The last of the Blugori, the one with the severed leg, was still dragging itself across the stone floor. It moved with a horrifying, robotic single-mindedness, seemingly oblivious to its grievous injury. There was no pain in its skeletal eyes, only the cold, hard-coded command to attack. It crawled towards Kai, its one good arm reaching out to claw at him. Kai ended its miserable existence with a final, perfunctory stomp to its skull.
For a moment, there was only the sound of his own heavy breathing. He stood amidst the carnage, the four massive, blue-furred bodies of the Jailer Beasts lying broken around him. He flexed his hands, a strange, exhilarating energy thrumming through his veins.
"That felt... good," he murmured, a slow grin spreading across his face. "It's a strange feeling... the more I fought, the more I understood. It was like learning a new language in seconds."
The fight replayed in his mind's eye, but not as a chaotic memory. It was a crystal-clear schematic. He saw every feint, every over-extended swing, every momentary opening the Blugori had presented. He understood the rhythm of their attacks, the subtle shift in their weight before they lunged, the exact arc their axes would travel. This knowledge hadn't been there when the fight started. It had flooded into his mind during the battle itself.
(When I was facing all four of them, I was just trying to survive. I was running, dodging, learning their patterns on the fly. But by the end, when I faced the last three, it was different. It felt... easy. I could predict their every move.)
The stunning truth of his ability hit him with the force of a physical blow.
(The one hundred times reward... it's not just for training the body. It's for training the mind too. The accumulation of combat experience is also amplified a hundred times!)
This was a game-changer of epic proportions. That short, desperate skirmish hadn't been a single battle. For his mind, it had been the equivalent of fighting the Blugori one hundred times over. All the nuances, the timing, the weaknesses... he had downloaded a lifetime of experience in under a minute.
(This is incredible. In this world, a single fight against a powerful opponent is a rare and dangerous learning opportunity. Most fighters would be lucky to survive one encounter. But for me? One fight is all I need. I can master an opponent's style, learn all their tells, and find the perfect way to counter them instantly.)
His musings were cut short by a faint, piercing sound. A melody that was both whimsical and commanding.
(A flute? What...?)
Then he remembered. The Blugori were not wild beasts. They were puppets. And he could hear their master's strings.
From a high-up guard post, a voice shrieked, small but amplified by the acoustics of the hall. "He's still alive? Useless beasts! More! Bring him down!"
With the escalating shriek of the flute, the distant thumping returned, but this time it was not one or two sets of footsteps. It was a stampede. From every corridor, every shadow, more Blugori emerged. Dozens of them. Their skeletal eyes were all fixed on him, a tide of blue fur and bloodstained axes.
Floating above them was their commander, a bizarre, short man with two heads, small devil wings, and a trident. It was Saldeath, the Chief Guard of Level 1.
The prisoners who had been watching in awe now recoiled in absolute terror.
"It's Saldeath! He's called all of them!"
"Dozens... there are dozens of them!" Griz yelled, his face pale. "Kid, what you did was amazing, but you can't fight that many! It's a slaughter!"
(He's right. One-on-one, these things are just experience points now. But dozens? Even I can't handle that. My fists can't block fifty axes at once.)
His only option was to go down.
As the first wave of Blugori charged, Kai hooked his foot under the handle of the axe he had just used and flipped it into his hands. The weight felt familiar, comfortable now.
The blue tide was about to crash over him.
"Haaaaah!"
With a powerful roar, he began to spin. He held the giant axe out, becoming the eye of a hurricane.
CLANG! BANG! CRASH!
The first Blugori to reach him were sent flying, their own weapons knocked from their hands as they were struck by the whirlwind of Kai's axe. They crashed into the ranks behind them, causing the entire stampede to momentarily falter in a chaotic pile-up.
It was the only opening he would get.
He stopped spinning, leaped into the air, and brought the axe down with all his might. He didn't aim for the beasts. He aimed for the floor, specifically at one of the deep craters created by the earlier fight.
BOOM!
The axe slammed into the weakened stone. The entire floor of the prison block trembled violently. A web of cracks spread out from the point of impact, and the crater deepened into a sinkhole several meters wide. The axe was embedded deep in the ground, but the floor, to Kai's shock, did not give way.
(Damn it! Are you kidding me? This floor is ridiculously tough!) he thought in frustration. He remembered the story. Luffy was on Level 2 when the Sphinx, the floor's guardian, smashed its way down to Level 3. (Does that mean the floors get weaker as you go down? Or is that Sphinx just that much of a monster?)
There was no time to ponder it. The Blugori were already recovering.
He abandoned the embedded axe. With an explosive push from his legs, he launched himself straight up, landing nimbly on the stone ceiling above. The prisoners below stared up in shock.
For a split second, he was upside down, his feet planted firmly on the ceiling as if gravity were a suggestion. Then, he kicked off.
"Here goes nothing!"
BANG!
The ceiling cracked under the force of his push. He plummeted downwards like a meteor, tucking into a spin and raising his right leg high above his head. He aimed his heel at the center of the spiderweb of cracks he had just created.
(Let's call this... Meteor Stomp!)
CRACK-KOOM!
The world exploded in a shower of stone and dust. The floor finally gave way, shattering completely. A massive, gaping hole opened up, and with a collective, silent roar, Kai and the dozens of Blugori that had been surrounding the hole were swallowed by the darkness below.
Griz rushed to the bars of his cell, staring down into the abyss. "That crazy son of a... He actually did it. He went down."
The fall was chaotic. Kai felt a moment of weightlessness, the wind rushing past his ears, surrounded by the flailing, silent forms of the Jailer Beasts. Then they hit.
He landed in a crouch on the floor of Level 2, the impact rattling his bones but causing no real damage. Several of the Blugori were not so lucky, landing with sickening crunches that broke limbs and necks.
He stood up and took his first breath in this new hell. The air was different here. It was hot, humid, and thick with the primal stench of sweat, blood, and exotic predators. Distant, inhuman roars and screeches echoed through the vast, cavernous space. This wasn't a prison block. It was a jungle.
(Level 1 was the Crimson Hell,) he recalled. (A forest of blade-leaf trees and needle grass. This... this is Level 2. The Wild Beast Hell.)
This level was a massive, indoor safari park populated by monstrous and deadly beasts. Cockatrices, Manticores, Basilisk... all ruled by a giant, winged, man-faced lion called the Sphinx. The prisoners here weren't tortured by guards. They were simply let loose, to be hunted and devoured.
(I came down here for two reasons) Kai thought, a dangerous glint in his eye as a giant, plate-armored scorpion emerged from the shadows, its tail raised and dripping with venom. (First, to escape capture. Second, to get stronger.)