Golden Lion vs. Shiryu of the Rain

Golden Lion looked proud and composed. To others, Impel Down was impregnable, a terrifying hell on earth, but in Golden Lion's eyes, it was nothing. He could come and go as he pleased.

Before long, Shiryu of the Rain led his men to the sixth level, Infinite Level. Shiryu was tall and powerfully built, dressed in a black Chief Warden's uniform, with an extraordinarily large famed blade in hand. He walked with extreme arrogance and violence; every step made the ground crack beneath his feet. Ye Chen looked down curiously and saw that the hard bluestone floor had been crushed into countless spiderweb-like cracks. Ye Chen had never seen this man before, but judging from the terrified expressions on the prisoners' faces, he was extremely strong.

"It's Shiryu of the Rain!" Pizarro's eyes widened, his expression changing drastically as he instinctively took two steps back.

Many people could not help drawing in sharp breaths when they saw Shiryu. Some stood dumbfounded, while others' legs trembled. Shiryu of the Rain had always been ruthless and merciless. Not only was his swordsmanship exceptional, but he was also a vicious man who liked attacking prisoners whenever he pleased.

He never needed a reason to kill. And the famed blade in his hand was an infamous cursed sword—Nidai Kitetsu.

Impel Down was called an impenetrable fortress precisely because two powerful figures stood guard here. One was Magellan of the Venom-Venom Fruit, while the other was Shiryu of the Rain. It was said that the two were evenly matched, neither able to do anything to the other.

Even the legendary monsters found it difficult to remain calm when they saw Shiryu. Yet when Ye Chen turned to look at Golden Lion, Golden Lion's expression remained tranquil, as though he had not seen Shiryu at all. Facing the aggressive guards, Golden Lion stood straight and unmoving like a mountain, quietly rooted in place like a god. He glanced at Shiryu just as Shiryu pulled a cigar from his pocket and was about to place it in his mouth. Golden Lion laughed heartily and casually waved his hand. A violent gust instantly rose before Shiryu, and the next moment, Shiryu discovered in surprise that the cigar had flown from his hand and somehow, as if guided by Ghost, landed in Golden Lion's.

Golden Lion put the cigar between his lips. Realizing he had no fire on him, he beckoned to a nearby guard. With a whoosh, the lighter in that guard's pocket flew out on its own. Golden Lion caught it, nodded at the guard, then smugly lit the cigar and took a deep puff, looking utterly satisfied.

Ye Chen was dumbstruck. Golden Lion is incredible. Just this domineering attitude of looking down on everything is enough to make people worship him. To be a man like this, even death would be worth it.

Basang was so strong, yet whenever prison breaks were mentioned, he wilted like an eggplant struck by frost, his face filled with terror and devoid of confidence. In Basang's eyes, once someone was imprisoned in Impel Down, they could forget about ever leaving. But as Ye Chen watched Golden Lion's calm, disdainful bearing, he understood that Basang and Golden Lion were worlds apart. What Basang considered impossible was not even worth mentioning to Golden Lion.

With a rustle.

After hesitating for a moment, the guards all raised their muskets. Ye Chen hurriedly backed away a few steps and was about to find a corner to hide in when Golden Lion waved at him. "Don't worry. These people can't hurt you, because in a moment, I'll send them to hell."

Slash Wave.

Golden Lion took a deep puff of his cigar, then abruptly raised Oto in his hand. Before Ye Chen could see clearly, a deafening boom rang out before him. A roar like an enraged lion suddenly burst from Golden Lion's body, followed by a violent sword aura that slashed forward at tremendous speed. With another boom, the enormous blade of light, carrying terrifying killing intent, cleaved toward the guards in the corridor. Wherever the sword light passed, blood sprayed. Amid endless miserable screams, the musket-wielding guards were thrown into disarray, falling one after another into pools of blood.

The flying slash did not stop. It continued extending down the corridor, smashing through a distant stone wall and causing it to collapse with a thunderous crash. Smoke and dust filled the corridor, and gravel flew everywhere. The originally flat, solid corridor was split open by Golden Lion in an instant, leaving behind an enormous fissure. Even within that crack, scorching flames continued to spit out with sizzling sounds.

Ye Chen understood that Golden Lion's attack had been too fast and too powerful. The rapid slash had ignited the surrounding air in an instant. A casual strike possessed such terrifying destructive force. Ye Chen's mouth hung wide open as he stared at Golden Lion's back, his heart churning for a long time. He was simply too strong. This was a hundred times more destructive than a hundred cannonballs. Compared to Golden Lion, everyone Ye Chen had encountered before was trash.

Shiryu had just taken out another cigar and placed it between his lips. Before he could light it, in the blink of an eye, more than a hundred guards had already fallen into pools of blood, shrieking like Ghosts and howling like wolves. Shiryu was startled, and the cigar in his mouth dropped to the floor.

"Golden Lion, I'll be your opponent." With a cold snort, Shiryu strode toward Golden Lion. After only a few steps, his right hand swiftly drew the Nidai Kitetsu that he always carried at his side.

A strange red light suddenly flashed before Ye Chen's eyes. When he looked closely, he was startled—not because he was timid, but because the sight before him was simply too unbelievable. Shiryu's blade was blood-red, with rippling light flowing across it, as though a river of blood were constantly running over its surface. It was not still crimson; it was like a river of blood, the blood on the blade continuously moving as though alive. As the glaring red light flashed, a suffocating stench of blood instantly drifted through the surrounding air.

"Hmph, Ghost, do you think you can stop me? Garp and Sengoku had to join forces and fight me for several days and nights before they barely managed to suppress me. And you?" Golden Lion glanced disdainfully at Shiryu and sneered coldly.

"If we don't try, who knows what the result will be? Rainstorm Slash!"

Shiryu suddenly shouted, his feet accelerating as he charged toward Golden Lion like a tiger unleashed from its cage. At the same time, the Nidai Kitetsu in his hand unleashed more than a dozen blood-red slashes in rapid succession, like a raging storm.

Every slash was like a snarling evil Ghost, carrying a choking stench of blood as it cleaved toward Golden Lion with unstoppable force.

Shiryu's slashes arrived in an instant, their power astonishing and their momentum as fierce as a tiger's. Yet just as Golden Lion was about to be swallowed by Shiryu's sword aura, Golden Lion suddenly moved, and the two swords in his hands slashed out at once.

A massive vortex instantly formed around Golden Lion's body. Ye Chen held his breath, his eyes wide open, but all he saw were the blades in Golden Lion's hands suddenly gleaming with a dark, lustrous sheen.

Ye Chen knew what that was. It was Haki—the solid black radiance that only appeared when Armament Haki was cultivated to its peak!

That black was purplish-black, piercingly black, suffocatingly black, terrifyingly black!