Magellan's Rampage

"Ah! Someone save me?!"

"I don't want to die! Magellan! Stop! I'm willing to go back to my cell, ah..."

"Buggy! Captain Buggy! Hurry and stop Magellan!"

On the passage bridge of Red Lotus Hell, few of the prisoners who had followed Buggy, Luffy, and the others in their escape remained.

Motionless corpses littered the ground.

Their surfaces were all covered in large amounts of purple venom.

Some were still giving off green smoke.

Magellan was a Venom-Venom Fruit user.

He could produce deep-purple deadly poison from any part of his body.

His sweat, saliva, breath, and even sighs were all poisonous gases.

The venom could paralyze a living creature's nerves, cause pain or hallucinations, and even result in death.

It was also potent enough to melt stone with a single strike.

Anyone poisoned needed Magellan's antidote to be saved.

This ability was so powerful, especially when paired with the enclosed environment of Undersea Prison.

With his strength alone, Magellan could control the lives and deaths of every prisoner in this hell.

He was like the king of hell.

The effects of the Venom-Venom Fruit were so overbearing that even its user suffered extremely severe aftereffects.

Magellan could only work four hours a day.

Every day, he had to spend more than ten hours in a dark bathroom suffering from diarrhea.

If not for that—

His Haki and physical combat skills would not have fallen so far behind.

But at this moment, he had completely gone berserk.

Without caring how severe the Venom-Venom Fruit's aftereffects might be, he continuously used venom and poisonous gas.

Amid the corpses covering the ground, Magellan himself was also riddled with wounds.

Because of the sudden change earlier—

The passage leading to the first level above sea level had been completely sealed off.

Luffy, Jinbe, Crocodile, and the others had spent quite some time trying to break through the blocked exit.

But strangely—

No matter how many times they smashed the wall before them—

A hazy purple glow would immediately coil over it and restore the wall.

What troubled them even more was—

The black wall coated in Haki was absurdly hard, comparable to a true wall of steel.

With no way up and no way down, the pirates fell into utter despair.

They began a desperate counterattack.

They intended to kill every member of the prison forces led by Magellan!

Magellan gritted his teeth and growled, his eyes filled with scarlet killing intent.

With this floor completely sealed off—

He decisively unleashed his most powerful technique.

"The next poison is a forbidden technique of the Venom-Venom Fruit."

"Once it is used, it may very well lead to the destruction of all Impel Down!"

"I may even die because of it!"

"However—"

"To purge the likes of you, the necessary sacrifice is worth it!"

A flash of resolve crossed Magellan's eyes.

Gradually, new venom began to bubble from the surface of his towering body.

Unlike the purple poison from before—

The newly emerging venom was an extreme dark red.

It looked like vast patches of rust.

"Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle..."

Bright-red and dark-red venom poured out endlessly, submerging Magellan's body within it.

The venom rose like a fountain, piling higher and growing larger.

Finally, the terrifying dark-red venom—

Under the pale-faced gazes of Luffy, Buggy, and the others, formed a skeletal giant over ten meters tall!

"Venom Demon! Judgment of Hell!!"

As he looked at the poison giant radiating a terrifying aura—

Buggy's calves trembled.

"Th-This... what is that?"

"Three! Hurry and use Candle Wall to stop him!" Luffy shouted anxiously at Galdino.

But Galdino's face had gone deathly pale, and none of his earlier confidence remained.

There was no color in his face as his eyes stared fixedly at the ground.

"The... the ground has been melted by the venom!"

He then looked at several cannons placed on the ground, close to Magellan.

A horrifying sight appeared.

The cast-iron cannon barrels that had touched the venom melted rapidly like candle stubs held over a fire.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

Drops of scorching molten iron fell to the ground, sending up puffs of white smoke.

As the dark-red venom spread, every patch of ground touched by the deadly poison melted into a thick, lava-like liquid.

Not only that, the venom kept evaporating, forming wisps of rust-colored poisonous mist that gradually filled the entire level of Red Lotus Hell!

"It's over! Poison is everywhere, and we can't break through the exit! We're all going to die here!"

Bon Kurei stood on one foot and danced a comical ballet, crying out in panic.

Crocodile held a cigar between his lips, his expression dark and uncertain.

Only now did he begin to sense that something was wrong.

As he watched the passage wall get blasted apart again, only to be swiftly filled by countless particles and covered with a layer of blue-black Haki—

A name from his memories gradually surfaced.

His eyes narrowed. "Is it really him? That guy should also be imprisoned in Infinite Hell. Only, as one of the most vicious prisoners, he would be held in the deepest part of Infinite Hell."

Crocodile's gaze dropped to the ground beneath his feet. "Douglas Barrett, that madman... is he coming for me?"

Among everyone present, it seemed only he had some history with Bullet.

More than twenty years ago—

After Roger turned himself in and Bullet lost his goal, Bullet went on a rampage through the seas of the New World. He had a brief clash with Crocodile, then a rookie who had just entered those waters.

Though outsiders claimed—

That he and Bullet had fought to a draw—

Crocodile knew the truth himself.

Bullet had not gone all out back then.

Of course, in his younger days, he had indeed been fearless and full of spirit.

His strength had also been far greater than it was now.

Just as Moria, from the same generation back then, had been able to clash with Kaido.

Their later defeats had severely damaged the confidence of several of those rookies.

It had even caused their Haki to fade and their physical combat abilities to decline drastically.

Shaking his head, Crocodile turned to look at Magellan, who was slaughtering prisoners and Okama pirates.

He glanced at Jinbe, whose expression was solemn.

"Hey."

"Looks like we have to deal with Magellan first."

"Otherwise, these people will probably all be wiped out."

Not far away, the dark-red poison giant was wreaking havoc across the battlefield.

As Magellan raised his right hand, the poison giant's dark-red hand rose high as well.

Like a puppet controlled by Magellan, it came crashing down through the air toward where Luffy stood!

"Three!" White steam curled around Luffy's body as he decisively activated Second Gear and vanished in a flash, shouting urgently.

"Don't call for me! I already said Candle Wall can't stop Magellan anymore!"

Galdino's mouth twitched. Flames flickered atop his head as he repeatedly released snowy-white wax from both hands, forming a dome wall dozens of meters wide.

Boom!

The dark-red giant hand slammed down onto the snow-white wax dome.

The tremendous force cracked the ground beneath the wax dome.

The Candle Wall Galdino created bought Buggy and the few remaining prisoners behind it time to flee.

A few seconds later—

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

The iron-hard Candle Wall began to melt rapidly like snow doused in hot oil.

At that moment, a nimble, chubby blue figure darted over. From more than ten meters away, he threw a punch through the air at the poison giant surrounding Magellan!

"Fish-Man Karate!"

"Arabesque Brick Fist!"