Chapter 528

On Level 2, the Beast Hell, a towering Basilisk bears down on Luffy and Buggy, who flee in panic. Buggy admits he meant to abandon Luffy and explains that the creature, a snake hatched from a chicken, is one of the impossible monsters caged here precisely so they cannot ravage the outside world. When it lunges for a bite, Luffy leaps clear and squares off against it directly.

Four levels down, in the warden's office, Domino lays out Magellan's odd routine: ten hours daily on the toilet, eight asleep, leaving only about four for actual work. Momonga doubts the man's fitness for the post until Domino vouches for his reliability and his Doku Doku no Mi poison. Magellan emerges, a huge horned figure with devil wings, lamenting a brutal bout with the toilet and the harsh light. When he sighs a cloud of poison, Hancock and the others rely on gas masks, and she furiously confronts him over the foul air.

A report of an intruder reaches Magellan, and a frightened Hancock uses her beauty to charm him into agreeing to take her straight down to Ace. Back on Level 2, the monitor room lies smashed with the unconscious Basilisk atop the wreckage; Luffy, shrunk back from Gear 3, has felled the beast. Cheering prisoners hail him as a god of salvation, and one is revealed to be the captured Mr. 3. Buggy frees a batch of inmates, but they retreat to their cages out of fear, declaring they are safer there while the Level 2 boss roams. Mr. 3 then steps in, displaying his Doru Doru wax powers, and Luffy recognizes the old Baroque Works agent from Little Garden. In Ace's cell, a chained, beaten giant of a man is introduced as Jinbe, the Knight of the Sea, once carrying a two hundred fifty million bounty, who declares he would gladly surrender his Warlord title and his life to halt the coming war.

The cover closes CP9's Independent Report with its final volume 33, the agents vanishing onto the high seas past the scattered pieces of Very Good. Magellan is confirmed as Chief Warden, the Doku Doku no Mi is unveiled, and Jinbe is introduced, evidently already acquainted with Ace.