The elderly Red Earl, dressed in a black-and-white striped prison uniform, froze when he heard Houka's words.
Another timeline?
What did that mean?
No, this man actually knew that deep down, he feared "growing old."
He possessed Mind-Reading Observation Haki, yet he could not read this man's mind. Instead, the man had seen through his own inner struggle.
Redfield stared at Houka in silence for a long time, a flicker of complex emotion crossing his eyes.
Just like Xuan Gu's final look at Han Li before his death.
"Forget... it..."
"I hope the me in that other world isn't as lonely as I am, slowly growing old in the sunless depths of Impel Down."
Redfield knew Houka would not spare him. All he could do was calmly accept his death.
He recalled his miserable life.
Having awakened a special form of Observation Haki at birth, he had seen through this disgusting world and come to despise it at an early age.
Apart from Brook, a senior musician with a pure heart, he had no friends or companions. He had roamed the seas alone.
Later, he had fought Kong one-on-one, only for Iron Fist Garp to swoop in afterward and lock him up in Impel Down.
That imprisonment had lasted twenty or thirty years.
It truly was not a life worth clinging to.
Now he had learned that his other self had friends, companions, and even an adopted son...
That other self had even asked the monstrous man before him to help find Pure Gold.
Surely his other self had lived a richer, happier life than he had.
Honestly, he really did feel a little envious of himself in that other world.
"I really wish I could meet my other self..."
Within Houka's Devouring Soul Fire, Redfield finally let out