Chapter 43: The Weight of a Name
The scene on Level 6 was no longer a controlled riot; it was a bubbling cauldron of pure anarchy. Magellan, his benign demeanor completely shed, was a swirling vortex of lethal poison. Venom Dragons lashed out, corrosive hydra spewed from his mouth, and even the stone floor sizzled and melted where he stepped. Earth, steel, and basic Armament Haki were useless against his absolute toxicity. He was a force of nature contained within hell, moving with a terrifying, focused rage to quell the disorder before it humiliated him further in front of an Admiral.
Unbeknownst to him, one of his contingency plans had already turned traitor. The jailer sent to fetch Shiryu of the Rain now lay in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood, a look of profound betrayal frozen on his face, Shiryu's named sword, Raiu, buried in his heart.
Shiryu stood over the corpse, cleaning his blade with detached efficiency. From the shadows beside the cell, a darkness deeper than the prison's gloom coalesced into the grinning form of Marshall D. Teach.
"Zehahaha… saw the whole thing," Blackbeard chuckled, his voice a low rumble. "Passing out keys like candy. You're a real anarchist, ain't ya? And here I thought you worked for Magellan."
Shiryu didn't look up. "What of it?"
"How 'bout we play for higher stakes? This little scuffle is child's play. I got a game in mind… a real spectacle."
A slow, predatory smile spread across Shiryu's face. "Do tell."
At the main entrance to the level, the chaotic roar was pierced by a new, languid voice.
"So noisy. Sakazuki, is this really your best? Can't even handle a mob of half-starved relics?"
The voice cut through the din. Prisoners and guards alike faltered for a split second. Who dares?
Levi walked into the flickering torchlight of the corridor, Domino a step behind him, her eyes wide with anticipation.
Sakazuki, one magma-coated fist buried in the chest of a screaming prisoner, didn't turn. "Black Crow. Weren't you occupied with your… hobbies? Your presence is unnecessary." In his internal ledger, Levi was now firmly categorized: Unstable. Powerful. Useful if pointed in the right direction. A blunt instrument. Sengoku's assessment of "easy-going" was a joke Sakazuki no longer found amusing.
"Admiral Black Crow! Your timing is impeccable!" Hannyabal exclaimed, oozing sycophantic enthusiasm. In his political calculations, befriending the young, monstrously powerful Admiral was a brilliant long-term investment.
"Black Crow Admiral?!" Avalo Pizarro gasped from behind his bars, his earlier boredom vanished.
"The fourth one?"
"The one who took down Rayleigh?!"
The name rippled through the confined space like a shockwave. Dozens of unseen, desperate Observation Haki probes surged toward the entrance, trying to sense the newcomer who had become a new benchmark for power.
In his assigned cell—Gol D. Roger's old cell—Rayleigh paid the commotion little mind. He ran a hand over the cold, familiar stone. "So my reputation is now a unit of measure… how the times change. Captain… you always were one for leaving surprises. What did you hide here?"
Levi's gaze, however, had snapped to his adjutant. A thin, but vivid, line of red stained the sleeve of Gion's uniform jacket. A shallow cut on her forearm dripped blood onto the floor.
"You're hurt?" Levi asked, his voice flat.
Gion glanced at the wound, dismissive. "It's nothing. A graze. One of them got lucky in the press." It was true. Holding a chokepoint against a dozen frenzied, formerly legendary pirates, even for a Vice Admiral candidate, was no simple task. The dim, Haki-dampening environment of Level 6 had leveled the playing field slightly.
To Levi, it was not "nothing." This adjutant was efficient. She made excellent coffee. Her pastries were sublime. She handled logistics without complaint. She was, in his calculus of convenience, a valuable and well-functioning asset. And now this asset was damaged.
"Who," Levi's voice dropped, losing all its previous casual tone, "did this?"
The question hung in the air, almost absurd in the midst of the larger battle.
But then Levi's Reiatsu shifted. It was no longer the focused, surgical pressure he'd used in the upper levels, or even the powerful wave he'd unleashed against Sakazuki at the gate.
This was different.
BOOOOOOM—!
It wasn't a release. It was a detonation.
A torrent of spiritual pressure, so dense it was visibly black, erupted from Levi's body. It didn't flow; it hammered outward in a single, devastating shockwave that filled every cubic inch of Level 6: Eternal Hell.
The effect was instantaneous and absolute.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Like a forest of trees being felled, every single rioting prisoner—every legendary name, every vicious killer—was smashed to their knees. The stone flooring beneath them cracked and cratered from the force of their impact. It felt like the entire ocean had been dumped on their souls. They weren't being intimidated; they were being crushed into the dirt by the sheer, incomprehensible weight of Levi's spirit.
Even Sakazuki grunted, his feet sliding back an inch, his magma flickering. His eyes widened in genuine, stunned shock. This… this is what he held back at the gate?! The pressure was orders of magnitude greater. It was a black, substantial force that pressed against his own formidable will, threatening to buckle it. For the first time, a cold, clear realization cut through his rage: in a fight to the death against this man, he would lose. This was not a rival Admiral. This was a calamity given human form.
"W-What the hell?!" a prisoner choked out, his face pressed to the grimy floor. "This… this is the source of that earlier Haki! But it's… it's WORSE!"
Dozens of the world's most fearless, unhinged criminals were now prostrate, unable to even lift their heads against the black tide drowning their spirits.
One fanatic, his mind broken by decades of confinement, felt his own Conqueror's Haki—a spark that had once cowed fleets—stir in pathetic rebellion. "DAMN MARINE! I'LL KILL—!"
He never finished.
Levi's head turned a fraction. His eyes, glowing with an inner blue light now tinged with black, found the man.
That was all it took.
The fanatic's burgeoning Conqueror's Haki was snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane. Then, with a sickening POP, his body didn't just collapse—it burst apart from the inside, shredded into a fine, crimson mist that painted the nearby cells.
Silence.
A ringing, absolute silence fell upon Eternal Hell. The riot was over. The only sound was the ragged, terrified breathing of broken men and the faint hiss of Sakazuki's cooling magma.
Levi stood at the epicenter of the stillness, the black Reiatsu slowly receding back into him, leaving the air cold and thin. He looked at Gion's bleeding arm again, then swept his gaze over the kneeling, broken forms of the prisoners.
"Now," he said, his voice quiet but carrying to every corner. "Which one of you damaged my adjutant?"
The question, in the new, horrifying context, was the most terrifying sentence any of them had ever heard.
(End of Chapter)
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