Cellular Recombination

Crack crack crack crack!!

Under the terrifying grip, comparable to the bite force of a Sea King, his left foot—uncovered by Armament Haki—slowly deformed, shattered, and twisted!

It was like shoving an entire foot into a ten-thousand-ton hydraulic press.

Bullet used his terrifying huge hand, wrapped in blue-green Armament Haki, to resolutely and forcefully crush his own left foot into a bloody club mixed with thick blood and white bone fragments.

Then, the Sea-Prism Stone shackle that brute force could not destroy slipped off that bloody club.

Then came his right foot...

By the time the heavy Sea-Prism Stone ankle shackles slipped from his mangled feet, the floor of the cell had already been stained with a thick layer of blood.

A great deal of blood mixed with the dust on the floor, forming a bizarre dark-red oil painting.

"Good. My feet are free. Next are my hands."

Bullet's face was as firm as stone.

It was as though the feet crushed into strips did not belong to him at all.

Retracting the Armament Haki wrapped around his hands, he clenched both fists and slammed them viciously into the floor beneath him!

Boom!!

It was as if thousands upon thousands of tons of high explosives had detonated at once.

A heaven-shattering blast suddenly rang out through the empty Infinite Hell.

A vast shockwave burst from Bullet's cell.

The violent force, like a tangible wall, slammed the other inmates in the same cell against the walls.

Their already shriveled bodies suffered such a heavy blow that their bones and tendons snapped.

They did not even have time to scream before passing out.

Boom!!

Another earthshaking explosion followed immediately after.

A mountain-toppling, sea-parting force erupted like a volcano.

At that moment, the entire Impel Down prison, standing in the deep sea, rumbled and trembled.

Countless bits of dust and broken stone pattered down from the walls and ceiling.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Like thunderclaps during a storm, one world-shaking roar after another exploded through Infinite Hell.

Bullet stubbornly pounded the ground like a merciless pile-driving machine.

His hands, still shackled in Sea-Prism Stone cuffs, smashed into the hard floor again and again.

His strength was so immense that it seemed like a god beating a war drum.

His hands, uncovered by Armament Haki, gradually twisted, deformed, and shattered under the powerful impacts.

They were as horrifying as his mangled feet.

"Clang!"

At last, amid flying bloody fragments, a pair of heavy Sea-Prism Stone handcuffs crashed onto the ground.

Bullet's entire body was drenched in blood. His shattered, twisted hands and feet had white bone splinters protruding from torn flesh, making one's scalp tingle.

Yet the grin on Bullet's lips only grew wider.

"Zehahahaha!"

"Zehahahahahaha!!"

He threw back his head and laughed wildly, the enormous sound echoing through the empty level of Infinite Hell.

Unrestrained!

Defiant!

The shackles binding the beast had fallen away, and the demonic god lurking in darkness had finally emerged!

As he looked at the horrific injuries covering his body, the red gleam in Bullet's eyes gradually faded.

His frenzied mind regained its clarity.

A curve formed at the corner of his mouth as he extended his shattered, twisted hands.

"Then let me see whether I can reach that level."

"If I can't, this method of regaining my freedom would be far too ugly."

"Hahahaha!"

As he muttered to himself, he activated his Devil Fruit ability.

He was the user of the Paramecia-type Combine-Combine Fruit.

He had discovered this Devil Fruit by chance when he was thirteen, severely injured and at the end of his rope.

According to the memories he had fused with, Devil Fruits chose suitable owners.

Then perhaps, back then, it had not been he who found the Combine-Combine Fruit.

It had been the Combine-Combine Fruit that found him.

He, Douglas Barrett, was precisely the person best suited to this Devil Fruit.

The Paramecia-type Combine-Combine Fruit could arrange and combine all objects, fusing them together.

It could also fuse inorganic matter he touched with his own body, producing whatever transformation he desired.

As early as several years ago, Bullet had developed his Devil Fruit ability to the level of Devil Fruit Awakening.

Although Sea-Prism Stone had restrained him, leaving him no chance to put the Combine-Combine Fruit's power into practice,

Bullet had believed that his development of the Combine-Combine Fruit had already reached the limits of that ability.

Until half a year ago, when he fused with the soul from another world and learned much knowledge beyond his previous understanding.

Things such as physics, chemistry, and biology.

That made Bullet realize that the development of Devil Fruit abilities might have no limits at all!

So for the past half year, aside from his daily training, he had even studied other paths for developing the Combine-Combine Fruit in his sleep.

For example, combining himself, arranging and recombining the cells of his body, and tempering himself on a deeper level.

As the Combine-Combine Fruit's power activated, a peculiar force surged from within Bullet's body.

Under the command of his powerful will, a large mass of hazy light soaked through and enveloped his shattered hands and feet.

"Cellular Recombination!"

A bright light bloomed in Bullet's eyes as his mind focused as never before.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Time slowly passed.

After more than ten minutes, his flesh—still incomparably tough despite being shattered and twisted—began to undergo a bizarre change!

Splash splash splash!

Like a melting candle.

Under the influence of the Combine-Combine Fruit, Bullet's shattered hands and feet rapidly collapsed and melted, turning into a mass of thick paste.

Hazy light rippled within it as the bloody paste began flowing like water!

The wondrous effect spread from his hands and feet, rapidly extending throughout his entire body!

"Hm?!"

Feeling that strange sensation, Bullet's massive body jolted.

Rather than being alarmed, he was delighted. He released the blue-green Armament Haki covering his body, allowing the Combine-Combine Fruit's power to rush in and thoroughly permeate him.

Splash!

An astonishing change occurred!

In the dim cell, Bullet's mountain-like, massive body suddenly collapsed, turning into a huge mass of dark-red fluid that rolled and surged through the cell like waves.

Within the dark-red fluid, Bullet's consciousness rejoiced wildly.

"Success! I achieved cellular recombination of my own body!"

"This is another form of development beyond the Combine-Combine Fruit's Awakening!"

Under the control of his consciousness, the torrent of cells his body had become split into more than a dozen slender streams and flew out through the gaps in the cell bars.

Strands of dark-red matter spun together, gradually forming Bullet's original body in the corridor outside the cell.

Tall and broad, mighty as a mountain.

Looking at his hands and feet, completely restored and without a single wound, Bullet felt a little excited.

He extended his right hand.

With his ability activated, his large-knuckled palm turned into a stream of dark-red particles.

The particle stream flowed and transformed into a vivid flower.

Then it became a lifelike squirrel.

"Chirp chirp chirp." The squirrel called out as though it possessed a will of its own, but Bullet himself was actually controlling it.

He was not a Logia, yet he could freely alter his own form.

He saw the direction in which he could continue growing stronger, and his heart was no longer as lost as before.

He wanted to become stronger.

Stronger!

Until he was the strongest!

"Are you really Douglas Barrett?"

From the deathly silent depths of the darkness came a somewhat aged, yet vigorous voice.

Bullet looked over indifferently.

It was a solitary cell, likewise unopened by the escaped prisoners.

Inside sat a prisoner whose hands and feet were locked in Sea-Prism Stone shackles.

He had long silver-white hair and crow's feet as deep as ravines at the corners of his eyes.

His eyes shone with wisdom, as though they could see into people's hearts.

His lips were crimson as blood.

He was clearly a prisoner.

Yet his bearing was as dignified and proper as that of a high-ranking noble.

As though he was not in a gloomy, sinister prison cell.

But in a solemn and magnificent ancient castle.