The air in the broad service chamber of Level 4—Blazing Hell—grew thick and blistering as Magellan's condensed corrosive mantle flared with renewed intensity. With a deafening roar of dissolving metal, a massive wave of dark purple venom surged outward, eating through the remaining iron support pylons and shattering the elevated walkways into jagged, melting scrap.
Giovanni staggered as a section of the scorched iron grating gave way beneath his boots. His left forearm throbbed with a dull, freezing agony where the poison burn had settled into his flesh. The antitoxin had stemmed the paralysis, but every movement sent a sharp tremor through his arm, and his cracked ribs still burned with every ragged breath he drew. Beside him, Shanks stood firmly on a stable outcrop, his surviving right arm slick with fresh blood from his reopened gash, his breathing heavy and measured.
"Gio," Shanks said, his voice low and steady. "I'll make him look at me. Get behind him."
Shanks moved first, launching a broad, heavy slash wrapped in black-red lightning that forced Magellan to throw up a towering wall of liquid venom to intercept the blade. The resulting shockwave tore across the chamber, drawing the poison-user's entire defensive posture toward the captain.
Taking advantage of the diversion, Giovanni leaped across the widening gap of the boiling poison sea. Landing hard on a remaining anchor pylon behind Magellan, Giovanni drove Ace downward into the empty service walkway directly in the poison-user's rear.
"Sea King Slash!"
The flying cut sheared cleanly through the structural brackets, dropping the empty strip of iron into the toxic sea below.
Magellan whipped around, baring his teeth. "You think trapping me helps you?"
A massive, multi-headed surge of venom erupted from his core, separating Shanks and Giovanni with a thick, opaque wall of corrosive liquid.
Giovanni vaulted toward the viable foothold across the gap, his boots hitting the iron plating early. But as he raised Ace to press the attack, his poisoned left forearm spasmed violently. The sword trembled, throwing off his timing by a fraction of a second.
Magellan saw the tremor and bared his teeth. "That poison is already inside you."
The heavy-set man lunged forward, a spike of condensed venom driving straight toward Giovanni's exposed chest.
Before the strike could land, Shanks intercepted it. Moving with blinding speed, Shanks threw himself into the gap, his body absorbing the kinetic jar as Gryphon battered the venom aside, sending a sizzling, corrosive spray of purple droplets splashing violently against the distant stone bulkhead where it chewed hungrily into the masonry far away from his skin.
"Gio. One opening. That's all you need," Shanks muttered, his boots skidding back an inch on the hot plating.
Shanks planted his heel.
"Now, Gio!"
Gryphon tore sideways. Black lightning burst from the blade as the slash smashed into Magellan's venom screen. Purple liquid exploded across the chamber, splattering against empty iron and hissing through the grating.
For one heartbeat, Magellan's chest was open.
Giovanni moved. His left arm screamed the instant he tightened his grip on Ace. He ignored it.
"Red Spider Lily!"
Ace flashed across Magellan's body. The blade bit through his coat and carved a deep diagonal line across his chest, tearing open skin and muscle as a dark spray of blood erupted across the scorched iron.
Magellan staggered from the impact, his teeth grinding together as he fought to keep his footing against the sudden loss of blood. "You—"
He swung one heavy, venom-coated arm toward Giovanni in a desperate backhand sweep.
Shanks was already inside it.
"Divine Departure!"
Gryphon came across from the opposite side. The blade ripped through Magellan's guard and cut across his shoulder and upper torso. Advanced Conqueror's Haki detonated through the strike in a violent shockwave of compressed kinetic force.
Magellan spat blood, his eyes bulging from the sheer intensity of the impact. His enormous body left the floor entirely, crashing back-first into the reinforced concrete wall hard enough to crater it. Stone burst outward in a thick cloud of dust.
For a second, he remained upright against the rubble. Blood ran down his chest from Giovanni's cut. More poured over his shoulder from Shanks's. Magellan pushed one trembling hand against the broken wall, trying to anchor himself, but his fingers slipped against the smooth stone.
"Damn... pirates..."
His knees folded beneath him. His eyes rolled back into his head. Magellan hit the floor face-first and did not move.
Giovanni kept Ace raised for a second, his chest heaving as he watched for any sign of motion. Shanks lowered Gryphon beside him, wiping sweat and soot from his brow as the violent tension finally drained from his frame.
Giovanni let out a ragged breath, lowering his sword tip. "Finally."
Shanks watched the fallen man for another beat. "Yeah."
Purple venom continued hissing across the ruined chamber around them, boiling against the floorplates where it had already spilled in thick, lethal pools.
To clear the active runoff without direct contact, Shanks used the tip of Gryphon to lever a discarded steel maintenance sled down the gantry rails until it rested alongside Magellan's boots. Using long-handled iron prying bars from the crane deck, they hooked the heavy man's belt and coat, leveraging his unconscious frame onto the sled without letting their hands come within a yard of his poison-coated clothing. Hauling on the overhead service winch, they raised the sled vertically away from the venom pools, parking it securely on the dry, poison-free masonry of the upper control-booth bridge connected directly to the undamaged outer stairs.
Far above, Fleet Admiral Sengoku pressed through the long, reinforced command corridor on the western flank of the fortress. Dust coated his immaculate gold-trimmed coat, and a faint smear of dried blood stained his jaw from the earlier exchange upstairs. The heavy stone walls hummed with the distant vibration of structural collapse, and the air grew steadily warmer as he descended deeper into the lower containment blocks.
Reaching the upper furnace approach overlooking Level 4, a garrison commander saluted sharply, his face pale and slick with sweat as he struggled to catch his breath.
"Fleet Admiral! The central stair, it's gone, sir! Shiryu's down in the shaft, and Magellan, Magellan's down in the main chamber!"
Sengoku's eyes narrowed, his expression hardening like stone.
"Get the wounded out of here," Sengoku ordered, pointing past the smoking threshold. "Clear that hoist."
"Sir, the lower route—"
"I'll find a route."
He turned toward the reinforced western service drop, continuing downward without a pause.
Down in the scorched service corridor beyond the chamber, Robin, Hongo, and Limejuice hurried out from the protected threshold to meet the two swordsmen.
Hongo caught Giovanni's wrist, pressing his ear directly against the young man's ribs to listen to the strained, shallow wheeze of his breathing.
"The antidote slowed it. That's all."
Giovanni pulled his arm back, his breathing ragged. "Still works."
"Barely," Hongo muttered, opening his kit to secure fresh bandages across the blistering burn on his forearm, his fingers moving rapidly to stabilize the damage before the exertion could trigger a total collapse.
Shanks stepped past them to the heavy, insulated steel bulkhead that marked the boundary of Level 5—Freezing Hell.
The air seeping through the door cracks was bitterly cold, smelling of ancient frost and deep-sea chill. Shanks raised Gryphon, wedged the tip into the manual release valve, and heaved the massive iron door open. A rush of blinding white vapor spilled out into the corridor, swallowing the warmth of Blazing Hell whole as the freezing air bit sharply into Giovanni's cracked ribs.
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