"Among these prisoners, there might be plenty of vicious criminals, and there might genuinely be good people falsely branded as villains. But none of that has anything to do with me."
"Right now, my only goal is to collect Cursed Energy. Since these people are still useful, I can't let them die here for nothing."
"After all, I'm hardly a good person myself. Of course, I'm not the actual Ryomen Sukuna, who slaughtered people without number, either."
With a thought,
Roy raised both hands and lightly swept them toward the thickest part of the melee ahead.
"Ordinary Slash: Dismantle."
A slash cut straight into the densest concentration of jailers.
Although he currently possessed only 50% of the Ryomen Sukuna template, manipulating Cursed Energy had long since become second nature to him.
Even on this crowded battlefield, taking lives was as easy as reaching into his pocket.
The jailers still fighting hard to repel the prisoners had been thinking that this rabble amounted to little.
But in the next instant, an invisible slash struck without warning.
They only had time to let out a desperate scream.
"Aah!"
With just one ordinary slash, over a hundred jailers and Poisonous Spiders were killed on the spot!
"If they weren't still useful, you never would have lived this long."
Roy's tone was utterly flat, as though what he had erased were not human lives but a string of numbers.
In fact, that was precisely the case.
This was the result of him deliberately controlling his power. Otherwise, a single bursting slash would have truly littered the surroundings with corpses.
His terrifying slaughter instantly froze the once-roiling battlefield.
Prisoners and jailers alike stared in terror at the bare-chested man standing with his hands raised, strange black markings covering his skin, his expression indifferent.
Gulp!
"He's terrifying... since when did Impel Down's first level have a monster like this? Wiping everything out in an instant... who on earth captured someone like him?!"
"We can't win... we absolutely can't beat a monster like this. Even those legendary criminals on Level 6 couldn't be much worse!"
The surviving jailers cried out in terror, their morale collapsing.
If not for the beasts helping hold the line, along with their last shred of duty as jailers, they would have routed long ago anywhere else.
Because staying here really would get them killed.
"You idiots, don't you want to leave? Such a perfect opportunity, and you're still not moving."
Roy's icy gaze swept over the criminals, who were still standing stunned.
If he hadn't still needed these fools to draw attention, that last slash would have taken care of them too.
Only then did the criminals snap out of their daze.
Despite their utter terror at Roy's methods, they couldn't help roaring with excitement.
"That's Lord Roy for you! He's so strong! Mere jailers are nothing! Brothers, with Lord Roy here, what's Impel Down to us? Kill them!"
"That's right! Kill all these jailers and follow Lord Roy out!"
With Roy joining the fight, the criminals' morale soared, and they once again clashed with the remaining jailers.
Before long, only a handful of jailers, Poisonous Spiders, and Blue Gorillas managed to escape. All the rest were killed on the spot.
Without pausing, the first-level criminals chased down their remaining enemies and charged out of the cell area.
Watching the figures retreat into the distance, Roy quietly used the Ten Shadows Technique in an unnoticed corner, summoning several Rabbit Escape Shikigami that scattered without a sound.
No one but him knew where those rabbits had slipped off to.
Meanwhile, the main body of prisoners arrived before a vast forest of tall, red, needle-leaved trees.
Many prisoners' expressions immediately turned grim, and some even showed fear.
When the jailers punished them, many were thrown into this forest of sword trees and needle grass, left to have their bodies pierced by branches and leaves as sharp as swords.
More fatally still, they had no idea how to get out of here.
"Lord Roy, my name is Yake."
Amid the growing panic, a burly young man with a knife scar on his cheek squeezed his way up to Roy and looked at him hopefully.
"Those damned jailers used their familiarity with the terrain to escape."
"And the jailers must have reported the riot on the first level long ago. Our retreat is cut off now. What should we do next?"
Hearing this, the other prisoners abruptly remembered Roy.
That was right. They still had a terrifyingly powerful fighter with them.
For a moment, hopeful gazes all gathered on Roy.
Roy gave Yake an interested look.
He had some impression of this man, who had been the most ruthless in the earlier fighting, striking with a madness that resembled vengeance.
More importantly, he was fairly strong, roughly on the level of a Marine captain.
"Yake, is it? You're right. The riot on the first level has been fully exposed."
"By now, the jailers may already have notified the real powerhouses of Impel Down... Magellan and the others."
Roy extended a finger toward the red thorn forest and said meaningfully,
"But have you considered that the normal passage to the level above must already be closed?"
"Even if it isn't completely sealed, it's bound to be heavily guarded."
"If we want to leave, we can only charge toward the higher prison levels. But the route is sealed, so our only way through right now is this thorn forest. With all those spikes, who would dare enter?"
He paused, then, seeing the criminals' despairing expressions, voiced their final hope.
"Besides that, we have another option: fight our way along the lift to the Above Ground Floor One."
"We might be able to find a way out there."
What he did not say was that entering that enormous pit through the thorn forest would allow them to fall straight into the second level.
But did this crowd before him really have the ability to get in alive?
The negative emotions had yet to condense into Cursed Energy, and Ryomen Sukuna's finger had only stirred slightly.
Besides, would it really be that easy to leave once they were outside Impel Down?
Without the right opportunity, did they truly think the eight thousand Marines stationed outside Impel Down, on standby at all times with combat strength comparable to a Buster Call, were just for show?
Hearing this, all the criminals present fell silent.
Roy had made himself perfectly clear.
With the route to the level above now impassable, their only choice was to fight their way toward the Above Ground entrance.
That was where they had entered, and now all they could do was stake everything on that route.
"Then we'll do as Lord Roy says! We'll charge straight for the entrance!"
Yake took a deep breath, immediately made the decision for the criminals, and led the charge toward the entrance.
Countless dangers might await them there, but they had no other choice now.
If they didn't risk everything, only death awaited them.
"Heh, let's go, then. Let's make this jailbreak spectacle even more exciting."
Roy glanced toward a patch of shadow out of the corner of his eye, chuckled softly, and followed unhurriedly behind the first-level criminals.
Good. The little rat hiding in the shadows has indeed been lured out.
In that case, I have all the more reason to stay in Impel Down.
After he had gone some distance, a man in bright, flowery clothes emerged from the shadows.
"My God... a jailbreak on this scale in Impel Down! This is the biggest upheaval since the legendary Golden Lion left!"
He watched Roy's receding figure, his eyes filled with shock and awe.
"And that fellow covered in black markings feels very wrong... it's as though he walked out of a real mountain of corpses and sea of blood."
"No, I have to report something this serious to the okama leader immediately! Maybe... we can use this chance to escape too!"
Soon, the figure quietly disappeared.
But what he did not know was that, besides his discovery of this unprecedented riot on the first level,
almost all of Impel Down had now received the alarm.
"Prison break! Requesting backup! Requesting backup!"
"This is bad! A monster is massacring the jailers on the first level! Send backup!"
"Notice: Crimson Hell on the first level has fallen completely! All jailers on every level above, regardless of rank, are to proceed immediately to Impel Down's first level and suppress the riot!"
"Emergency! That monster is leading the first-level criminals toward the lift to the level above! Requesting the highest level of support!"
Before you continue