Creating More

To bolster his internal strength, Wang Gao restarted the artificial human project and created four new artificial humans in one go.

Artificial Human No. 4—Belfinger: a middle-aged man with a build as massive as a brown bear, standing 3.14 meters tall. He had spiky red hair, bronze skin, and liked to speak with his eyes half-closed. His exclusive Mecha was the "Nirvana Mecha."

Artificial Human No. 5—Mammon: a short, small-framed man standing 1.73 meters tall, with curly black hair and pale skin. Greedy and miserly by nature, his exclusive Mecha was the "Imitation Mecha."

Artificial Human No. 6—Beelzebub: a huge fat man standing 2.22 meters tall, with a bald head and bronze skin. He loved to gorge himself on food and drink. His exclusive Mecha was the "Devouring Mecha."

Artificial Human No. 7—Asmodeus: a mature woman with a seductive figure, standing 1.98 meters tall. She had long, wavy golden hair and dressed extremely revealingly. Her exclusive Mecha was the "Succubus Mecha."

Together with Leviathan's "Sea King Armor," Samael's "Demon King Armor," and Lucifer's "Brain Mecha"...

The Seven Deadly Sins of the artificial humans were officially born.

Among them, Lucifer was in charge of the intelligence network, "Skynet," while also serving as the Base Commander of Camel Island's Second Base.

Samael served as the Base Commander of Impel Down's First Base; Leviathan served as the Base Commander of Black Reef Archipelago's Third Base while also overseeing the Submarine Fleet.

Mammon served as the financial officer, Beelzebub and Belfinger as commanders of the guerrilla corps, and Asmodeus as the internal affairs officer.

Though their numbers were few, the organization's basic framework had taken shape. All that remained was to continue lying low and developing.

As commanders of the guerrilla corps, Belfinger and Beelzebub naturally could not remain on Camel Island for long.

Since the organization was already active in the South Blue, Belfinger and Beelzebub split up.

Belfinger planned to pass through the Black Reef Archipelago, cross the snow-covered Red Line from the Antarctic Circle in the South Blue, and enter the West Blue to operate.

Beelzebub, meanwhile, would cross the Calm Belt and enter Paradise, the first half of the Grand Line, to develop his forces there.

At the same time, Wang Gao immersed himself in technological research and development. He hoped to develop even more powerful weapons and achieve Star Destroyer Level power as soon as possible.

Elsewhere.

Within Impel Down, James Cook, whose wounds had healed, seemed to have found renewed determination after his humiliation. He resumed training in Rokushiki, Armament Haki, and Observation Haki.

The Mecha Wang Gao had given him lacked the obvious traits of the Seven Deadly Sins' Mechas. Its primary function was internal assistance, and it was called the "Evolution Mecha."

To a certain extent, this Mecha's potential was no less impressive than those of the Seven Deadly Sins.

After his frenzied training, the muscles inside his body repeatedly ruptured and regenerated, becoming increasingly terrifying. If an ordinary person trained like this, their muscles would simply dissolve and their bones would shatter.

Inside the training room, several jailers under his command watched Cook train like a madman and were utterly terrified, afraid that one careless mistake would cause him to train himself to death.

Even Hannibal, after secretly observing him once, thought Cook had gone insane.

What they did not know was that the Evolution Mecha inside Cook's body could continuously adjust and optimize his body, allowing it to keep breaking past its limits.

Even when his cell division reached its limit, the Evolution Mecha could still activate backup stem cells and use Cancerous Rebirth to reset the number of times his cells had divided, achieving something akin to infinite life.

Of course, Cancerous Rebirth was not without flaws. For instance, the brain could not be regenerated this way, because doing so would directly format its memories, emotions, and personality.

Furthermore, achieving true immortality required more than cellular immortality; the soul needed it as well. Cancerous Rebirth could not strengthen the soul's lifespan. Once the soul faded, no matter how young the body was, it would only be an empty shell—a walking corpse.

Thus, Cook's weakness lay in his brain. Of course, that was also humanity's universal weakness.

Besides, even this so-called weakness had a solution: backing up one's memories and personality through Skynet.

If one day his brain were completely destroyed, Cook could still be reborn using his backed-up memories, personality, and cells. At that point, however, he would essentially be a newborn possessing Cook's memories and personality.

Wang Gao had not yet completed soul-transfer technology. Otherwise, it would be resurrection in the truest sense, rather than the clone-like resurrection they had now.

Training himself to the brink of death, Cook became increasingly terrifying. After all, repeatedly pushing his cells to the verge of collapse and breaking through after being driven into a desperate situation brought his body closer and closer to perfection.

On the second underground level of Impel Down, inside the hunting chamber of Beast Hell.

Cook, dressed in shorts, stood beside a pool. At his side were five Blue Gorillas, along with Sadi, the current Chief Jailer of Beast Hell—the masochist who enjoyed interrogating prisoners and looked much like the later Little Sadi.

"Oh! What a strong body. But are you sure you want to go into the sea?" Sadi asked, licking her lips.

Like a hopelessly insensitive straight man, Cook replied coldly, "If I die in the sea, it only proves I was nothing special."

With that, he flipped over and dove into the pool like a fish leaping through the Dragon Gate. The pool connected to the ocean outside Impel Down.

"Then good luck to you!" Sadi said with a shrug and a smile.

The Blue Gorillas quickly jumped in as well, but none of them dared approach Cook. Their beastly instincts told them that this upright ape before them was an extremely dangerous creature.

He swam underwater like a sea fish.

The Evolution Mecha began to work, allowing Cook to gradually adapt to the water pressure and lack of oxygen.

Suddenly, an octopus-shaped Sea King emerged from the seafloor not far away. Enormous tentacles over ten meters thick whipped toward him at high speed.

Cook flipped over, inhaled and exhaled through his mouth, creating a massive reactive force that allowed him to evade the tentacles in an instant.

Hand Blade!

His arms crossed as he swung them, sending more than a dozen sharp vacuum blades slicing through the giant octopus in an instant, cutting it into dozens of pieces.

This was one of the secret techniques he had developed based on Rokushiki, mantis shrimp, and pistol shrimp.

Cavity Cannon!

He spun around instantly, and a vacuum shockwave shot forward at tremendous speed, killing a camouflaged crab Sea King.

The shockwave contained not only immense impact force, but also a super-high temperature of twelve thousand degrees Celsius in an instant. The crab Sea King was blown to pieces, its flesh charred black.

Two hours later, the Blue Gorillas had captured enough Sea Kings.

Having slipped deeper beneath the sea, Cook had already killed his seventh Sea King. At a depth of 5,000 meters, he was adapting to the water pressure.

This was the underwater world of the Calm Belt, a place even Blue Gorillas did not dare venture deep into. Yet the surrounding Sea Kings did not dare approach him lightly.

After all, Sea Kings possessed a certain degree of intelligence. They, too, feared death.

Now, aside from the medium and large Sea Kings measuring over a thousand meters, all Sea Kings under a thousand meters actively avoided the area around this man.

Elsewhere.

After watching the Blue Gorillas drag in the captured Sea Kings, Sadi failed to spot Cook and assumed that he had perished beneath the sea.

However, though Cook's adjutant was deeply worried, he pointed to the Vivre Card in his hand, indicating that Cook was still alive.

Three months later, Cook had reached the deepest part of the sea near Impel Down when a sentence sounded in his mind: Plan A activated.

With a kick of his legs, an immense reactive force instantly dented and shattered the seafloor rock around him.

His body, however, shot toward Impel Down like an arrow.

Thank you all for your support (ω｀)