A Predicament with No Escape

Impel Down, the world's greatest prison.

It was known as an "impregnable fortress."

There was no place pirates feared more. Once they entered, they might never get out again.

Impel Down, also known as the Underwater Prison, had six levels—the first level, Crimson Hell; the second level, Wild Beast Hell; the third level, Hunger Hell; the fourth level, Burning Hell; the fifth level, Level 5, Freezing Hell; and the sixth level, Level 6, Eternal Hell. Few people even knew the sixth level existed.

Prisoners were assigned to different levels according to their strength and the threat they posed to the world.

Those sent to the final sixth level were no ordinary people. They were either condemned to death or imprisoned for life, monstrous criminals so vicious that they had been erased from history.

At that moment, Level 6, Eternal Hell.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

As a burst of dense footsteps echoed through the gloomy prison corridor, several Marines carried in a bloodied prisoner, drawing sharp gazes from the inmates locked in every cell.

"Hey, hey, hey! Which unlucky bastard got caught this time?"

"Let me see... A kid? Are you kidding me? Since when did Eternal Hell change its rules?! Don't tell me this kid has a bounty of several hundred million!"

"Looks like he's hurt pretty badly. His whole body's fallen apart. Wonder if he's dead. If they toss him into my cell, I'll make sure to love him properly, hahahaha!"

"Give it a rest! Kibanu, you'd screw him to death!"

They burst into laughter and continued their banter, teasing one another for amusement.

The passing Marines shrank back in fear. They were actually terrified of these prisoners locked behind bars!

Though these prisoners had been shackled with chains and Seastone cuffs and had lost all their strength, they were still inmates of the sixth level! Monsters who had once stood against tens of thousands on the seas!

They had killed without mercy, with untold blood on their hands. Their murderous aura alone resembled that of savage ancient beasts—bloody, violent, and suffocatingly terrifying.

Most Marine soldiers entering for the first time walked in, only to crawl back out with trembling legs.

After the Marines locked the prisoner in a separate cell, they hurried away, not daring to remain in that oppressive environment for even a moment.

"They actually put him in that cell..."

"A private cell. What a lucky kid."

"Hey! Kid, say something if you're not dead!"

Heavy shadows pooled within the cell. The prisoner did not move in the slightest, lying there as though dead, his body shackled in place.

"He can't really be dead, can he? I wanted to ask him about some recent news from the seas."

"Ah, how boring!"

After grumbling for a few moments, the prisoners fell silent and went to sleep. The sixth level prison returned to its usual deathly stillness.

After an unknown amount of time, Ye Qiong woke up. The excruciating pain throughout his body made him suck in a sharp breath. He convulsed all over and nearly passed out again, drenched in cold sweat as veins bulged across his skin.

Every bone in his body felt shattered, and he could not summon even a trace of strength.

The injuries accumulated in Ye Qiong's body were truly terrible. His lower body had long since lost all feeling. He braced himself against the icy floor with both hands to support his body.

He struggled to lift his head and opened his eyes to examine his surroundings. The light was extremely dim, but he could clearly make out the shape of a prison cell.

The floor was freezing cold, making him shiver constantly. Ye Qiong struggled to rise, but with a clank, he discovered that his feet were bound by chains.

A prison?

Ye Qiong thought for a moment, then called out tentatively, "Is anyone there?"

The word "there" echoed through the dead, gloomy prison, sparking a chaotic flurry of responses as if through some chemical reaction.

"Oh? The kid's awake?"

"I thought he was dead. Kid, what did you do to end up here?"

A jumble of voices intertwined, yet not one of them offered any useful information.

Ye Qiong frowned slightly. He did not respond to them and continued asking, "Where is this?"

"You don't even know you've been captured? What a pathetic brat. I thought you'd caused some huge trouble."

"This is Impel Down, Level 6, Eternal Hell!"

Impel Down? Eternal Hell?

Ye Qiong could not help but be shocked at the answer. He had expected the Marines to capture and imprison him in Impel Down, but he had not expected to be placed in Level 6, Eternal Hell...

The Marines truly thought highly of him.

"I wonder whether Sakazuki is dead..." Ye Qiong muttered.

His voice was not loud, but the prisoners in the nearby cells all heard him and began shouting in surprise. "Kid, don't tell me you killed that Marine Sakazuki?"

"Sakazuki? I've heard of him. He's quite a ruthless character."

"You think a kid like you could kill him? Impossible. He probably captured you and sent you here."

"That bastard Sakazuki never stops talking about justice, but he's got more lives on his hands than I do!"

The prisoners discussed it animatedly, some questioning him and others mocking him. Ye Qiong, meanwhile, fell silent.

After Ohara Island came Eternal Hell? Wanting to live freely beneath the blue sky truly was an incomparably difficult thing.

Ye Qiong felt stifled, but soon came to terms with it.

Though he had been sent to Level 6, Eternal Hell, it was still better than dying on Ohara Island. Once a person died, everything became nothing.

As long as he was alive, there was a chance to leave!

"The most important thing now is figuring out how to recover my body."

Ye Qiong lowered his head to inspect his condition. The cell was too dim to see clearly, so he felt around with his hands while assessing his injuries.

The more he examined himself, the more bitter his expression became.

His injuries were far more severe than he had imagined!

The external injuries all over his body were one thing, but Sakazuki's magma fist had pierced through the right side of his abdomen, directly damaging his internal organs. On top of that, a current of cold energy and a current of heat rampaged through his body, continuously suppressing his body's natural healing ability.

Moreover, his vitality and blood had been utterly depleted. He had also forcibly used R · Spatial Exile and R Annihilation, suffering the full backlash of his Devil Fruit ability...

It could be said that his body was riddled with holes, no different from that of a cripple!

Ye Qiong even felt that surviving under such circumstances was already the greatest miracle possible!

"This is troublesome."

Ye Qiong felt somewhat helpless. Even if he had a way to remove the Seastone shackles on his feet that suppressed his Devil Fruit ability, his body was so weakened that he would be unable to use his spatial powers.

And if he could not use his ability, what difference was there between him and an ordinary person?

Ye Qiong kept pondering solutions and their feasibility. His body was terribly weak, his mind muddled and heavy. Before he realized it, he had fallen asleep again.

Within Eternal Hell, it was almost impossible to sense the passage of time.

Perhaps it was one second. Perhaps one minute. Or perhaps one hour.

After an unknown amount of time, Ye Qiong was awakened by the sound of a plate being set on the floor. He opened his slightly bleary eyes and saw a dish of meat and drinking water beside the iron door of his cell.

Ye Qiong crawled over and stuffed the meat from the plate into his mouth, swallowing it without chewing.

After the cooked meat entered his starving stomach, warmth spread through his belly, and his hunger gradually faded considerably.

Sea King meat? It tasted awful, but it really was nutritious.

Ye Qiong licked his cracked lips and drained the drinking water provided with the dish.

Unfortunately, the rations provided were only enough to keep his body alive. They could not supply sufficient nutrition for his body to heal.

Ye Qiong leaned against the cold, solid wall and closed his eyes again.

This truly was a dead end. His body was severely injured and weakened by Seastone, leaving him without the slightest means of escape.

Over the next few days, Ye Qiong lived just like the other prisoners on the sixth level—eating, then sleeping; waking, then eating. Other than taking care of his bodily needs, he spent nearly all his time trying to preserve his strength through sleep.

But Ye Qiong soon discovered in despair that, unless some turning point appeared, he could only remain here forever.

Dragging out a miserable existence in this decaying body.

Without his spatial ability, and with his badly injured body neither improving nor worsening, how could he possibly break free from this dead end?

Ye Qiong did not give up. He kept recalling memories of One Piece, thinking about possible turning points.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but lately he found himself remembering fewer and fewer things from his previous world. He usually had to think for a long time before recalling scattered fragments.

In the original story he remembered, Impel Down had seen two major incidents. One was Golden Lion's prison break and successful escape; the other was Luffy's prison break, which caused a massive upheaval.

Unfortunately, he had already learned from the other prisoners that Golden Lion had successfully escaped several months ago. By a remarkable coincidence, the cell Golden Lion had occupied in Eternal Hell was precisely the one Ye Qiong was currently in.

When Golden Lion had first entered the prison, his tyrannical nature had led him to kill the other prisoners in his cell, leaving it vacant and ultimately benefiting Ye Qiong.

When Ye Qiong first learned this, he had also been stunned. The cell trapping him had originally held Golden Lion, making them prisonmates in a roundabout way.

If he could not count on Golden Lion, did that mean he could only wait for Luffy twenty years later?

Ye Qiong's eyes dimmed. He was confident that his will would not be worn away over those twenty years, but he could not guarantee that he would survive such a long span of time.

Yet he could do nothing. He could only wait.

Wait for the slightest turning point that would allow him to escape this predicament.

He did not believe fate truly held no favor for him.