Thick, dark roots tore through the cracked soil of the Udon wasteland like the veins of an ancient, waking beast.
The awakening of the Mori Mori no Mi did not merely grow a forest; it commanded the earth to submit. It transformed the entire dead region into a hostile, breathing ecosystem. Trees with trunks as wide as warships violently pushed upward, their sprawling canopies blocking out the fading evening light. The ground churned beneath them, rolling and heaving like a stormy sea of wood and foliage.
Standing dead center in the shifting landscape, the magician kept his hands in his pockets.
The battlefield floor suddenly erupted. A dense trap of thorny roots surged upward, snapping together like the jaws of a behemoth to impale the intruder.
Removing his right hand from his jacket, Ben pointed a single finger toward the churning dirt.
"Ruler's Decree: Banishment."
A concentrated blast of brilliant red energy fired straight down. The repulsive force hit the ground with the weight of a falling meteor, clearing a flawless, massive crater through the vegetation. The surging roots didn't just break; they were vaporized into harmless dust.
"You have a lot of tricks," Ryokugyu's voice echoed from everywhere at once, dripping from the surrounding canopy.
Merging with the forest, the Admiral formed a colossal wooden body. The wooden giant loomed over the edge of the newly formed crater, radiating an oppressive, suffocating pressure that made the air heavy.
"Tricks are useful," Ben replied. He lifted his arm, casually brushing a speck of ash from his sleeve. "But sometimes, a more direct approach saves time."
He exhaled.
Thick, golden armor manifested across his body in a flash of light. The glowing plates locked together seamlessly over his clothes, radiating an aura of dominance that pushed back against the Admiral's pressure.
Looking down at the shining, ant-sized figure in the crater, the wooden giant let out a rumbling laugh that shook the leaves.
"Mori Mori no Mi: Titan's Vise!"
Sprouting giant wooden fists from the earth on either side of the crater, Ryokugyu attempted a crushing blow. The massive timber hands slammed together with deafening speed, intending to flatten the golden magician like an insect caught between two stones.
Ben did not flinch. He didn't even shift his stance.
He caught the crushing attack with his golden-armored hands. His boots remained firmly planted, not sliding an inch in the dirt. Slowly, Ben squeezed his fingers. The strength provided by the golden armor tore through the timber, shattering the giant wooden fists into thousands of flying splinters that rained over the battlefield.
Annoyed by the resistance, the Admiral immediately shifted tactics.
"Mori Mori no Mi: Dream Spores!"
A thick cloud of pale, yellow dust released from the awakened plants, flooding over the lip of the crater like an avalanche. The toxic spores drifted forward rapidly, carrying enough concentrated potency to knock out a herd of giants in seconds.
The dust rushed toward Ben—and stopped mere inches away from his golden armor.
It was as if the cloud had hit a wall of solid glass. Unable to touch the Limitless barrier surrounding the magician, the spores simply hovered in the empty air, blocked by an infinite division of space. Breathing perfectly clean air, Ben rolled his armored shoulders, testing the weight and flexibility of the golden plates.
From within the yellow fog, multiple spiked vines shot forward at blinding speeds, moving like striking snakes.
Stepping lightly onto the moving plants, Ben's footwork shifted. Utilizing the rhythmic, swaying motions of Taekkyon, he practically glided up the incoming vines. Closing the distance to the main wooden body in a heartbeat, he delivered a heavy, Haki-coated kick straight into the giant's chest. The impact sounded like a cannon shot, cracking the thick timber bark down the center.
"Pesky bug!" the Admiral roared, the forest vibrating with his fury. "Mori Mori no Mi: Ironwood Rain!"
Hundreds of sharpened wooden spears dropped from the sky, blotting out the remaining light as they rained down over the clearing.
Ben didn't bother looking up. He raised a golden hand.
"Ruler's Convergence."
A strong pull of blue energy sparked to life in his palm. The spatial attraction seized the falling spears mid-air, ripping them from their trajectories and dragging them violently together into a crushed, tangled ball of timber. Dropping his hand, Ben slammed the massive sphere of ruined wood harmlessly into the dirt.
Underneath the soil, silent roots burrowed through the earth, rushing to trap his ankles.
Sensing the movement before it even arrived, the magician reacted instantly. He stomped a golden boot heavily onto the dirt. The massive tremor shot downward, shattering the buried plant network and stopping the underground ambush dead in its tracks.
Refusing to give the magician a single breath of rest, Ryokugyu manipulated the canopy above. Leaves hardened into sharp, metallic blades, swarming forward in a dense, green blizzard. Millions of razor-sharp projectiles completely blotted out the sky.
Holding a golden palm outward, Ben unleashed a wave of red repulsion. The spatial blast cleared the air in a massive cone, violently scattering the hardened leaves across the ruined wasteland.
Rushing forward to deliver a punch, Ben suddenly found himself facing a raised wall of iron-hard wood. The timber barrier possessed the density of solid steel, grown in a fraction of a second specifically to halt his charge.
Ben didn't stop. He threw the punch anyway.
Coating his fist in internal destruction Haki, he struck the barrier. The advanced Armament bypassed the impossibly tough exterior entirely, flooding into the dense wood and destroying it from the inside out. The wall exploded outward, sending jagged chunks of timber flying across the clearing.
Stepping casually through the shattered remains of the wall, the magician found himself surrounded.
Wooden clones had emerged from the surrounding trees, perfectly mimicking the Admiral's true form. The constructs drew heavy wooden blades, charging the golden-armored figure simultaneously from all directions.
Ben let his arms hang loose. He began to weave.
He did not waste energy on wide, sweeping attacks. Utilizing the precise, flowing grace of Taekkyon, he moved like water through the collapsing circle of blades.
A clone swung.
Ben swayed back. A targeted strike to the chest.
CRACK.
Black, jagged lightning erupted. A Black Flash. The clone instantly turned into a pile of smoking kindling.
Two more lunged.
Ben pivoted, stepping between their blades.
A knee. A palm thrust.
Two more flashes of dark lightning. The timber bodies shattered into splinters.
More vines whipped forward at high speeds, attempting to strike from his blind spots while he dispatched the clones.
But Ben was reading a script the forest hadn't written yet. Relying on Future Sight, avoiding the onslaught was a simple matter of geometry. He moved with eerie calm, sidestepping strikes before they were even launched. The vines lashed the empty air, entirely unable to touch the glowing armor, missing him by literal hairs.
In front of him, the massive roots of the forest rapidly twisted together.
"Mori Mori no Mi: World Tree Dragon!" Ryokugyu bellowed.
A giant wooden dragon lunged forward from the treeline with open jaws, seeking to bite the golden figure in half.
Coating his golden armor in advanced Conqueror's Haki, Ben didn't retreat. He stepped into the beast's open mouth. With a rising headbutt, he smashed into the roof of the dragon's mouth. Black and red lightning danced wildly across his golden helmet as the colossal skull fractured, breaking into pieces before the massive construct crumbled lifelessly to the dirt.
Frustrated by the constant, humiliating failures, Ryokugyu seized control of the forest floor.
"Mori Mori no Mi: Abyssal Thicket!"
Thick branches wove together rapidly, rising and closing in a dome around the magician. The timber locked together into a pitch-black prison cell, designed to aggressively drain the life of anyone trapped inside.
Before the final branch could even seal the dome, raw golden strength mixed with Armament Haki blasted the cage open from the inside. The dome exploded like a bomb, sending heavy wooden beams crashing into the surrounding trees.
Creeping vines slithered across the ground, wrapping around Ben's boots and legs to absorb his strength. The parasitic plants dug in, attempting to leech his energy through the metal plates.
Ben looked down, mildly annoyed. He reached down and simply tore the plants apart with his bare hands, ripping the thick vines into shreds before tossing the ruined flora aside.
Giant wooden hands erupted from the soil, attempting a crushing grappling hold.
Slipping through the tight grip effortlessly, the magician grabbed a single wooden finger. Using perfect leverage and the overwhelming strength of the Mantle, he flipped the massive construct over his shoulder. The giant wooden hands slammed into the dirt with a deafening crash.
Instantly, the ground beneath him turned into a sea of upward-thrusting wooden spikes.
Coating his golden boots in dense Armament Haki, Ben sprinted. He ran across the razor-sharp tips, the spikes shattering harmlessly under his heavy, armored footsteps as he closed the distance to the Admiral's main body.
Thick roots twisted together in his path, forming a massive, spinning drill aimed squarely at his chest.
Ben caught the tip of the drill with both golden hands. The spinning stopped instantly. The friction generated a blinding shower of sparks, but the armor held firm. With a sharp, sudden twist of his wrists, Ben snapped the wood drill cleanly in half, dropping the broken pieces to the ground.
Carrying his momentum, he leaped high into the air, setting up a falling axe kick right toward the main giant's head.
The golden boot crashed through the thick timber canopy, smashing into the wooden skull of the colossal construct. The impact drove the giant body straight down into the dirt, cracking the earth beneath it in a spiderweb of fissures.
Roaring in fury, the Admiral detached his true body from the ruined giant.
Hardening a large, condensed wooden fist with dense, black Haki, Ryokugyu set up a devastating punch. He poured every ounce of his remaining strength and frustration into the strike, aiming to crush this arrogant magician once and for all.
Ben met the strike with a golden, Haki-coated fist of his own.
The resulting clash split the sky.
A terrifying shockwave erupted from the point of impact, flattening the surrounding forest. Trees were uprooted and blown away like dry autumn leaves. High above the Udon region, the heavy clouds parted cleanly in two, revealing the pristine, starry night sky.
Holding the clash, Ben raised his left hand.
A concentrated spatial blast fired point-blank. The red energy removed the Admiral's wooden arm, blowing the timber limb into a fine mist of sawdust.
Stepping backward, Ryokugyu gritted his teeth. But within seconds, a new wooden arm sprouted back into existence, regenerating the lost limb. The Mori Mori no Mi provided near-infinite recovery, so long as the user remained connected to the earth.
Watching the arm stitch itself back together, Ben sighed.
The Mori Mori no Mi's endless vitality meant the Admiral would just keep regenerating as long as he remained tethered to the earth. Beating him to a pulp was a waste of time. He needed a solution to secure his prize.
But first, he needed the Admiral to go to sleep.
With a soft hum, the heavy golden plates of the Golden Armour faded, retracting back into Ben's body.
Breathing heavily, sweat stinging his eyes, Ryokugyu paused. He stared at the unarmored magician.
A wild, feral grin spread across the Admiral's face. The flawless defense was gone. The magician had finally exhausted his stamina.
"Mori Mori no Mi: Executioner's Thorns!" Ryokugyu roared. He lunged forward, extending a dozen dense, Haki-coated wooden spears from his chest, intending to impale the defenseless target.
Ben simply raised two fingers.
"Ruler's Convergence."
A sudden, violent pull of blue energy seized the Admiral mid-lunge. The shift in gravity yanked Ryokugyu off balance. His forward momentum twisted wildly out of control, causing the deadly spears to thrust harmlessly into empty air. Stumbling forward, his guard shattered, leaving his chest wide open.
Stepping smoothly into the opening, Ben drew back his right fist.
Black and red lightning coiled tightly around his bare knuckles, condensing into a terrifyingly dense mass. He planted his foot, rotating his hips, and channeled everything into a single, devastating strike.
"Ruler's Verdict."
Ben drove his fist squarely into the center of the Admiral's chest.
The deafening crack of the impact echoed across the wasteland. A massive, cone-shaped shockwave blew out from Ryokugyu's back, tearing a deep trench through the ruined forest floor for miles.
Ryokugyu's eyes rolled back into his head instantly.
The Haki-coated spears crumbled into dust before they could even touch Ben's shirt. The surge of vitality keeping the Admiral awake was short-circuited.
Like a puppet with its strings cut, Ryokugyu collapsed. He hit the dirt with a heavy thud unconscious.
Standing over the motionless Marine, Ben casually reached into his spatial storage.
He withdrew a dagger. The Rule Breaker.
Kneeling beside the unconscious Admiral, Ben drove the dagger straight into Ryokugyu's chest.
Even in his unconscious state, Ryokugyu's body spasmed once. Something deep inside him broke. The connection to the earth—the thrumming power of the forest that had made him a god of nature—simply vanished from his body. The surrounding roots went limp. The towering trees ceased their thrashing, fading into ordinary, lifeless timber.
The Admiral was drained of all unnatural energy, reduced back to a mortal man.
Ben calmly pulled an ordinary red apple from his pocket.
Holding the mundane fruit near the unconscious Admiral's chest, the magician channeled the power. A dark, swirling, unnatural energy began to seep from Ryokugyu's body, pulled irresistibly into the apple. The skin of the fruit morphed and twisted, taking on strange swirling patterns as it absorbed the essence of nature itself.
Tucking the newly created Mori Mori no Mi safely into his spatial dimension, Ben stood up and slipped the Rule Breaker away.
He looked down at the defeated Admiral in the dirt.
"Lazy people always leave the biggest openings," the magician noted casually, brushing a final speck of sawdust from his jacket.
Turning his back on the crumbling, dying forest, Ben began the quiet, peaceful walk toward the Flower Capital.