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N/B: Yoy!! Guys Don't forget to check my other works: [ Shadow Monarch Ă— Harry Potter].
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Third POV:
The silence that followed Kurokaz's fall was a fragile, fleeting thing, a single, held breath in the throat of the damned. It didn't last long. The mountain of flesh and bone, the titan known throughout the bowels of Impel Down as the Bonebreaker, lay crumpled in a rapidly expanding pool of his own dark, viscous blood and the slowly settling dust of shattered stone, his immense, terrifying presence no longer dominating the vast, grim hall. Akai stood over him, chest heaving, each breath a ragged, painful pull of the thick, blood-scented air. His knuckles were a raw, pulpy mess, skin split open and dripping crimson onto the cold stone beneath his feet. He had won—barely, smartly, by a hair's edge, using every last ounce of his cunning, his speed, and the system's cold, unfeeling calculations.
But Level 6, the Eternal Hell, was not a place that forgave victories. It only ever offered new, more terrible challenges in their stead.
"You fucking brat… you killed my captain!"
The voice ripped through the simmering, post-battle chaos like a serrated blade, sharp and venomous, laced with a hatred so pure it was almost tangible. Akai turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing against the swirling dust motes dancing in the faint, flickering torchlight. Out of the gloom and from behind half-collapsed, rusted cell doors stepped another figure. He was leaner than Kurokaz, wiry and tightly coiled like a spring, but he radiated a raw, predatory menace that was somehow more immediate, more personally threatening than the giant's overwhelming brute force.
Akai groaned dramatically, the sound laden with genuine, bone-deep exasperation, "Oh gosh… the big boy had a teammate. Of course, he did. Couldn't just be a solo act, could it? That would be too convenient."
The man's eyes, a startling and utterly unnatural shade of glowing crimson, burned with pure, undiluted fury. His lips, thin and pale, curled back from his teeth into a feral, promise-filled grin that showed too much gum.
"You said captain, huh?" Akai mocked, wiping a fresh trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with the torn, filthy sleeve of his prison garb. "And your crew left you? I see just you… all alone. Oh, and by the way," he added, looking the man up and down with deliberate, insulting slowness, "you're too short for this kind of drama. You lack the… stature."
The man's jaw twitched violently, a muscle leaping in his cheek. He was clearly ready to snarl back, to unleash a torrent of graphic threats, but Akai raised a bloodied hand, cutting him off with a dismissive, almost bored gesture. "No, no, wait. I know what you're about to say. Save your breath. You don't have to." He smirked, tilting his head to the side like a curious bird, his voice dripping with sarcastic condescension. "You're about to tell me I'll pay for this… that I'll suffer unimaginably. Heard it all before. Hardly original, right? You guys really need some new material."
The veins in the man's temple pulsed visibly beneath his sallow skin. "You have a big mouth. I'll smash it. I'll tear it from your fucking face."
"And how," Akai shot back instantly, his grin not faltering for a single second, "will I kiss the hot woman if you do that? Think about it. You'd be ruining my future prospects. That's just rude. Have some decorum."
The prisoners surrounding them, however, had absolutely no patience for witty banter. The brief, stunned pause in the violence had ended. The chaos had not subsided; it had metastasized, exploding into a monstrous, all-consuming storm of pure anarchy.
All around them, cells stood ripped open, their reinforced doors hanging from twisted, broken hinges like broken wings. Heavy, rusted chains dangled from the shattered walls and ceilings, swaying like dead, metallic snakes in the chaotic air. Fists and rusted shivs and broken teeth clashed in a hundred individual, brutal duels to the death. Some prisoners, too far gone into raving madness, tore into each other with bare hands, gnashing teeth, ripping flesh from bone in wet, tearing sounds that were horrifically loud. Screams of agony, pure rage, and insane, gleeful delight echoed down the endless, dark corridors, blending into a single, horrific symphony with the sound of cracking skulls and tearing muscle. The ground was slick with blood and other, less identifiable fluids, each surface glistening evilly in the dim, failing torchlight that seemed to be gasping its last.
Bodies were already strewn across the floor like discarded rubbish—limbs bent at impossible angles, heads split open like overripe fruit, spilling their grey matter onto the stone. One prisoner, his eyes rolled back to show only the whites, was on his knees, biting deep into another's throat, arterial spray painting the wall behind him in a violent, abstract arc. Others clawed at each other's eyes, their laughter manic, high-pitched, and utterly animalistic. The level had become a grotesque, open-air carnival of gore—hell's own grand theater, and the main performance had only just begun.
And in the center of it all, amidst the swirling, screaming madness, Akai faced his next personal devil.
DING!
The familiar, intrusive chime of the system cut through the bedlam, clear as a bell in his mind. A blue, translucent notification lit across his vision, superimposing itself over the hellish landscape.
[Next Target Identified]
Name:Basha the Bloodhound
Class:Zoan User (Beast Type)
Traits:Enhanced animal instincts, heightened senses, savage regeneration, berserk combat mode
Danger Level:High
Objective:Eliminate Target
Akai squinted at the glowing text, reading the name with a sense of weary inevitability. >"Basha the Bloodhound? Fuck me… ugly ass name. Sounds stronger than the other big ass, though."
As if to perfectly punctuate the thought, the figure before him began to change. His body twisted and contorted violently, bones popping with loud, sickening cracks that echoed over the din. Muscles swelled and re-knit under skin that stretched and tore in places, reforming into a thicker, bestial hide covered in coarse, dark stubble. His mouth elongated, his nose flattening and darkening into a wet, twitching black muzzle. Teeth sharpened into yellowed, deadly fangs that gleamed with strands of thick saliva. His fingernails thickened and curved into black, wicked claws that scraped against the stone floor with a sound that set teeth on edge. His face melted and shifted into something monstrous, a horrific hybrid of man and ravenous beast, dripping ropes of hot saliva as a low, continuous, guttural growl rattled up from his chest, vibrating through the stone beneath their feet. His eyes, now fully animal, burned with a pure, undiluted animal hunger, fixed solely on Akai.
Akai winced, a genuine expression of distaste crossing his features. "Yeah, that's… not cute. At all."
DING!
Another message flashed urgently in his vision, this one bordered in a threatening, pulsating red.
[Quest Timer: 30 minutes remaining]
Akai froze. His eyes widened, all mockery and bravado draining from his face in an instant, replaced by stark, cold realization. "Oooohhh… shit. Shit, shit, shit! I forgot about this!"
His heart slammed against his ribs, a sudden, cold flare of pure panic seizing him before he ruthlessly shoved it down, locking it away. Time was running out. The system wasn't going to wait for him to play hero or trade clever insults. If he didn't finish this, and finish it fast, the system's punishment would hit him harder than any monster in this hellhole ever could.
He looked back at the fully transformed beast, Basha the Bloodhound, now crouched low on all fours, powerful haunches coiled and ready to spring. A grim, determined grin spread across Akai's face, wiping away the brief fear. "Alright, Basha. No more chit-chat. Let's finish this."
The Bloodhound dropped even lower, his powerful claws scraping deep, shrieking grooves into the stone floor, saliva dripping from his jagged fangs in thick, continuous strands. The chaos of Level 6, the screams and the bloodshed and the clanging of metal, swirled around them like a violent, deafening vortex, but in that moment, for Akai, all sound fell away, muffled and distant.
There was just Akai.
Just Basha.
And the relentless,silent clock ticking down in the corner of his mind.
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End of Chapter 12.
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If you want to read more about my works or just to support me then here is my patreon:
👉 Patreon.com/Doflamingo4