Chapter 52: A Grain of Forbidden Truth
Levi walked forward, the previously arrogant CP0 agent now trailing behind him like a chastised dog. The man's earlier bluster had evaporated, replaced by a cold, sickly dread as he witnessed the sheer terror Levi inspired in the monsters of Level 6. He's not just strong, the agent realized with a sinking feeling. He's a monster of a different breed. A mad scientist who terrifies other madmen. I poked the wrong beast.
He decided silence was his best armor. Survive this encounter, report, and never volunteer for a mission involving the "Black Crow" again.
Levi had only taken a few strides into the central area when the CP0 commander, Kosas, emerged from the gloom near Rayleigh's cell, several other blank-masked agents in tow. From another cell—Luffy, Kid, and Law's shared space—came the distinct, wet sound of impacts and muffled curses.
"Damn you…! I'll get out…! I'd do it again…! Never… apologize…!" Luffy's voice, strained but defiant, was punctuated by another sickening thud. The CP0 were administering "corrective punishment" for striking a Celestial Dragon. Levi observed dispassionately. He noted, however, a peculiar pattern. Each brutal beating seemed to be followed by a marginally faster recovery, a slight but perceptible toughening of Luffy's rubbery constitution. The favored son indeed, Levi thought with detached interest. Adversity as a whetstone.
"The interrogation has concluded," Kosas said, his voice cutting through the grim soundtrack. He was looking directly at Levi. "You must be the 'Black Crow.' I am Kosas."
Levi stopped, his face an impassive mask. "I am."
Internally, however, his Reiatsu Analysis was screaming alarms. Kosas's soul… it was wrong. It wasn't just strong or twisted; it was ancient. It had a dense, black, coiling texture, layered with centuries of… something. Whispers of torment, echoes of forgotten pacts. It felt like a tomb, but the body housing it was only middle-aged. The dissonance was more profound than the layered, watched feeling of Luffy's soul. This was deliberate. Contrived.
Kosas offered a hand, his smile polite, almost warm. He displayed no offense at Levi's earlier display of force. A consummate politician. But as Levi took his hand in a brief, firm shake, he felt a subtle, psychic chill—a sensation Kosas masked perfectly but Levi's enhanced senses caught.
"My subordinate was… discourteous," Kosas said, releasing the handshake.
"Such discourtesy is a liability," Levi replied flatly. "It invites consequences."
"A valid point," Kosas agreed, his tone thoughtful. "CP0, as the pure instrument of the World Government's will, cannot tolerate imperfections."
In a motion so fast it was a blur to most eyes, Kosas drew a sleek, white pistol from his coat. He didn't aim; he simply pointed it sideways.
BANG.
The report was deafening in the stone chamber. The arrogant CP0 agent, who had been standing sullenly behind Levi, jerked once as a hole appeared in his pristine white mask, a dark red blossom flowering behind it. He crumpled to the floor without a sound.
The other CP0 agents didn't flinch. They didn't even look. This was routine.
"Justice must be seen to be pure," Kosas said, holstering the weapon, his smile never wavering. "Is the Admiral satisfied?"
Levi understood the performance. This wasn't justice. It was a gift. A bloody, dramatic offering to win his favor, to signal that the World Government valued him enough to sacrifice one of their own tools. It was an investment.
"Adequate," Levi said, giving nothing away.
"Excellent. I have other matters to attend to. I look forward to our next meeting, Admiral Black Crow. In the Holy Land, perhaps." The invitation was clear: Join us in the inner circle.
"Undoubtedly," Levi replied. His meaning was double-layered. He would go to Mary Geoise—for the sign-in points, for the power. What he did after that was another matter.
Kosas gave a final, satisfied nod and led his entourage out, stepping over the cooling body of his former subordinate without a glance.
Once they were gone, Levi slowly raised his right hand. Clenched in his fist, invisible to all, was a tiny, almost microscopic fragment of black, writhing spiritual matter. During the handshake, using his finely honed Reiatsu Analysis like a spiritual scalpel, he had excised a minuscule piece of Kosas's anomalous soul. It was a risk, but his curiosity about the World Government's oldest secrets outweighed the caution.
"Your relationship with your superiors seems… complex," Rayleigh's weary voice drifted from his cell. The old legend had watched the entire exchange, his sharp eyes missing little.
"It is a transaction," Levi said absently, his focus turning inward. He directed his perception into the stolen soul-fragment, seeking echoes, memories, truths buried in its ancient layers.
What he found made the blood freeze in his veins.
Fragmented images, sensations older than nations: Endless, sterile white halls. The cold gleam of giant capsules in dim light. The sound of scribbling on eternal parchment. A vast, empty throne under a glaring light. And a voice, layered, ancient, and utterly devoid of humanity, whispering: "The cleansing must be periodic. The names must be recorded. The cycle cannot break."
It was a glimpse into a machinery of control so vast and cold it made Impel Down seem like a summer camp. A system of erasure and renewal measured in centuries.
Levi's expression, usually so controlled, flickered for a microsecond—a flash of sheer, icy revelation.
Rayleigh, watching from the shadows of his cell, saw it. The veteran's own eyes, dulled by exhaustion, suddenly sharpened to dagger points. That was not the look of a man learning a simple secret. It was the look of a man who had just peered into the abyss and seen something moving in the dark.
"You have… a peculiar ability," Rayleigh said slowly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur only Levi could hear. "What did you glean from that man's spirit?"
He paused, then asked the question that had burned in the hearts of the Roger Pirates for decades, the question that had driven them to the end of the world and beyond.
"Did you see it? The truth… about this world?"
In the heavy silence of Eternal Hell, with the scent of gunpowder and old blood in the air, the captured Dark King offered a fragment of the world's greatest mystery to the man who might be the only one capable of understanding—or wielding—it.
(End of Chapter)
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