count," Jin remarked.
He channeled a burst of power through Shusui, forcing Redfield back.
BOOM!
The boulder slammed into the ground. Jin stood atop it, surveying the chaotic battlefield.
"Who are you??" the four men demanded simultaneously, their bodies tense.
Anyone capable of erasing an entire level of Impel Down from existence was a threat of the highest order.
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