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Serial Chapter: Downtohell5
Crimson Lotus, Wild Beasts, Starvation, Scorching Heat, Extreme Cold...
Haiyna, now clad in prison garb and shackled with Seastone handcuffs and leg irons, followed the female Chief Warden into the elevator. The doors slowly closed, and the elevator began its descent, level by level.
Level 1: Crimson Hell. The Forest of Sword Trees, a bloody, mangled mess...
Level 2: Wild Beast Hell. Shadowy, massive beasts prowled, their low growls echoing through the darkness...
Level 3: Starvation Hell. A nauseating stench of decay permeated the air...
Level 4: Blazing Hell. Rolling waves of heat engulfed them, as if they were immersed in a cauldron of burning oil...
Level 5: Freezing Hell. Only frigid air remained, seeping eerily into the depths of their pores...
The prisoners' screams grew fainter with each descending level, until they vanished altogether. It felt like the elevator was plunging into a pitch-black, silent abyss…
...
The air in the casino crackled with a frenzy of emotions: fervor, tension, excitement, madness, fear... all woven into the chaotic din.
At one gambling table, the silver-haired Rayleigh casually flipped over the cards in front of him.
The worst possible hand.
"I win!" a man at the table roared in triumph. "It's all mine! Hahaha, all mine!"
The other gamblers either slumped in dejected silence, heads bowed in defeat, or their eyes flashed with malice as they watched the ecstatic winner rake the chips into his arms, their minds churning with unknown schemes.
"Hey, old man, got any more money to bet?" one of them sneered. The tipsy Rayleigh didn't seem disheartened by his losses, either he had nerves of steel or deep pockets.
"Me? Let me see..." Rayleigh patted his pockets, finally producing a single chip. "Ah, there's one left! Hahaha, I'll bet it."
He placed his last chip on the table, then slammed a stack of chips down beside it, pressing them both down with his hand.
"I'll match it," said the person behind the hand that had placed the stack of chips.
The others immediately burst into laughter. "Matching this old man? Ha ha! He hasn't won a single hand all night! Young man, you've backed the wrong horse!"
The slick-haired, powdered-faced dealer maintained his professional smile, letting the guests mock the perpetually losing old man. He didn't interrupt, but his gaze remained fixed on the stack of chips that had been matched, the curve of his smile growing noticeably more genuine.
"Backed the wrong horse?" Liam sprawled next to Rayleigh, grinning. "I have a feeling... this bet is going to be worth every penny."
His eyes flashed with a brief white glint as he turned his head. Rayleigh glanced at the tall young man beside him and said with a smile to the figure behind him, "Are you sure about this? They're right, you know. This old man rarely wins at gambling."
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha!" The other gamblers roared with laughter, clutching their sides. "You old man sure knows yourself!"
"Still, you're a real sweetheart, coming here to donate your money to us even though you know you'll lose!"
"Thanks, gramps!"
Robin placed a hand on Liam's shoulder, her eyes smiling behind matching tea-colored sunglasses. "What can I do? I can't resist a handsome man's whims."
"Oh? If you're so fond of handsome men, Miss…"
The gamblers, beaming at Robin's words, were about to reply when their eyes suddenly rolled back, foam bubbled from their mouths, and they collapsed one after another.
"Hey! What happened to them?!"
"No idea! They just keeled over! Shit, could it be some kind of sudden illness?"
"What? Sick? Ugh, get them out of here! Talk about bad luck!"
A brief commotion erupted around the gambling table. Liam chuckled and said to the elderly gentleman beside him, "Thanks."
Conqueror's Haki, it really is convenient!
Rayleigh smiled knowingly. "Well, what can I say? I just have a soft spot for young women. Hahaha..."
Robin smiled wryly. 'The former second-in-command to the Pirate King, Rayleigh, whose fearsome reputation still echoes across the seas, who knew he'd be like this?'
But considering Shanks' laid-back attitude, she couldn't help but think, 'Perhaps all the Pirate King's crew members are like this.'
Several gamblers, knocked unconscious by Rayleigh's Conqueror's Haki, were carried away. The dealer picked up the dice cup, wiped it against the table with a sharp snap, and sucked the three dice inside. He shook the cup rapidly with a clattering ding-ding-dong-dong, all while addressing the black-haired youth with amber sunglasses sitting beside the silver-haired old man who had been losing consecutive bets. "Once the stakes are on the table and you've let go, there's no taking them back, you know..."
Liam chuckled. "You think I'm losing? Thanks for the concern, but go ahead and open it!"
Ding-ding-dong-dong... The dealer shook the dice cup vigorously before slamming it down hard on the table with a thud. The other gamblers stared intently as he slowly lifted the cup, but out of the corner of his eye, the dealer noticed that neither the perpetually losing old man nor the amber-sunglassed couple seemed to be paying much attention to the revealed dice... Are these people even here to gamble?!
"Ha ha! Old man, you lost again!"
"Young man, you're doomed! Betting with him? You're going to lose everything! Ha ha ha..."
The other gamblers at the table burst into raucous laughter, reveling in schadenfreude.
Liam didn't pay much attention, merely asking Rayleigh, "Want to keep going?"
"I've truly lost everything," Rayleigh said, turning to the dealer with a smile. "Excuse me, could I borrow a bit?"
The dealer sighed. "I know who you are... You're that old man who gambled himself into slavery at the casino several times, right?"
Rayleigh chuckled in genuine surprise. "Oh? Am I that famous now?"
The dealer gave Rayleigh a long, hard look. How had this old man managed to escape after being sold as a slave? The dealer neither knew nor cared.
Moments later, the casino manager rushed over and slammed a stack of chips down in front of Rayleigh. "200,000 Belly wager. That's all you're getting. Otherwise, selling you to the auction house wouldn't even cover our losses."
"Enough, enough," Rayleigh chuckled, scooping up the chips. The other gamblers eyed him with suspicion, convinced the old man had gone mad.
"What about me?" Liam, sitting beside Rayleigh, raised his hand. "How much am I worth?"
'Yep, this guy's definitely lost it,' the other gamblers thought.
The manager glanced at Liam, his eyes behind the amber sunglasses, and the man's face seemed vaguely familiar. After a brief cough, he said, "You look strong and sturdy, worth a bit more than this old man. We should be able to sell you for around two million Belly!"
A larger stack of chips was quickly placed before Liam. Rayleigh chuckled, "Worth that much more than me, huh? Hahaha! Makes sense, now that I think about it. I am a washed-up old man, after all..."
A few minutes later, as expected, they had lost everything.
Rayleigh hadn't been lying, he really was terrible at gambling. Liam, betting alongside him, miraculously didn't win a single hand. Two million Belly worth of chips vanished in the blink of an eye.
"Gentlemen?" The casino manager approached them, flanked by several burly thugs and carrying two pairs of handcuffs.
Rayleigh readily extended his hands to be cuffed.
Liam didn't resist either, letting the thugs clamp the handcuffs around his wrists. The iron chains clanked between his hands.
As they were led away, Liam turned to Robin and said, "I'll go have a chat with the old man first. See you later."
Robin nodded with a smile, watching as Liam and Rayleigh were led away by the casino's enforcers.
Their conversation sounded as if Liam wasn't being sold into slavery at auction and roughly escorted there by thugs, but rather taking a few "little bros" out for a meal to discuss business. The other gamblers exchanged puzzled glances.
B.I.B. stood beside Robin, arms crossed, its narrow eyes glowing faintly white. It had noticed Rayleigh's subtle glance toward it before being taken away, so he'd noticed me all along?
Stand A quickly followed Robin out of the casino.
After Robin left, sweat suddenly beaded on the dealer's forehead as he gasped for breath.
"Hey, deal the next hand already!"
The other gamblers urged him on, only to be met with a ruthless glare from the returning manager.
"You degenerate gambling scum! What's the rush?"
The gamblers were stunned. 'Why is the casino manager scolding us gambling addicts?'
However, the Robust Man security guards standing behind the manager kept them from voicing their resentment.
The dealer frantically wiped his sweat with a handkerchief, his heart pounding in terror. He whispered, "Manager, that couple earlier... it was Jolyne Cujoh and Giorno Giovanna, right? I couldn't have been mistaken, could I?"
The manager loosened his tie, rolled his eyes, and sighed. "These Great Pirates... they're utterly incomprehensible! Two bounty monsters with a combined reward of over 700 million Belly, and they come to scare people at our little casino? They nearly gave me a heart attack..."
(End Of This Chapter)