Cheers to 2026. Happy New Year guys.
I really want to appreciate y'll for your love and support towards this fic throughout the previous year and I also want to thank you those that gifted and supported me on my Patreon all this while...
I hope you guys continue to review this fic as you pour me your power stones to vote and also for those who is about to subscribe to my patreon. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I really do appreciate it!
Well, that's that. A lot has been going on for a while and it has been difficult to type. But I'll try my best to keep yall updated here and also on patreon which is probably 10 Chapters ahead of this post.
Here's your first chapter of the year, so enjoy!
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Level 4 groaned under the immense weight of two monstrous forces. Magma hissed and spat, stone fractured under unbearable pressure, and the suffocating stench of poison choked what little breathable air remained.
Magellan's Venom Demon towered, a grotesque leviathan perpetually dripping corrosive acid; its deafening roar vibrated through the very foundations of the cavern. The Warden himself fixed his opponent with a glare that burned with murderous fury.
Satoru Gojo stood opposite him, an island of preternatural calm, hands resting casually in his pockets. His Infinity shimmered with a faint, otherworldly light. A mischievous grin tugged at his lips beneath the blindfold.
"Well," Gojo remarked, his tone disarmingly casual, "if this is hell, I've gotta say—it's not as hot as I expected."
Magellan offered no retort. With a silent command, the Venom Demon surged forward, its claws scything down like twin blades of liquefied death.
The clash commenced.
The first strike landed with the cataclysmic force of a collapsing tower. Poisonous claws slammed against the impervious barrier of Gojo's Infinity, halting mere inches from his face. Viscous venom splashed outward, eating through the solid stone floor as if it were nothing.
Gojo merely tilted his head. "Careful. You'll give me a facial, and I regrettably didn't bring my skincare routine."
Magellan snarled, unleashing a relentless barrage. The demon's arms hammered down in a furious succession, each devastating blow splitting the ground and sending rivers of magma spilling outward.
Gojo never moved. Each world-shattering impact halted at the invisible wall, rendering it utterly harmless. His silver hair fluttered slightly from the concussive pressure, but his infuriating smirk never faltered.
"You hit plenty hard," Gojo admitted, "but you're not really… connecting, y'know?"
With a sudden, explosive surge, Magellan hurled waves of concentrated venom across the entire battlefield. They crashed and splashed against Gojo's Infinity, surrounding him in a boiling, impassable sea of certain death. The very air turned black and toxic with fumes.
Guards watching from a safe distance choked and collapsed. Entire prison walls dissolved into molten sludge.
Still, Gojo sighed, audibly unimpressed. "Ugh. You're making a spectacular mess. Who's going to clean all this up? Certainly not me."
For the first time, Gojo moved. He stepped forward once—a single, deliberate step—and raw cursed energy rippled outward from him like a psychic shockwave. The Venom Demon staggered violently, its form destabilizing and wobbling, chunks of its poisonous body splattering into the magma below.
Magellan grit his teeth, pouring his will into forcing the demon steady. "Your arrogance blinds you! You cannot maintain this defense indefinitely!"
Gojo chuckled. "Funny. People say that a lot, but here I am—still fabulous."
He raised his hand, palm outward. Instead of summoning Blue or Red, raw, swirling cursed energy coalesced in his palm. He clapped once, releasing a concussive wave of pure force that blew the entire venom tide backward.
The ground cracked into deeper fissures. Lava surged violently. The prison ceiling groaned in protest, raining dust and debris.
Gojo tilted his head. "If you keep throwing poison everywhere, this whole level's going to collapse. Are you actually trying to kill me, or just aggressively redecorate?"
Magellan roared, his patience finally evaporating. His entire body erupted with venom, the Venom Demon swelling to a monstrous size until it filled nearly the entire cavernous chamber.
"Hell's Judgment!" He thundered, his voice echoing with finality.
The demon's colossal claw descended, a veritable tidal wave of poison crashing toward Gojo. The intense heat, the overwhelming stench, and the sheer physical force combined into an aura of pure destruction.
For a single, suspended second, the world seemed to slow. Lava bubbled in slow motion, stone cracked silently, the air itself curdled with poison. The claw of death rushed forward—appearing unstoppable, utterly inevitable.
And Gojo smiled.
"You really gave it your all. I'll give you that."
Gojo moved. Just once.
His fist tightened, his boundless cursed energy flowing in a state of perfect, flawless synchronization with his physical strike. Not delayed. Not early. A state of absolute harmony.
The world itself seemed to shatter.
A visible distortion erupted around his hand as his punch connected—not with Magellan's body directly, but through the perfect, catastrophic collapse of cursed energy into physical impact.
Black Flash!!
The cavern screamed. Space warped violently around the point of impact. For an instant, all sound was vacuumed away—then reality itself snapped, exploding outward in a thunderous, overwhelming shockwave.
Magellan's Venom Demon shattered instantly, its form vaporizing in the wake of the sublime strike. The Warden's massive body was sent hurtling backward like a discarded toy, smashing through walls of molten stone, his control over his poison scattering uselessly into the toxic air.
The shockwave traveled further, splitting the prison floor wide open, sending magma surging higher in great geysers. Entire watchtowers trembled and collapsed into the burning pits below.
Gojo lowered his fist slowly, exhaling just once. "Mmm. Been a while since I timed one of those right. It felt nice."
The chamber was rendered unrecognizable. Poison burned weakly in scattered, dying puddles. Magma frothed and churned violently. The few remaining prison walls sagged, half-melted and deformed.
And Magellan lay broken against the far wall, coughing up thick blood mixed with his own venom. His once-imposing aura sputtered weakly, his venom retreating instinctively back into his battered form. He tried to rise, his body trembling with the effort, only to collapse again, utterly defeated.
Gojo stretched lazily, cracking his neck. "Don't take it personally. You're tough—honestly, tougher than most. But that? That was just spectacularly bad luck."
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Black Flash doesn't happen on command. You should feel honored, honestly."
Magellan could only manage a weak glare, his words drowned by another wet, painful cough.
Gojo waved a hand casually. "Yeah, yeah, save the dramatic speech. I'm sure it would've been poignant. But I've got places to be, a crew to find, and plenty of chaos left to spread."
With that, Gojo turned his back on the fallen Warden. His footsteps echoed crisply against the cracked stone as he strolled without haste toward the massive staircase leading upward.
The prison continued to shudder violently around him. Guards had long since fled, prisoners lay unconscious from the poisonous fumes, and magma steadily swallowed collapsed structures. Level 4 was no longer a battlefield—it was a smoldering ruin.
Gojo hummed a tune to himself, hands tucked comfortably back in his pockets. "Let's see… Level 3, huh? I wonder if it's as fun as this one. Probably cooler. Definitely smells better. Then again, it can't possibly smell worse."
Behind him, Magellan groaned, clinging barely to consciousness. His venom sputtered pathetically, unable to reform. For the first time in his reign as the chief warden, he had been utterly and completely overwhelmed.
Gojo didn't even afford him a glance back.
"Later, janitor."
With that final quip, he ascended the crumbling staircase, his grin wide and unmistakable, his eyes glittered with profound amusement.
Above, Level 3's eerie silence awaited him. Gojo's steps echoed as he crossed the threshold, the chaos of Level 4 fading into a dull roar behind him.
But the prison itself continued to shudder on its foundations. Alarms blared faintly somewhere in the distance, their tones desperate and futile. The sound of pure panic carried faintly through the ancient stone.
And somewhere far above, news of Magellan's catastrophic defeat was already racing toward Marineford on the wings of urgency.
Gojo stretched his arms, utterly unconcerned. "Well then… onto the next floor. I wonder what kind of interesting freaks live up here."
The ruined, flaming aftermath of Level 4 crackled behind him as he stepped fully into the oppressive atmosphere of Level 3.
The staircase spat Gojo out into an abyssal darkness.
This was Level 3 of Impel Down—Starvation Hell.
The air was stifling, unbearably dry and brittle, like breathing sheets of sandpaper. Oppressive heat radiated from countless cracks in the floor, the magma rivers below bleeding their thermal energy upward into the chamber. Prisoners lay scattered in their cells, skeletal and frail, their eyes sunken deep from perpetual hunger. The silence was profoundly worse than Level 4's chaos—here, there was no roaring, no fighting, just the hollow groaning of empty stomachs and faint, dying coughs.
Gojo whistled, the sound absurdly loud in the dead air. "Well… this is profoundly depressing. You guys don't even get background music?"
Some of the prisoners stirred at the sound, their heads lifting with sluggish, painful effort. Their eyes widened in disbelief when they saw him, and hoarse whispers began to circulate.
"That's him…" "The one who fought the Warden…"
"Captain Gojo…he came up here…"
Gojo's head twitched slightly at the moniker. "Tch. Again with that 'captain' stuff? You lot pass out for five minutes and suddenly it's a cult."
A prisoner pressed against the rusted bars, a desperate, skeletal hand outstretched. "Please… food… water…"
Gojo crouched down, his grin visible. "Food? Water? Nah. But hey, I've got good vibes. Want some of those?"
The man simply blinked, too starved and dehydrated to process the jest.
Gojo straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his pristine uniform. "Tough crowd. I guess comedy doesn't land on an utterly empty stomach."
The heavy silence was abruptly broken by the pounding of boots against stone. A full squad of jailers burst into the chamber, their rifles leveled directly at Gojo. Behind them lumbered a few monstrous, starving beasts, their scarred bodies coiled with savage, desperate energy.
"Halt!" The lead guard shouted, his voice betraying his terror. "You're under arrest—surrender now!"
Gojo raised a single, condescending finger. "Hmm. See, that command would work significantly better if you didn't all look like you were about to faint."
The guards hesitated. Even the primal beasts twitched nervously, their base instincts screaming that the man was not prey, but the ultimate predator.
Gojo clapped his hands together once—a single, sharp sound—and sent a controlled ripple of cursed energy through the floor. The beasts collapsed instantly, pinned by an invisible pressure they could not possibly comprehend. The guards stumbled backward, their rifles rattling in their trembling hands.
"Oops. Too much?" Gojo asked, his voice dripping with false innocence. "Don't worry, you'll live. Probably."
The ripple of energy didn't stop. New cracks raced across the prison floor, the magma below bubbling louder and closer to the surface. Prisoners shrieked in renewed terror, clutching the bars of their cells.
Gojo tilted his head. "Oh, right. I forgot this level is held up by… what? Optimism? This place is so cheaply built."
Chunks of the ceiling broke free, crushing stone walkways into powder. A few cell doors burst open from the stress, prisoners spilling out, dazed and horrifically malnourished. They crawled on hands and knees, their whispers forming a single, desperate mantra:
"Captain Gojo…"
"Our savior…"
Gojo pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ugh. I'm not your captain. Do I look like I run a tour boat? I don't even have snacks."
Still, they followed him, stumbling weakly in his wake like a procession of skeletal ducklings, drawn by the sheer force of his presence.
Gojo sighed dramatically and strolled deeper into Level 3, hands comfortably in his pockets. The guards did not pursue—most were already unconscious from the overwhelming cursed energy pressure.
The prisoners trailed in his wake, too desperate to stop. Their bones rattled with each feeble step, their collective whispering growing slightly louder, chanting the title despite their profound weakness.
"Captain Gojo… Captain Gojo…"
The blue-eyed sorcerer groaned. "This is my life now, huh? I'm going to cause one little prison break and suddenly I'm a brand mascot."
Still, his characteristic grin widened imperceptibly.
"Eh. It could be fun."
He whistled a cheerful tune as he headed for the staircase to Level 2, the already-ruined prison crumbling further into absolute devastation with every casual step he took.
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