Level Five, Freezing Hell.
The cold wind howled, but Luffy didn't feel much chill.
The so-called cold of this hell didn't even compare to half of Aokiji's fruit ability.
Luffy looked up. That slash just now—he had held nothing back. He was confident it had given that venomous Warden a good run for his money.
In a short time, the guy probably wouldn't come chasing after him.
Of course, if he did dare to come, Luffy wouldn't be polite either.
Fighting in the relatively cramped, venom-filled environment of Level Four had been too disadvantageous. Now, this vast ice plain was much better suited for him to show what he could do.
After a while, he didn't sense any pursuit.
"He's really not coming after me?" Luffy muttered to himself.
He stretched his limbs and prepared to search for the entrance to Level Six, when he suddenly felt a slight burning pain on the back of his right hand.
He looked down and saw that at some point, a small drop of dark purple venom had gotten onto the back of his hand.
It was emitting thin wisps of white smoke, trying to corrode his skin.
So this was why he wasn't coming after me?
"It really is a bit of a pain."
Luffy frowned and tried to use Haki to disperse it.
This venom was abnormally stubborn, like a parasite clinging to bone. The effect of Haki wasn't very noticeable.
But at the same time, the beep in his ear became clearer and more frequent:
[Poison Resistance +10]
[Poison Resistance +10]
...
Inside his body, it felt like a warm current was fighting against the invading poison. Although he could feel the poison causing damage, his resistance seemed to be increasing even faster.
Luffy could clearly sense his body undergoing some kind of intense metabolic and adaptive transformation.
The cost, However, was that a tidal wave of hunger came rushing in.
"It just hurts a little,"
Luffy shook his hand and stopped paying attention to that bit of venom, focusing his attention on his surroundings.
As far as he could see, there was nothing but a vast white ice plain and howling cold wind. Above his head, he could still see the giant skull-shaped rock formations.
Amid the chaos earlier, that guy Buggy had run off somewhere, but Luffy couldn't be bothered to look for him. Now that he had made it this far, he didn't need Buggy as a guide anymore.
The deal was over!
He took out Ace's Vivre Card and looked at it. His expression immediately changed.
The direction indicated by the Vivre Card was shifting—completely different from before.
Ace's location was changing?
That was not good news.
"I need to hurry and find that hidden Level Six!"
Luffy didn't waste any time and quickly moved across the icy plain, following the direction indicated by the Vivre Card.
He hadn't gone far before a massive iceberg blocked his path, completely cutting off the direction the Vivre Card was pointing toward.
"This kind of stuff is everywhere."
Luffy had no intention of going around.
With a low shout, he slammed his Haki-coated fist directly into the ice wall.
Thud!
With a dull impact, only some fine cracks appeared on the ice wall.
Frozen for so many years, these rocks and ice layers were far harder than usual.
"Tch. Really hard."
Luffy clicked his tongue and, without hesitation, drew Magi.
With the black blade in hand, Haki instantly wrapped around it. Although it didn't enlarge like before, its sharpness was still intimidating.
He swung his arm. A flash of black blade light streaked through the air!
Swish!
Like a hot knife through butter, the hard ice and rock layer was effortlessly sliced open to create a massive gap. Shattered ice crashed down noisily.
The black blade Magi, combined with advanced Armament Haki, was so sharp that it could cut through anything.
Luffy jumped straight through the gap he had cut.
Behind the gap was not the expected ice cavern or prison cell, but a narrow passage. Inside, it wasn't nearly as freezing as outside.
"Huh?"
Luffy looked around. The walls on either side of the passage were rough rock, but the floor was smooth. "What kind of place is this? A passage? It doesn't look like the prison of Level Five."
The environment here was completely out of place with the icy, snowy Freezing Hell outside.
His current location seemed to be an artificial excavated hidden passage. If he hadn't happened to cut here, he wouldn't have discovered it.
With curiosity, he moved forward quickly.
He went all the way to a corner of the passage before he found a door that looked rather heavy, made of wood.
Luffy didn't have time to slowly figure it out. He kicked it straight open!
Bam!
The door swung open with a crash.
The sight behind the door made Luffy's eyes instantly light up!
Inside wasn't a cell or a torture chamber—it was a storage room!
Stockpiled with huge amounts of food!
All kinds of vegetables, fruits, barrels of alcohol, and even a few large refrigerators in the corner!
The air was filled with a mixed smell of food and drink, which to Luffy in this moment was incredibly tempting.
"Is this a storage room?"
Luffy's eyes practically shone with light.
To be honest, his body desperately needed energy replenishment right now.
Magellan's poison was like lighting a fire inside him, burning continuously. Although his poison resistance was increasing rapidly, this process consumed a massive amount of energy.
As a cost, his previously stored stamina was being consumed at an alarming rate.
These piles of supplies were like a gift from heaven—combat power delivered right to his doorstep.
Luffy didn't hesitate at all. He didn't even have time to look closely. He just turned on one-click sweep mode.
His hands became like infinitely extending feeding rubber tentacles, almost turning into blurs.
He grabbed handfuls of vegetables and shoved them directly into his mouth, swallowing them without even chewing.
He ate fruits, peel and pits included, in big gulps.
He knocked the lids off the barrel and chugged them down his throat like water.
As for the meat in the refrigerator—whether it was cold or hot, raw or cooked—he took it out directly, bones and all. His powerful bite and digestive abilities let him eat without restraint.
At a time like this, he didn't care about flavor.
Normal people ate until their stomachs were stuffed full, but Luffy's stomach had already swollen up like a big balloon.
According to Garp, this was the stance of a strong one!
No matter how much a normal person ate, the most they could do was kill themselves from overeating.
But Luffy and others like him had abnormal body structures. The food they ate didn't just disappear; it was rapidly digested with unprecedented efficiency by their digestive systems.
When it came to digesting and utilizing food, Luffy had had an unusual talent since childhood.
In his understanding, the concept of "full" rarely existed, especially in a state where he urgently needed energy like now.
According to the Marines, this ability was called Life Return.
Luffy could do it too, and the properties of rubber made his Life Return effect several times stronger than that of ordinary people.
In no time, his big, swollen balloon body returned to its original, agile form.
After eating so much, Luffy vaguely felt that even his height had increased a bit.
Soon, he would be able to look down on Nami and the others!
In just a short while, the originally towering pile of food visibly shrank at a rapid pace. Under Luffy's lightning-fast sweep, it was almost completely cleared out.
When he reached the end of the storage room, apart from a few empty boxes and wine barrels, there was nothing left to swallow.
Just as he patted his stomach, which didn't look swollen at all, feeling that his condition had recovered considerably, and was about to leave, a burst of hurried footsteps and voices came from outside the passage.
"What happened? How did a hole appear in this rock wall?"
"Lightning, we're counting on you. Seal up this hole before the guards get here."
"It doesn't look like a natural collapse. It looks more like it was cut by something extremely sharp? Who could have done this?"
Several people outside were discussing urgently.
Then came the clicking sound of scissors cutting something.
It wasn't until these voices got closer and closer and they retreated to the storage room door that they finally noticed something was off, a little too late.
"Huh? The storage room door is open."
A head cautiously poked in through the doorway, and the person immediately saw Luffy, standing at the end of the storage room, having just eaten his fill and about to leave.
"Intruder!"
The person screamed in terror, his voice echoing through the passage.
Immediately, even more dense and chaotic footsteps sounded at the doorway.
A group of people dressed in extremely Bizarre outfits poured into the doorway, blocking Luffy's path.
Most of this strange group was only wearing a pair of underwear, but their hairy legs were sheathed in various colors of stockings. Their upper bodies were either bare, revealing not-so-muscular chests, or they were wearing garishly colored women's underwear.
"No prison uniform, no guard uniform either."
A skinny man wearing only underwear and stockings walked in. "Hey, just who the hell are you?!"
The next second, a little too late, his gaze swept across the completely empty storage room. His eyes instantly widened to the size of saucers.
Wait... where's the food?
Where did all the food we stored go?
It took him a good while to confirm that this important supply depot, which they relied on to survive, had now been completely ransacked.
There wasn't even a single scrap left!
Was this guy a monster?
Anyone with a bit of common sense from the okama had already guessed that the person before them was a Devil Fruit user.
How could a normal person eat enough food for over a hundred people?!
"Are you guys perverts?"
Luffy looked at the group of weirdos crowded at the doorway, most wearing only underwear and colorful stockings, and a look of undisguised disgust appeared on his face.
Subconsciously, Hancock's peerlessly beautiful face flashed through his mind, and he quickly used it to cleanse his eyes.
You eat our food and then call us perverts?
The okama prisoners also understood the situation, and they immediately became agitated.
"Our emergency rations!"
"We saved them up with so much difficulty!"
"Get that guy who stole our food!"
"And he called us perverts! Are we perverts, brothers?!"
Whether you're perverts or not, you know yourselves.
Luffy stuffed the rest of his apple into his mouth, looking at these strangely dressed prisoners as they cracked their knuckles at him. "You want to fight? Then hurry up. I don't have time to play around with you."
Oh my? This arrogant guy.
"Get him! Let this Straw Hat know how powerful our new okama are!"
One of the okama stepped forward, reaching out to grab Luffy.
"Stop, yoi~"
Hearing this voice, the excited okama prisoners stopped as if someone had hit the pause button. They quickly and very consciously parted with reverence, creating a path.
A figure slowly walked in through the doorway. He was holding a glass of red wine, his posture seemingly leisurely, but he carried an aura of extraordinary.
The most striking thing about him was his bizarre hairstyle, half yellow and half white. His clothing colors were also yellow and white. He was clearly male in form, yet he had a full, voluptuous chest.
These guys were definitely all perverts.
"Why are you here, Straw Hat?"
Luffy didn't answer directly. Instead, he looked the man over and asked back, "Are you prisoners here too?"
The man with the plum-blossom-shaped hair nodded. "That's right."
Luffy frowned, even more confused. "Then how do you know who I am?"
Could prisoners in jail even read newspapers?
And yet they recognized him.
All the prisoners Luffy had seen along the way were on their last legs. Where would they get the energy to read newspapers? Just surviving was good enough.
But this group before him didn't seem like ordinary prisoners.
"Of course we have special channels to get information from the outside world." Lightning pushed up his sunglasses.
Being able to stay safely in Impel Down for years without being discovered—getting outside intelligence was easy for them since they were revolutionaries.
The man before him.
He had slain a Celestial Dragon on the Sabaody Archipelago, gone toe-to-toe with a Marine Admiral, with a total bounty of 660 million berries... As a recent big name on the seas, that iconic straw hat was just too recognizable.
"That's why I'm so surprised. What's a big shot like you doing suddenly appeared in the depths of this deep sea prison? Isn't the outside world enough for you to stir up trouble, Straw Hat Boy?"
"I wouldn't be here if I had a choice, but my brother Ace was brought here,"
Luffy adjusted his straw hat. "And now I'm going to Level Six, Infinite Hell."
The moment his words fell, a hoarse but highly penetrating voice sounded from the doorway:
"That's not a good place to go, boy~~"
Those bizarre okama prisoners now all turned to look at the doorway with even more fanatical and adoring eyes, standing neatly in two lines, as if welcoming their king.
Soon, a large-framed... giant okama walked in.
He had an unusually large face, with exaggerated heavy eye shadow and purple lipstick. His pale purple curls were wantonly spread out.
His entire being looked huge and bloated, but what shocked the eyes was his outfit.
A pair of black fishnet stockings and a tight, extremely low-cut, deep purple one-piece bodysuit that fully exposed his thick chest hair.
He was clearly a man, yet he dressed so coquettish and bizarre.
Luffy looked at this giant okama. His stomach churned violently, and he quickly covered his mouth, barely holding back the urge to throw up everything he had just eaten.
Wasting food would be bad.
"I don't care who you are outside,"
Ivankov glanced at the completely empty storage room. The corner of his mouth twitched non-stop as he suppressed his anger and said, "But eating all our food... you'll have to pay a price for that, won't you?"
Luffy didn't have any money on him. Should he pawn Nika off on them?
Luffy looked at Nika.
Nika hissed at him.
If you dare leave me here, I'll fight you.
Just kidding.
But it was true that eating all their food meant he should give them some kind of explanation.
He didn't have any money on him. If only Nami were here.
Luffy looked at the okama. "How about I take you all out of here with me? That should pay off the debt, right?"
"Now's not the time for us to break out of jail."
Ivankov crossed his arms into an X shape. "Don't think I don't know about the current situation in the world. With the Marines and the Whitebeard Pirates at the center, the world is about to be turned upside down."
"Wouldn't that be the perfect time to leave?"
"But that man hasn't made his move yet."
Ivankov's gaze seemed to pierce through the prison walls, looking into the distance. "All the revolutionaries around the world are waiting for that man to act—the mastermind behind the revolutionaries, Revolutionary Dragon!"
"Oh, you know my dad?"
Luffy clapped his hands, then felt no further concerns. "Then just put the food I ate here on his tab. Go get reimbursed by him!"
With that, Luffy didn't give the other party any time to react. He took out Ace's Vivre Card, confirmed the direction, and immediately ran off toward the depths of the passage.
Ivankov was completely confused. He stood frozen in place, his giant face covered in a dazed expression.
After a good while, he turned his head and asked Lightning next to him in an incredulous tone, "Did that boy just say... Dragon is his father?"
Lightning was also full of shock, pushing up his sliding sunglasses. "That's what it sounded like."
Ivankov's mouth dropped wide open. Some kind of unknown reverse gravity made him crash straight into the wall beside him.
"He really said that? Dragon has a son?! How come I've never heard about this?!"
As a revolutionary army officer who had followed Dragon for many years, this was the first time he had ever heard that the leader had a son!
And this son was the Straw Hat Luffy, who had been causing such a stir on the seas recently.
This news was too shocking. Ivankov's heart pounded wildly.
He immediately made a decision. He took off with his giant strides, thud thud thud, chasing after Luffy, shouting as he ran, "Hey, Straw Hat Boy! Wait!"
When he caught up, he happened to see Luffy standing in front of a wall that looked unusually solid, made of rock. Finding going around way too troublesome, Luffy had directly drawn a strange black short blade.
Black-red Haki instantly wrapped around the blade. Luffy swung his arm!
Swish!
A flash of black blade light streaked through the air, and that hard rock wall was easily sliced open to create a massive gap, like tofu. Crushed stone crashed down.
Luffy didn't hesitate at all. He jumped straight through the gap.
Watching this, Ivankov felt the corner of his mouth twitch again.
Acting so recklessly... was going to cause a huge commotion!
Wasn't he practically writing "I'm here" on his face?
But why hadn't a single Impel Down guard shown up yet? Had this Straw Hat kid already taken them all out on his way here?
"Ivankov, look!"
Sharp-eyed Lightning suddenly pointed at the back of Luffy's right hand and exclaimed, "Over there!"
***
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***
Dive deeper into the story with 30+ advance chapters, available now on Patreon!
patreon.com/CNBLUE
If you're enjoying the novel, please consider leaving a review. Your support is crucial and helps the story grow immensely. Thank you!