The prisoners, who had been filled with despair, were stunned by this sudden turn of events.
They could hardly believe that someone as ruthless as Roy would actually rescue them!
After all, the sight of those two arrogant New World pirates being cut in half at the waist was still vivid in their minds.
"It's over... the prisoners on Impel Down's first level have been released! There's going to be a riot in Impel Down!"
Unlike the overjoyed prisoners on the first level, the three jailers felt their scalps crawl.
Once criminals imprisoned for years or even decades broke free of their restraints, the inevitable result would be a riot that was difficult to contain.
Roy's gaze returned to the jailers, and his words allowed no room for doubt.
"Now, imprisoned criminals, the shackles restraining you have been undone. Let me see what you're capable of."
"Of course, if you fail to satisfy me, I won't mind disposing of you right here."
Even the criminals who had yet to be released trembled just listening, while deep fear showed in the eyes of the ten who had been freed.
The man before them really would kill them.
Yet, faced with life or death, they barely hesitated before baring their fangs.
"Did you all hear that?"
"Lord Roy wants to see what we're capable of, so you'd better put on a good show! Otherwise, Lord Roy won't even need to act. I'll slaughter anyone who fails myself!"
"Heh heh heh, rest assured, Lord Roy! We're vicious pirates to begin with. Murder and arson are what we do best!"
"Kill them! Kill every last one of these black-hearted Marines! Today, we'll follow Lord Roy and smash through this bullshit Impel Down!"
In the blink of an eye, ten criminals lunged out of their cells and charged straight at the three jailers who had come to investigate.
The three jailers were instantly surrounded, unable to resist at all, and could only let out desperate wails.
"Damn it... I can't move at all! We're finished!"
"If we die, so be it. I just hope the other jailers see this, that Warden Magellan sees this...
Otherwise, Impel Down will face its next largest prison break since Golden Lion's escape."
"Heh heh, die, all of you! Today, we'll follow Lord Roy and create a new legend of escape!"
Before long, the three jailers, no match for the ten ferocious criminals, were killed on the spot.
Not only that, the ten criminals also searched the jailers and found the keys to the first level's cells, then began frantically releasing more prisoners.
Roy watched it all, an unusual gleam flashing through his eyes.
"Go wild. Make all the trouble you want. The more chaotic it gets, the better it is for me."
"That way, I can focus on what I need to do."
Although he had obtained Ryomen Sukuna's abilities, he currently had no continuous source of cursed energy.
Once his cursed energy ran out, his situation would become extremely dangerous.
To solve this problem, he had to keep collecting negative emotions and energy. Only then could he continue fighting.
Furthermore, to increase his synchronization rate with the Ryomen Sukuna template, he had to absorb the power of the fingers.
Ryomen Sukuna's fingers did not exist in the pirate world, leaving him without a direct source to absorb.
Fortunately, the System Sprite had already provided a solution.
Placing negative balls in specific locations to absorb negative energy would generate a source of cursed energy.
And that cursed energy would condense into Ryomen Sukuna's fingers on its own.
Therefore...
"Then let this Impel Down become one of my finest feeding grounds for collecting negative emotions."
With that thought, Roy took out one of the Negative Emotion Origin Balls the System Sprite had left behind upon departing and casually tossed it into a dark corner of Impel Down.
Like water, the black-and-blue sphere silently merged into Impel Down.
It was like an invisible perpetual-motion machine, constantly devouring every trace of negative emotion in this gathering place of evildoers.
Roy could clearly feel those negative emotions being steadily converted into cursed energy with every absorption.
"Heh, negative emotion deployment successful."
"This Impel Down is getting more and more interesting. The purer the negative emotions, the more they nourish me."
His objective accomplished, Roy revealed a sinister smile.
However, just as he finished making these arrangements, the jailers on guard had fully detected the chaos on the first level.
The jailers were leading Poisonous Spiders and other Jailer Beasts over at full speed to provide reinforcements.
If pirates and Marines were like fire and water, then Impel Down's prisoners and jailers were even more irreconcilable.
On one side were jailers whose job was to imprison criminals, making them the prisoners' natural nemeses.
On the other, whether they were pirates or people imprisoned for serious crimes,
once they stepped into Impel Down, they were branded with the same mark... criminal.
The relationship between the two sides was like fire and water, a struggle that would only end in death.
Thus, when the shackled criminals on the first level broke free and ran headlong into the jailers arriving as reinforcements, a brutal battle was already inevitable.
"Damn it! These goddamn criminals actually escaped their cells! Which damned bastard did this?"
"You inherently evil pirates, get back in your cells at once! Otherwise, once Warden Magellan arrives, you'll pay for this!"
Sure enough, by the time the jailers arrived, the nearly one thousand criminals freed on the first level had gone completely berserk.
"You call us pirates evil? I don't think you jailers are any better!"
"You cut our food rations and torture us at the drop of a hat... so what if we rebel today!"
"That's right! Today, we'll follow Lord Roy in rebellion and shatter the myth of Impel Down's invincibility! Let's see how much longer you can act so arrogant!"
"Kill, kill, kill! Why should we be treated like livestock? I may be a criminal locked up in Impel Down, but I was framed!
Those damned Marines weren't even human! They threw me in here without bothering to find out the truth... today, I'm rebelling too!"
Bang! Bang!
The two sides plunged into an all-out melee.
Perhaps quite a few of these criminals had been left with no choice.
But the situation had long since gone beyond anything a few words could explain.
Since ancient times, justice and evil had been two utterly different paths.
Either gray, or pure evil.
The conflict now could only be resolved and vented through a bloody battle.
Yet as soon as the fighting began, the jailers immediately fell into a disadvantage, even with support from Poisonous Spiders, Blue Gorillas, and fully armed jailers.
Several jailers were even killed on the spot.
"Ah, Captain! We can't hold them off! These lunatics really are risking their lives to fight us to the death!"
"Urgh... notify the upper undersea level, quickly! Have them seal the entrance to the first level! We absolutely cannot let these people break through..."
Impel Down's first level had always been its most lightly defended area, and the place everyone considered least likely to have trouble.
Yet today, the unexpected happened.
The cells had been opened from within.
"Haha, brothers, don't be afraid! What do a few Poisonous Spiders and these jailers amount to? As long as we take them down, we have hope!"
"Hahaha, you bastard jailer, die with me! Taking you down with me today will make it worth it!"
The prisoners looked utterly crazed as they threw themselves recklessly into the fray, dealing another heavy blow to the jailers.
Even with weapons in hand, the jailers were dragged into the melee by criminals who pressed their bodies against them without fear of death.
Without the help of ferocious beasts like the Poisonous Spiders and Blue Gorillas, those mere hundred-odd jailers could never have held out this long.
And just then, Roy, who had remained in the center of the cells, watching the melee with cold eyes, finally stopped standing idle.
Before you continue