"So that's it?"
Hidden behind the boulder, Kaido raised an eyebrow and muttered.
If it were him, those cannonballs wouldn't have hit in the first place.
As for tanking them head-on…
Kaido figured he could test his luck with one—maybe even swat it away with his kanabō.
But three shots?
That was a different story.
With his current strength, he probably wouldn't die on the spot… but getting seriously injured would be unavoidable.
"An ability that controls plants…?"
"Looks flashy, but kind of… useless?"
He rubbed his chin and judged it like an expert.
After all—flowers and grass, in his eyes, were symbols of weakness.
…
On the ship, the one-eyed pirate leader saw the shells "hit."
He swung his curved saber hard.
His remaining eye gleamed with bloodlust as he burst into laughter.
"Hahahaha!"
"You think you can mess with the Moss Pirates?! This is what you get!"
The other pirates lowered their blades and laughed along with him.
The fat gunner raised a huge mug beside him and took a long gulp, completely relaxed now.
Seeing that, Kaido—still behind the rock—rubbed his hollow stomach again and muttered.
"No Marines."
"Then I'll kill these pirates. They've gotta have food."
He reached for his kanabō, ready to step out and wipe the deck with them.
But then—
The smoke in midair dispersed, revealing a massive barrier woven from dark green branches and thick vines, interlocked like a living fortress.
"Shh… shh…"
The branches and vines slowly peeled away.
The mysterious young man appeared again—
Unhurt.
Not a scratch on him.
Even the flower he was lying on hadn't taken any damage.
In an instant, everyone froze.
Including Kaido, who was about to play "the mantis stalking the cicada."
He stopped dead.
"FIRE! FIRE AGAIN!!"
"Helmsman—turn the wheel!"
"Raise sails! MOVE! RUN!!"
The one-eyed captain's face turned pale with shock.
He'd survived in Hachinosu for years—he wasn't some green rookie.
He'd seen plenty of monsters.
But he'd never seen someone casually block three cannon shots without even sitting up.
He only had one thought now:
Run.
The fat gunner threw down his mug and heaved a cannonball into his arms, scrambling to reload.
The helmsman spun around and cranked the wheel like his life depended on it.
But this time—
The young man seemed to lose interest.
He slowly lifted a hand, then snapped his fingers like it was nothing.
"Sea of Trees Descends."
The moment the words fell—
The pirate ship on the calm sea began to shake violently.
So violently the deck split with harsh, ugly cracks.
"Help!!"
"The ship's breaking apart!!"
"What the hell is happening?!"
Pirates stumbled and slammed into each other.
To avoid being thrown overboard, they tossed their weapons and clung to anything heavy.
Behind the boulder, Kaido immediately crouched back down.
His eyes widened.
"What kind of power is this?!"
But there was no fear on his face.
He tightened his grip on the kanabō, huge pupils flashing with savage excitement.
"After this… I'm going out there and testing him."
At that moment—
CRACK!
The deck shattered into pieces with several thunderous booms.
And then—
Thick tree trunks erupted upward from the black holes in the ship as if the sea itself had turned into soil.
Their growth was absurdly fast.
In the blink of an eye, the entire ship became a small, dense forest.
The trees kept growing—wild and violent—
until they lifted the whole pirate ship up into the air.
The pirates had never seen anything this monstrous.
They screamed and cried like children, terror turning their legs to jelly.
The one-eyed captain clenched his teeth, forcing down the panic.
He crawled to the edge of what used to be the deck, planning to jump into the sea and escape.
But before he could leap—
The young man on the flower spoke again.
"Thorn Kill."
In a heartbeat, a thorn-covered branch shot out from the trees like a reaper's chain.
It punched straight through the one-eyed captain's chest.
Instantly—
His body shriveled like a punctured waterskin.
A dried-out husk.
And it wasn't done.
The bloodstained thorn-vine didn't slow even a little.
"AH! AHHH!!"
Screams exploded across the ship.
The vine moved too fast to follow—snapping, piercing, chaining—
and in moments it skewered the remaining pirates like candied hawthorns on a stick.
Every single one of them.
And without exception, their bodies collapsed into the same kind of withered shells.
High above, feeling the "life essence" flow into him, the mysterious young man yawned.
He smoothed the wrinkles of his short-sleeved shirt.
Then he jumped down—
landing steadily atop a tree that had grown from the ship.
He walked to the row of pirates threaded together by vines.
Unhurried, he pulled a thick stack of wanted posters from behind his back and compared them carefully.
After a moment, he drew one out, spat the toothpick from his mouth, and chuckled.
"Not bad."
"Thirty million."
Behind the boulder, Kaido sucked in a sharp breath.
Normally, bounty values reflected strength.
In these seas, a pirate with a bounty over ten million was already considered a serious name.
Thirty million?
That was proof the man was no weakling.
And yet—
It was a massacre.
A complete, overwhelming massacre.
From the moment the mysterious youth acted, the pirates had zero chance to fight back.
And that fighting style…
Trees erupting out of nowhere.
Thorn-vines like a death god's chains.
It completely overturned Kaido's understanding of "plants."
His mind shook.
"I've seen Devil Fruit users before!"
"But… is this what a real powerhouse looks like?!"