No one could have predicted that the battle would evolve into what it had become.
Ten nautical miles away, the various crew members watched through telescopes, staring in stunned silence at the deep fissure that had been torn into the earth.
"This..."
"What are we supposed to do now?"
Their captain had chased his opponent underground, his status unknown, while they all watched the show from the floating island. Wasn't that a little... inappropriate?
Whether they were members of the Bellamy Pirates or the Flying Pirates, a sense of unease about the battle's direction began to settle over them. The meteor that had fallen from the sky earlier had given everyone a tremendous shock. Although the Golden Lion had swiftly dealt with it using his ability, Fujitora's counterattacks had been just as fierce.
Despite their two-on-one assault, they hadn't managed to inflict any real damage on Fujitora. And while his escape underground was a clear sign that he was on the defensive, no one was foolish enough to think the fight was over.
"First Mate, should we go help?" Franky asked, still confident in his own strength. He felt he could be of some use in the fight.
But before the battle began, Bellamy had given Drake explicit orders: until a victor was decided, no one was to approach the battlefield.
"No. We wait here," Drake replied, pulling out a Vivre Card—Bellamy's. A small piece was already torn, indicating that Bellamy had sustained minor injuries.
The Flying Pirates, of course, had a Vivre Card for the Golden Lion as well. They took it out and saw that it was completely intact. A collective sigh of relief seemed to pass through the crowd.
"Let's just wait a bit longer. Maybe the captain will be out soon."
Within the pitch-black fissure, Bellamy had already closed his eyes, choosing to rely on Observation Haki and Paper Drawing to perceive his surroundings. After a furious chase, they had descended several thousand meters underground, and the sunlight had long since vanished.
For a blind man, such an environment should have been a great advantage. But neither Bellamy nor the Golden Lion were weaklings. Observation Haki alone was more than enough for them to move freely in the darkness. Furthermore, Bellamy's supreme mastery of hand-to-hand combat made him completely immune to any negative effects the darkness might impose.
He shadowed Fujitora relentlessly, sticking to him like a second skin and giving him no time to breathe. Along the way, he had already taken no fewer than ten of Fujitora's Gravity Blade: Raging Tiger attacks head-on, yet he hadn't retreated a single step. Had it been an ordinary Vice Admiral, those ten slashes would have left them half-dead, if not worse.
But Bellamy's endurance was simply monstrous. After taking the ten slashes, he merely coughed up a few mouthfuls of blood and then seemed perfectly fine. He continued his pursuit as if nothing had happened, each charge more ferocious than the last. It reached a point where Issho himself began to wonder if there was something wrong with his technique.
It wasn't just Fujitora who was starting to doubt himself; even the Golden Lion, following close behind, couldn't make sense of Bellamy's condition. Shiki had once clashed with Fujitora's Raging Tiger using his own Lion's Threat: Ground Burial. He had a crystal-clear understanding of the move's power. Yet Bellamy had withstood it ten times, and aside from a token mouthful of blood each time, he was completely unharmed?
Is this guy even human?
Shiki studied Bellamy's body carefully, sensing that an astonishing secret was hidden within his seemingly ordinary frame. His intuition was correct. Bellamy's body did indeed hold a profound secret: the Seventy-Seven Life Essence Apertures allowed him to absorb and store far more stamina, life force, and energy than any normal person. However, this was all predicated on having the ability to absorb, store, and release that energy in the first place—an incredibly demanding condition that other Devil Fruits would find nearly impossible to meet.
Under Bellamy's frenzied pursuit, Fujitora was forced to collapse the ground again and again. He had considered counter-attacking during the descent; after all, the deeper they went, the harder the rock strata became. If he continued downward, his gravitational pressure would eventually encounter rock he couldn't crush. But the Golden Lion was right behind Bellamy. The moment Fujitora made any other move, Shiki's Float-Float Fruit ability would immediately cancel it out.
The two fruits countered each other, and in a short amount of time, neither could gain a definitive advantage. But time was exactly what Fujitora lacked. And so, each time, he could only hastily abandon his attack and break through the ground to escape deeper.
In this relentless cycle of pursuit and escape, the three of them had unknowingly reached a depth of ten thousand meters.
At such a profound depth, the surrounding environment had begun to grow scorching hot. If they continued to descend, they might run into magma. Of course, the world beneath the surface was incredibly complex; no one knew what might be lurking below. The next thing they encountered could be a freshwater aquifer buried for millennia, scalding magma, or even a massive oil deposit. Considering this was the world of One Piece, it wouldn't be surprising if some bizarre, giant creature suddenly leaped out at them.
No one knew what they would face next. But all three were men of unshakable will. The battle had reached this stage, and none of them were willing to give up easily.
"Hell's Journey!"
Despite being pursued for so long, Fujitora's face showed no trace of fear or frustration. He remained perfectly composed as he swung his longsword, narrowly avoiding Bellamy's punch. The ground beneath them collapsed once more.
This time, however, something unexpected happened. From the bottom of the collapsed cavern, a blast of searing hot air suddenly shot upward, catching the unprepared Fujitora squarely.
"Damn it!"
This kind of high-temperature attack was impossible to dodge through physical means. Fujitora only had time to coat his body in Armament Haki before the scorching gas burned him all over.
Bellamy, pressing his attack, was right behind him and was also badly scalded. Fortunately, it was only hot gas, not magma. The burns would, at worst, destroy his skin.
The Golden Lion was a step slower, narrowly avoiding the first wave of the blast. As the hot gas vented through the hole above them, the temperature quickly dropped. Only then did the three men have a moment to survey their new surroundings.
"It's a river of magma!"
Where in the world had they ended up?
"Don't tell me we've reached the center of the earth," the Golden Lion muttered, looking at the magma around them with a hint of disbelief.
In truth, even Fujitora himself had never used Hell's Journey to reach such a depth.
"Impossible," Bellamy said, displaying a bit of common sense as he directly refuted Shiki's suspicion. "The core is at least millions of meters deep. There's no way we could reach it. But there might be a volcano nearby."
In other words, if they caused too much of a commotion, they could very well trigger a volcanic eruption. This added an enormous and unpredictable variable to the battle.