Rest for a While

After absorbing the blood, the thorns continued to grow, branch, and pierce through, until they turned his entire pirate crew into a thorny hell.

He never understood until his death when Fish-Man Island became a more dangerous place than any other sea in the New World.

The Wood Clone released its grip expressionlessly, and the captain's body slid to the ground like a rag doll, piling up with his men.

He didn't glance at the mountain of corpses at his feet, but calmly flicked the blood off his fingertips and turned his gaze to the few late-returning fishermen huddled behind cargo containers on the outskirts of the port, trembling with fear.

The Fish-Man were only awakened after the chaos had begun.

They had only intended to return to the dock to retrieve a few baskets of dried seaweed, but instead witnessed a massacre they would never forget.

It wasn't a battle, or even a mopping-up operation; it was just one person using a power they couldn't comprehend at all, turning hundreds of vicious pirates into countless incomplete corpses in this port in a very short time.

The Wood Clone took a few steps toward them and stopped a few steps away.

He did not explain who he was, nor did he comfort the frightened civilians. He simply instructed them to notify the guards of the Ryugu Palace to clean up the scene and drag the corpses out of the harbor for public display.

He said he wanted all passing pirates to see clearly what happens when they trespass on Fish-Man Island.

After saying that, the Wood Clone turned into a wisp of white smoke and disappeared into the blood-soaked sea current, leaving the Fish-Man and fishermen looking at each other in disbelief. It took them a long time to come to their senses before they stumbled and ran towards the Ryugu Palace.

Outside this port, in the shadowy corners of Fish-Man Island that have yet to be cleared, more Wood Clone are silently carrying out the same order: leave no one alive.

The seawater in the harbor has turned dark red.

The rays of the setting sun pierced through the sea and shone on the blood-soaked stone slabs, from which a viscous liquid seeped.

The corpses were piled up from the dock pier all the way to the corner of the warehouse. Hundreds of bodies were stacked haphazardly, with severed limbs and bits of flesh scattered among them, and even the air was filled with a nauseating smell of rust.

The man lying on the ground was covered in wounds.

His left arm was severed at the elbow, his right leg was pierced by a splinter and pinned to the stone floor, and at least four or five ribs in his chest were broken. Every breath he took brought blood and foam from his throat.

He is the captain of the Blood Sail Pirates, with a bounty of 1.7 billion Beli, making him a notable figure in the New World.

He led his entire group past Fish-Man Island, intending only to replenish their freshwater supply and, incidentally, capture a few mermaid slaves.

Just as his men put the slave-catching rope around the neck of the first Fish-Man fisherman, the boy in plain robes appeared.

Then his entire pirate crew, hundreds of outlaws who had been struggling in the New World for years, were completely crushed by one person from beginning to end.

It wasn't a fight—he had no chance to engage in any decent combat with his opponent.

It was a massacre.

The boy—no, the monster in the guise of a boy—stood beside his first mate's corpse, expressionlessly pulling the blood-stained Tachi from between his ribs.

The vice-captain has a bounty of 900 million, second only to him in his pirate crew. He would be a formidable pirate in any sea.