After Caelan gathered all his allies, two minutes had passed within the Reality Marble and about 100,000 prisoners had realized something was wrong.
The weaker ones who did not want to fight Caelan thought about finding an exit in the Reality Marble.
The Reality Marble is a completely closed world.
It can only be broken by brute force that surpasses Caelan's. There is no other way to break it.
Aside from the Celestial Dragons' national treasure, there should be nothing else in this world that can truly do this.
Therefore, the prisoners who could not find an exit gradually turned their attention to Caelan. They now understood that only by defeating him could they escape.
All of a sudden, many criminals, including Blackbeard and his crew, began to stir.
Caelan looked at the crowd of people in front of him and felt no sense of urgency.
He was thinking about how to accurately separate those with special abilities.
After that, he would strip their Devil Fruits together.
There were more than 100,000 criminals. Picking them off one by one would be too troublesome.
But ability users are also human. If they did not actively use their abilities, it was difficult to distinguish them with the naked eye.
"Forget it, I will knock them all out first and see what Blackbeard can do."
Caelan thought about it and decided to act first.
There was always a way. At worst, he could wait here and turn Blackbeard into a tool to test them one by one.
Thinking of this, Caelan no longer hesitated.
In an instant, surging Haki burst forth at full power.
Purple-black lightning appeared in the air, covering the entire Reality Marble.
The overwhelming pressure crashed down on the densely packed criminals like a massive wave.
The Conqueror's Haki, usually invisible and intangible, seemed to gain substance, pouring out with the might of a collapsing sky.
"What is going on!?"
The criminals who had just been thinking of joining forces to charge at Caelan felt as if a boulder was pressing on their hearts.
They felt a pounding dread, as if standing at the brink of the world's end.
Then they sank beneath that boundless pressure.
In just a moment, hundreds of thousands of criminals fell like wheat during the autumn harvest.
No matter how famous they had once been, or how terrifying they were outside.
At this moment, under Caelan's unparalleled Haki, the entire army was almost wiped out.
On the yellow-sand battlefield, only a few dozen people from Eternal Hell were still conscious.
The Evil King Avalo Pizarro, the Crescent Moon Hunter Catarina Devon, the giant battleship Sanjuan Wolf... although these people were still awake, they were only barely holding on under Caelan's gaze.
"How can his Haki be this powerful!"
Sanjuan Wolf's 180-meter-tall body was crushed by the pressure and could only half-kneel on the ground.
The Evil King and several others around him suffered the same fate. They were suppressed by Caelan's Haki to the point that they could not even lift their heads.
They did not know until today that a person's Conqueror's Haki could be so overwhelming that it made them lose miserably before the fight even began.
"Hah, what terrifying Haki…"
Cold sweat beaded on Blackbeard's forehead as he looked at Caelan in shock and fear.
From the moment this Haki appeared, he knew just how powerful Caelan was. It was far stronger than the Haki he had shown during the Jaya Island period. He was definitely, absolutely no match for him.
This was pure personal power, not the power of a Devil Fruit. As a Dark-Dark Fruit user, he feared such personal power the most.
Even though he himself was skilled in physical combat and Haki, and had once left a scar on Shanks' eye.
Facing a pure and powerful warrior like Caelan, and with the side effect of the Dark-Dark Fruit doubling his pain, he had no chance of winning.
Damn it.
If he obtained Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit, with the power of two top-level fruits, he might be able to compete with Caelan for the position of overlord.
Blackbeard felt a stab of regret. If he had known earlier, he would not have come to Impel Down to look for partners. It would have been better to wait directly for Whitebeard's body at Marineford.
Byrnndi World, Bullet, and the others also looked at Caelan with grim expressions. Although they were not as shaken as Blackbeard, they knew their own limits.
Even with their experience, they had only seen such Haki in a few people. The most famous was, of course, the Pirate King Roger.
"After twenty years, has such a terrifying man appeared on the sea again?"
Bullet, Byrnndi World, and the others felt a weight in their hearts.
They had thought that after decades, with Roger and Rocks dead, there were no more overlords in the world, and they could do as they pleased.
But after meeting Caelan today, they realized that another overlord had been born.
This overlord was even more domineering than Rocks and Roger. He stood against both pirates and the World Government, and would not allow them to run amok on the sea.
Magellan and the companions around Caelan were not feeling well either. Even though Caelan deliberately avoided directing his Haki at them, they still felt immense pressure and subconsciously lowered their heads.
They silently counted their blessings that Caelan was not invading Impel Down today. Otherwise, they would have been in big trouble.
But Caelan did not have time to care what they thought. He walked straight toward the last group of people still standing, the elite of all Impel Down.
What surprised Caelan was that Crocodile was actually standing among them with Byrnndi World and the others, and he was not like the Evil King and Sanjuan Wolf, conscious yet unable to move.
It seemed the old sand-croc still had some skill.
Otherwise, when he challenged Whitebeard, he would have just knelt, and his hand would not have been broken.
This was fine. Since they were all to be kept as dogs, the stronger the dog, the better.
"Everyone, hand over your lives."
Caelan looked at Blackbeard and his group of pirates and spoke indifferently.
"If you want to kill us, come and take it yourself!"
Bullet glared fiercely at Caelan.
Although Caelan's strength was terrifying, he would never be captured without a fight.
"Hahaha, why must it be a fight to the death? Caelan, would it not be better if you let us out and we fought the World Government together?"
Blackbeard said with a sinister smile.
As he spoke, black mist gathered in his hands. He had clearly made preparations.
"Only if you die can you help me deal with the World Government better."
Caelan said with a smile.
Surrendering alive would be less useful than becoming Heroic Spirits after death.
"…"
The atmosphere suddenly became tense.
Blackbeard, Crocodile, Bullet, and the others all fixed their eyes on Caelan, gathering their strength and preparing to attack.
(To be continued.)