Slaughter, the Fish-Men's Awe

No one turned around; no one dared to look even once at the figure standing at the alley entrance.

Natsu watched the fleeing figures scatter and then slowly clasped her hands together.

There was no anger, no contempt, only a kind of extreme calm, the indifference of a predator.

In those crimson Mangekyō Sharingan, these pirates who were so arrogant in front of the ordinary people of Fish-Man Island were no different from trash that needed to be cleaned up.

His lips moved slightly, uttering a few cold syllables.

"Wood Release: Wood Splintering Technique"

The screams of nearly a hundred pirates erupted almost simultaneously, and then fell silent almost simultaneously.

The wooden spikes burst from the ground so fast—so fast that the pirates were still in their fleeing postures, some had just taken a step with their left leg, some were reaching out to grab their companions' collars, and some hadn't even had time to turn their heads toward the alleyway.

Then the wooden spikes pierced their chests, throats, and abdomens, pinning them to the spot.

The first to be impaled was the deputy who was flipping through the ledgers.

He stood beside the cargo box, still clutching the ledger filled with the number of slaves in his hand. A wooden splinter as thick as a bowl burst from the crack in the stone slab beneath his feet, piercing through his abdomen and exiting through the back of his neck, impaling him in mid-air.

The ledger slipped from his hands and slammed into the pool of blood. The paper was quickly soaked with blood, and the still-wet numbers blurred and dissolved line by line, eventually turning into clumps of dark red ink.

Next came the seven or eight pirates who were hunting the Fish-Man.

Just moments ago they were forming a hunting formation, pressing forward relentlessly, but now it felt as if an invisible hand had simultaneously gripped their throats—spikes were bursting forth from all directions, some from under their feet, some from the walls, and some from the gaps in the cargo boxes.

A wooden splinter pierced the throat of the whistling pirate, pinning him to the warehouse wall behind him;

The other rod passed between two pirates who were fleeing side by side, piercing their chests and stringing them together like skewers.

They didn't die quickly.

The terror of Wood Release: Splinter Technique lies not in its ability to kill instantly, but in the fact that those wood spikes are alive—they begin to absorb blood and life the moment they pierce a human body, drawing on the last nutrients of these lowly lives, and then continue to grow at a visible rate.

After the wooden spike that pierced the pirate leader swallowed him, it branched out into countless tiny twigs from the main trunk. These twigs then pierced his limbs, ribs, and neck, pinning him in mid-air like a beetle nailed to a specimen box.

More splinters, saturated with blood, tore through the pirates' bodies, sprouting new thorns that then climbed nearby walls, cargo boxes, and even other corpses, weaving an ever-expanding dark red jungle in the warehouse district.

A few minutes later, the warehouse area became completely quiet.

The splinters stopped growing, and the screams had long since faded into the low murmur of the sea.

Nearly a hundred pirate corpses hang high above this newly grown thorny forest, impaled, secured, and displayed by layers upon layers of wooden spikes.

Blood trickled down from the corpse at the very top, following the grain of the wooden spikes, its dark red hue glowing eerily in the unique glow of the seabed, transforming the entire warehouse area into a forest that only exists in hellish legends.

Natsu stood at the edge of the forest, not a drop of blood staining her robes.

His hands remained in the Hand Seals, and his Mangekyō Sharingan slowly swept over the inferno he had created.

There was no satisfaction, no disgust, only a kind of extreme calm, the indifference of a predator.

I had a nice feast at the Ryugu Palace and spent most of the day shopping with Quan, so I was in a pretty good mood.

These opportunistic scoundrels just happened to choose a time when he was in the best mood to utterly disgust him.

He put away the seal, turned and walked towards the alley entrance, his steps very light, as if he had just left a not-so-important meeting.

However, the finishing touches aren't finished yet.

His Shadow Clone has already left; now it's time to let everyone on this island know—who is the true master of this deep sea.

The Guard Corps of the Ryugu Palace arrived at the warehouse area of Port No. 2 a dozen minutes later.

Leading the group was Prince Fukaboshi, the usually composed heir to the Ryugu Palace, who wielded a trident and was followed by dozens of fully armed Fish-Man guards.

They assembled and set off immediately after receiving reports of unusual activity from the port—but Natsu moved too fast; from leaving the banquet hall to the end of the battle, only a few moments had passed.

By the time the Guard Corps arrived at the scene, the battle was already over.

Then they saw the forest.

No one spoke. The footsteps of the Guard Corps stopped abruptly at the alley entrance, as if some invisible force had pressed the pause button simultaneously.

Fukaboshi's hand holding the trident trembled slightly—he had participated in countless battles against pirates, seen corpses, blood, and ports ravaged by looting.

But he had never seen a corpse like this before.

Nearly a hundred pirate corpses were nailed to layers of wooden spikes, extending from the ground to several meters in the air, each maintaining the posture it had when it was alive.

The blood continued to trickle down the grain of the wood splinter, pooling into dark red puddles on the stone floor.

Countless tiny branches sprouted from those thorny branches, and new brambles grew from those branches, weaving the entire warehouse area into an ever-expanding blood-red jungle.

"Ugh--" came the sound of vomiting from behind.

One of the young Fish-Man guards finally couldn't hold on any longer. He covered his mouth and squatted down against the wall, his face deathly pale.

This sound seemed to have flipped a switch, and several guards turned their heads away, not daring to look any longer.

Fukaboshi suppressed the churning in his stomach and trudged into the thorny forest. His gaze swept over the corpses hanging from the thorns, swaying slightly in the wind, and a complex mix of emotions welled up within him.

These scumbags deserved to die, but witnessing such a level of slaughter firsthand still caused him to lose control of his physical reaction.

He remembered Queen Otohime's last wish.

Fish-Man Island desires true peace and to be treated as an equal race.

But on this dog-eat-dog world of the sea, peace is never something that can be obtained through prayer.

"Clean up the scene." Fukaboshi took a deep breath, his voice steady. "Clear up all the pirate corpses and count them. Have the guards handle these wooden spikes carefully; they look like some kind of magical artifact, so don't destroy them."

Several experienced guards took the order and stepped forward to begin clearing away the bodies, starting with the outermost layer.

Their movements were cautious, even respectful—not towards the pirates who deserved to die, but towards the forces that had brought this all to light.