"Master Ushimaru."
"Hmm, what a terrifying destructive power..."
He is, after all, the daimyo of Ringo Village. When he heard that other pirates had entered here, he came over with his men, although the place he lives is somewhat far from the Ringo Village harbor.
By the time he arrived, most of the day had already passed, and he only saw the pirates wrapping things up here.
The Hundred Beasts pirates didn't take those samurai-dressed people seriously, except for the authorities; some of them even had decent relations.
A few pirates even started families in Wano Kuni, despite its xenophobia, but the Hundred Beasts have been staying here not just a day or two.
Moreover, the pirates' economic situation is significantly better than that of ordinary people in Wano Kuni.
Even Kinemon found a wife when he was a thug; pirates, under a series of constraints, fared significantly better than those thugs.
After merely glancing at each other, both parties continued with their own business, and naturally, the results of the battle in Ringo were reported to Kurozumi Orochi.
The Orochi Imperial Court Guards set up projection snails at the scene and then showed him the footage inside Orochi City.
"Monster... Kaidou is really a monster..."
Neither Kozuki Oden nor Kaidou were matters he could handle. Although his plan for Kozuki Oden seemed quite absurd, he was serious about it. He needed Kaidou and Kozuki Oden to fight to the point where both were severely injured, ideally dying together.
He needed to stabilize Oden, as well as Kaidou. Just thinking about it made his head hurt. Of course, if he knew his plan had been discovered from the very beginning, he might not even have a head now.
However, the battle between Kaidou and Moriah made Kozuki Oden somewhat believe in Kurozumi Orochi. Kaidou's demonstrated destructive power, if unleashed in the Flower Capital, could easily obliterate it.
Looking at it this way, Orochi's actions were not entirely without consideration.
Later, an extremely vile incident happened in the Northern Cemetery of Wano Kuni, unprecedented in several hundred years. Ryuma's grave was robbed, and the Black Blade Shusui disappeared, along with the graves of some nearby samurai.
To be precise, it seemed more like those corpses crawled out from their graves themselves.
However, only the bodies were missing; the burial artifacts were all left behind.
"Companion... Pirate King..."
The muddled Moriah, followed by some zombies, drifted out of Wano Kuni's territorial waters.
Meanwhile, on Ghost Island.
Most of the officers were out participating in battles, and many of the elite left behind were taken away, leaving Ghost Island utterly deserted. This place is designed to accommodate large creatures like the Giant Race and host gatherings of tens of thousands as the headquarters of the Hundred Beasts Pirate Crew.
And now there were only a few hundred people left.
"Rotom, identity confirmed, Asie, permission to pass, Rotom."
The electronic door opened in response at the stairway leading to the upper level of Ghost Island; the area upstairs is the cadre activity zone that can only be accessed by officers and others who have received authorization.
Rotom residing in the electronic door confirmed Asie's identity before opening the door leading to the upper level, as a non-combatant officer, the outside battle was no concern of his.
Therefore, while battles were breaking out all over New World waters, he was safely playing tennis inside Ghost Island.
Though the effects of pure gold kept his body from excessively aging, he was still at the level of a middle-aged couch potato; he had tried losing weight but with limited success, for now, he merely prevented further deterioration.
Not skilled in combat, yet proper fitness was required, and his opponent in tennis was Nightin. Despite both of them having work in research and cultivation, it did not hinder normal leisure.
Only, today's tennis court felt somewhat off.
"Why is Mr. Kaidou here?"
"I don't know, he was already here when I arrived."
Nightin and Asie exchanged glances, Kaidou appearing in such a place felt rather unscientific, but when Yamato appeared here in a different set of clothes, they seemed to understand something.
"Is Mr. Kaidou going to play tennis with his daughter? That's nice; maybe when Olga returns, I should play with her more?"
Asie moved his wrists slightly, the tennis court here was large, enough for many people to play tennis together, so he planned to move to a spot farther away.
"I think... it's not that simple..." Nightin's main occupation was not as a fighter, but she too could fight. Hence her intuition in this area was stronger than Asie's; she just felt it wasn't that simple.
Her instincts proved correct the next moment.
...
"Yamato, are you ready?"
"Ready."
"Good, if you can return my ball just once, your training today can directly end."
"Really?!"
"Of course it's true, but make sure you catch it." As he spoke, Kaidou picked up his racket, which was rather petite for him, but that didn't matter, he tossed an ordinary tennis ball into the air.
Until now everything seemed normal, but the next moment, Kaidou's actions made Asie and Nightin's jaws drop.
"Thundering Hakken!"
Thundering Hakken was basically Kaidou's combat skill, not necessarily relying on the Wolf Fang Club, other weapons could also exert force, including the racket, to prevent the ordinary racket from breaking under his power, he even added Armament Haki on it.
Asie and Nightin didn't see where the tennis ball went, but they saw the crater in the wall behind Yamato, though it was a tennis ball, Asie could only think of this term to describe it.
"Gulp..." Asie swallowed hard, earlier he was considering discussing with Kaidou about playing with his daughter, but now it seemed rather redundant.
"I feel... today isn't a good day to play tennis, what's your opinion?"
"I think so too, there's an herb in my lab that's about to mature, I need to go check on it, how about we talk next time?"
"Hmm, just right, the metal I was refining is about to set too, see you next time." Saying this, the two of them directly slipped out of there, aside from Kaidou, who else could take a tennis ball as artillery.
"Fa...Father... This..."
"It's a tennis ball, you know. I specially prepared two hundred balls. I've locked the door; until you've hit all two hundred balls, or you return one, it won't be over."
"Help... Help!"
The previous snowball was tossed by Kaidou bare-handed; this time, the tennis ball also borrowed the racket, the difficulty level rose more than one level, and more deadly was Kaidou's trickery, the tennis ball he hit could bounce.
Even if dodged in the first round, there might be a second; balls flying out might bounce back from behind. Whether the learner was happy remained unknown, but judging by the teacher's expression, he was quite pleased.