"You bastard!"
Ron's arrogance made Ryokugyu's fury burn even hotter. He cast aside his fear of Ron, his fingers digging deep into the stone wall and gouging out crack after crack.
But Ryokugyu quickly calmed down. At this point, his only option was to carve out a bloody path!
When a person had no way out, the courage and wisdom born from despair shone all the brighter.
"Earth Vein Wheel: World of Trees!"
Suddenly, a powerful aura surged from Ryokugyu. An invisible force slowly seeped into the earth, assimilating everything around it.
"As expected of a Devil Fruit User—and one who's awakened, at that!"
Ron raised an eyebrow as he watched him.
The lightning's corrosion made no distinction between sky and land, treating both equally. Yet as Ryokugyu exerted his power, Ron suddenly discovered that the Rumble-Rumble Fruit's corrosion was being repelled from the ground by another force.
It was a strange sensation, one only awakened users could understand.
It was as if something had changed, making the earth no longer earth.
At that moment, Ron's ear twitched. He sidestepped, evading the sneak attack of some enormous object.
After putting some distance between them, he looked back and saw an unbelievably thick tree root, its diameter comparable to a warship's, burst through the hard stone wall. It stretched over the lava pool, connecting both sides of the volcanic crater.
"This is... a plant fruit?"
"Wrong. It's the Wood-Spirit Fruit!"
Ryokugyu suddenly spoke, his body slowly withering like bark...
Crack! Crack!
Amid a series of crisp cracking sounds, the outer bark peeled away, and Ryokugyu emerged unharmed. Other than the burn scars still lingering on his body, there was not even a trace of any other injury.
"I see. No wonder the scars on your face healed so quickly. So that's