The corridor was warm, and Pirate Yujin was pushing a cart full of apples as he walked.
These were the most common fruits produced on the Grand Line, ordinary and unremarkable, just like their name.
Most people wouldn't eat them unless they really had nothing else to put in their mouths.
But apples were actually the fruits that people in the pirate world should be eating the most.
Because the production was high, the chance of an apple being chosen by a Devil was also much higher.
(Choose the fruit you want to eat based on its shape.)
The Blackbeard Pirates especially loved apples, and later almost every member of the crew carried a whole basket of them.
Although it was still unknown whether apples could truly absorb Devil powers…
Yujin still chose to believe "better safe than sorry," so whenever he had free time these past few days, he would check every apple Inazuma stole from the guards' cafeteria.
Especially apples.
What if he happened to find a heaven-defying Devil Fruit hidden among them?
"Devil Fruits really aren't that easy to run into…" Yujin muttered.
After checking all the apples, Pirate Yujin turned around, ready to head back to the Newkama Land to continue training his Armament Haki.
Suddenly—
A faint presence appeared behind him!
"Yu…"
Yujin turned around. Inazuma had just used her ability to cut open the wall, slipped through, and immediately sealed the gap behind her.
Her condition was terrible. Her face was turning purple, and thick purple liquid was dripping down her body. Wherever the liquid hit the floor, it sizzled with smoke.
This was the poison of Magellan, the Poison Man!
"You were discovered by Magellan!?" Yujin rushed forward.
"D-Don't come any closer," Inazuma gritted her teeth. "Touching this poison will paralyze you instantly."
Yujin didn't have time to worry about anything else.
He flipped the small cart filled with apples, let Inazuma sit on it, and sprinted all the way toward the Newkama Land.
Seeing Inazuma in such a state, Emporio Ivankov exploded on the spot.
"I—I'm going to fight Magellan to the death!"
A group of underlings hurriedly held Ivankov back.
"If you go find Magellan now, it's no different from suicide!"
Ivankov stomped his foot in fury.
"Damn Magellan! R-Right now the only thing that can work is Healing Hormones, but the success rate is only one to two percent!"
"Ivankov!"
Yujin's voice sounded beside Inazuma.
"Tell me where there's a passage leading outside. I'll go get the antidote!"
"Ah!"
The Okama King turned around, eyes instantly welling up.
"You foolishly devoted boy… you're going out there for the antidote?"
"No time for nonsense. Hurry."
"I'll go with you!"
Ivankov tightened his thong with determination.
"No. With more people we'll stand out too much. I can escape easily, but if you show your face and get captured, this whole place will be left without a leader—and that'll only cause bigger trouble!"
Inazuma coughed, using the last of her strength.
"M-My room… there's a passage…"
Following the narrow and cramped wall space, Yujin squeezed into a passage that almost no normal person in the One Piece world could fit through.
People in this world were usually four or five meters tall, huge and thick-waisted.
Only someone like Yujin—an underfed, scrawny kid—or someone with special abilities like Inazuma, the Scissors-Scissors Fruit user, could crawl into this passage.
The tunnel sometimes sloped upward, sometimes downward, winding instead of running straight, and even had several branching paths that nearly made Yujin lose his way.
Luckily, his strong Observation Haki let him sense faint, almost imperceptible traces of airflow, guiding him toward the correct path.
When he finally poked his head out, he realized he was at the ceiling of a corridor on the first floor.
There were no guards, no torches, and none of the torture devices normally found here.
It looked strangely empty.
Jumping down from the dim little opening, Yujin felt as if he had returned home.
After all, he had lived in this world for fourteen years, and seven of those had been spent inside Impel Down.
In the pitch-black corridor where you couldn't even see your own hand, every step he took echoed far into the endless darkness.
Yujin muttered in confusion, "What the hell is this place? Is this still inside Impel Down?"
After walking a few steps, he suddenly realized something.
There was no way he could've crawled all the way up to the first floor just by going through those tunnels.
This place… neither cold nor warm… could only be the legendary Level 6 — Eternal Hell.
The structure here wasn't complicated, and unlike the upper floors, there were no environmental hazards affecting the prisoners.
Every inmate here suffered a personal dose of venom every single day, followed by a brutal beating.
The seastone shackles covering their entire bodies were only the basic restraint.
The real punishment was the endless darkness — a hopeless prison sentence that crushed the mind.
As Yujin walked down the corridor, it felt like he could hear the dying whispers of countless prisoners who had perished here.
Cold wind swirled at his ankles, filling the air with an overwhelming sense of pressure.
"Shiryu was locked up in Eternal Hell later. He somehow got the antidote, ran into the Blackbeard Pirates in Blazing Hell, and rescued them."
"So that means… somewhere between Levels Six to Four… there's a chance to find the antidote."
Yujin calculated silently.
He fully extended his Observation Haki, sensing every aura around him.
"There!"
He leapt down the staircase, his footsteps light as he ran through the icy corridor, and soon he saw a cell door forged entirely from seastone.
Beside the cell was a small room filled with tools.
He didn't even look inside the cell.
He headed straight for the tool room.
Rushing inside, he found it packed with all kinds of horrifying torture devices.
Iron chains hung from the walls in neat rows, each chain ending with sharp hooks, giant metal clamps, and oddly shaped clubs.
Every instrument was stained with dried blood, making it easy to imagine how the brutal jailers used them on prisoners.
"No antidote?"
After searching for a long time, he had turned over everything he could.
This room only held tools for hurting people, not saving them.
****
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