Starting with Naruto, I'll become stronger through my own efforts.

Chapter 289 Thorough Punishment and Discussion at Naval Headquarters

The Goa nobles certainly knew that Shazo intended to punish them.

But how could they willingly accept punishment?

Several nobles shouted, "Guards!"

Before the guards who pushed open the door could even see Xia Zuo clearly, they were instantly killed by the flying slash he unleashed, turning into a pile of mangled corpses.

Upon witnessing this bloody scene, the guards behind turned and ran without hesitation, leaving no one behind.

A nobleman loudly questioned, "Since when has the navy been allowed to interfere in the internal affairs of the kingdom?"

Xia Zuo checked the list and confirmed that he was on it, and that he was one of the masterminds, so he casually removed his head.

He looked at the nobleman's horrified and incredulous head and said, "This isn't the first time I've done this, so why ask such an idiotic question?"

When the guards died, not even the noble ladies screamed, as if what had died were just a few dogs, no, a few insects.

But when the nobleman's head was removed, all the nobles felt a chilling fear. They screamed and cried, regardless of gender, huddled together in the corner of the hall, desperately trying to hide themselves from others.

But all of this was in vain. Xia Zuo, following the list, pulled the nobles out of the crowd one by one, then broke their legs and threw them in the center of the hall.

For every nobleman he captured, he crossed out one of their names from the list.

When the last name was crossed out, Xia Zuo smiled with satisfaction: "Great, not a single one of them is missing. It really saved me a lot of trouble."

He looked at the king, who was surrounded by the surviving nobles, and nodded, saying, "Your Majesty, all the criminals have been arrested. The remaining nobles did not participate in the arson. I suggest you give them a new position."

"At least, they didn't cross the line of human conscience; they had some degree of loyalty."

King Goa opened his mouth, but all that came out was a "clucking" sound of his teeth clashing; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't utter a single word.

It wasn't just the king; all the nobles surrounding him felt the same way. The mere sight of the fallen nobles with broken legs made them tremble uncontrollably.

They felt nothing about the deaths of guards and civilians because they were all smaller versions of Celestial Dragons, and they felt that they and civilians were not the same species.

However, the fact that these nobles were grabbed by Xia Zuo with an invisible hand, had their legs broken or even torn off, and then thrown into the center of the hall brought them an extremely terrifying experience.

These are nobles, nobles just like them, nobles who were just chatting and laughing a moment ago.

Death was so real and cold, and it was pressed against the faces of the nobles like never before. The intense sensation made them lose all their composure and manners, and they were even less respectable than the commoners they regarded as insects.

Of all the nobles, only the mute King Goa could still barely maintain his composure.

At least, no suspicious fluid was leaking from his crotch.

Xia Zuo waved his hand lightly, and a magnificent flying slash shot out, shattering all the windows and pillars in the palace hall and opening a wide passage.

Then, Xia Zuo flew off the demolished wall. Behind him, the nobles with broken legs were pulled by electromagnetic forces, screaming and crying, and flew off in strange postures.

Electromagnetic force, following some strange rule, strung hundreds of nobles into five long lines, following Xia Zuo's figure, swaying in the air like long tail feathers.

When they flew over the gray area that had been burned to white, Xia Zuo reached out and lifted his hand. Huge, square logs burst out from the ground and extended horizontal branches to form a perfect boom.

From another perspective, this is a perfect street light.

Xia Zuo laughed and said, "You guys are lucky. Even mere feudal nobles can enjoy the treatment of big capitalists."

Under his manipulation, the nobles fell one by one from the feather-like procession, landing precisely three feet below the lamppost.

A green, supple vine grew from the crossbar, circled the unfortunate nobleman's neck three times, and then rejoined the structure.

It must be noted that the vines that wrapped around the person three times were very wide and could not possibly hang a person; the nobleman could even hiss and talk.

However, the vines that constricted the trachea and carotid artery allowed the nobleman to fully experience suffocation and even feel death slowly approaching.

The feeling of wanting to die but being unable to was enough to drive the nobles mad in just a few minutes.

Their initial pleas and threats quickly turned into a desire to die.

"Please—kill me—kill me!"

"Let me die—if I die—I won't be in so much pain anymore—"

Xia Zuo said coldly, "No, you can't die so easily."

"You should know how I dealt with the former Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now, whoever tells me about their entire family will die a quick death."

The massacre of the entire family ignited the rebellious spirit of the nobles, who angrily retorted, "Damn navy! You're going to kill my whole family, and you expect me to cooperate with you?"

"Don't even think about it!"

"Whether I speak or remain silent, I will die anyway. I will not yield!"

"The nobles of Goa, will rather die than surrender!"

Xia Zuo merely watched with a cold smile as hundreds of nobles struggled, like maggots wrapped in spider silk, unable to break free from the spider's web no matter how fiercely they struggled.

One minute, two minutes, ten minutes—some of the weak-willed nobles gave up, tormented to the point of completely losing their will to live.

They gave a list of their family members and their address in fits and starts.

Following the list, Xia Zuo captured the family members of these nobles and hung them on the newly grown streetlights.

Half an hour later, most of the nobles could not bear the pain of being unable to die and sold their families and clansmen to death.

The sudden influx of surrenders and abandonments kept Xia Zuo extremely busy. He ran back and forth through the dense forest of streetlights, trying to obtain a list of the next people to be arrested.

Then, based on these lists, the nobles' homes were confiscated, and the damned nobles were arrested and hung from streetlights.

An hour later, only a handful of nobles remained, the rest having surrendered and embarked on their demise.

Three hours later, the first batch of nobles captured by Xia Zuo were all dead, but the number of streetlights that had been erected had increased to more than 4000, turning the area into a dense forest.

At this point, Xia Zuo stopped expanding the scope of the punishment and stopped arresting people.

Not all the damned nobles and their henchmen have been hanged, but there's no need to continue.

The core members of these noble families are all here, as are their important subordinate armed forces. The remaining uncaptured individuals are no longer sufficient to support a noble family.

In other words, these nobles no longer had the power or means to protect their wealth and family members.

They will become the prey; those nobles surrounding the king, terrified by Shazo, will transform into ferocious hyenas driven by greed.

They will completely annihilate the noble families who have fallen from grace, and seize their wealth and manpower for themselves.

Those women and children who enjoyed the patronage of the nobility but had no sins beyond original sin, and whom even Xia Zuo could not harm, would also be torn to pieces by these hyenas.

This is one of the purposes of leaving behind a portion of the nobility in Xiazuo.

In addition, the nobles who were spared would cover for Shazo, ensuring that the large-scale trial of nobles would not be reported to the World Government through official channels.

The World Government will certainly know the whole story, but without a victim, there is no excuse to punish Shazo through the Marine Headquarters.

As for assassinations from the CP organization, Xia Zuoke is not afraid at all.

Looking at the more than 4000 streetlights and the same number of sling bugs, Xia Zuo raised his hand with slight impatience.

As his hand suddenly fell, the electromagnetic force captured the bodies of all those suspended, pulling them downwards with a sudden force, dislocating their cervical vertebrae.

In just half a second, sensing the impending doom, everyone's muscles, driven by the instinct for survival, began a final, spasmodic tremor.

In as little as 10 seconds or as long as 30 seconds, everyone lost their lives.

As he sensed the sudden disappearance of a large area of ​​life force, Xia Zuo's face showed a brief moment of confusion.

He knew these people deserved to die, he knew they were guilty of heinous crimes, and after a thorough investigation and review, he confirmed that he had not wrongly arrested any innocent people.

However, such a large-scale killing by his own hands still severely impacted Xia Zuo's mental world, causing cracks in his values.

That's a reshaping of the concept called morality.

It begins with the Saiyan Shazor awakening his potential through life and death, gaining a fighting power of 9, and ends with the pirate Shazor openly proclaiming his "simple justice" and carrying out a large-scale execution of nobles.

Xia Zuo completed the transformation of his worldview from that of an ordinary person to that of a superhuman.

Originally, this should have been a change brought about by the Heavenly Tribulation Xia Zuo, but unfortunately his memories were sealed and compressed by the Heavenly Tribulation, and he could only access them in a triggered manner.

Memories that are too scattered and fragmented cannot withstand the inhuman transformation of related concepts.

As the final achiever, the pirate Shazo's will imprint itself on all Shazos, becoming a key characteristic of this group.

A few days later, after receiving intelligence from the World Government, Fleet Admiral Sengoku nearly popped his eyes out.

"Has Xia Zuo gone mad?"

"How could he kill so many Goa nobles? This will throw the Goa Kingdom into chaos. How can I protect him from being punished? — Hmm?"

The Warring States Marshal finally saw the final official document of the intelligence report, and his mouth slowly broke into a grin.

"Ha! Ha! Finally, there's a navy officer who can cause trouble but not give me any real problems!"

"Xia Zuo! You're really great!"

-

"Very well, the World Government actually wants my Navy to assist the CP agency in investigating the entire incident of the mass deaths of nobles in the Goa Kingdom, and to make sure we get solid evidence of Shazo's murders."

"Which idiot sent this document? Are they out of their mind?"

"Seriously, if the CP agency is so capable, why don't they investigate it themselves? Why are they asking the Navy for help?"

"Ha! I'd like to see whether these investigators met their end in a shipwreck in the East China Sea or in a hotel fire, leaving no trace of their bodies."

The laughter of the Warring States Marshal woke up the sleeping man in the office. Garp's nose bubble popped, and after waking up, he first took a bite of senbei to calm his nerves.

Then he complained to his old friend, "Sengoku, what are you laughing at?"

Sengoku passed the intelligence to Garp: "Look, look at Shazo. He got things done, justice was served, the nobles were killed, and in the end, even the World Government couldn't cause me any trouble. They even had to ask me for help."

"This is the best navy ever!"

"Think about the awful things you did in the past, the pointless fighting, not only did you get punished, but you also had to let the person go, and I got scolded too."

"Garp, you've lived to a ripe old age and still haven't lived to the fullest!"

Garp and Sengoku had a decades-long friendship, but Garp ignored a few sarcastic remarks from him.

But what Sengoku said piqued Garp's curiosity, so he took the intelligence and read it carefully.

As he watched, Garp, like Sengoku, grinned and burst into laughter.

"Good lad, you're the guy I've got my eye on. You're really daring. You took down 433 nobles and over 4000 nobles' clansmen and thugs in one go."

"Tsk tsk, even I'm afraid of the trouble this would cause, and I wouldn't dare to be so ruthless. How did he manage to avoid any potential problems?"

"This really piques my curiosity."

Sengoku sat in his seat, carefully framed the document from the CP organization requesting the Navy's assistance, and then placed it in a large drawer to dry in the dark.

Having just finished all this, Sengoku overheard Garp's question and nodded, saying, "I'm a little curious too. Why don't we call and ask him?"

Garp shook his head like a rattle-drum: "No, no, it would be too embarrassing to ask him directly."

"It's so embarrassing that two old guys whose combined age is over 140 can't understand the tricks of young people."

""

After thinking for a moment, Zhan Guo nodded and said, "What you said makes sense."

"I'll have Sakazuki ask around; he has people in the 77th branch, so he should be able to get the specific details."

A dozen minutes later, Sakazuki, his face ashen, knocked on the marshal's office door.

As soon as he entered, he saluted Marshal Zhan Guo and then apologized, saying, "I am sorry, Your Excellency Marshal, the intelligence personnel I arranged also do not know the specifics of what happened."

"He flew from the 77th branch to the Goa Kingdom all by himself, and did it all in just four hours."

"Apart from King Goa and the surviving nobles, no one knows exactly what happened."

"The problem is that the King of the Kingdom of Goa is not playing by the rules. He and the surviving nobles around him are desperately trying to prove that the deaths of so many nobles have nothing to do with Xia Zuo. I don't know if they've been scared out of their wits."

"Hmph, what's so strange about that?"

Lieutenant General Tsuru walked in from outside, gave everyone a look of respect, and then continued, "Shazo's killing spree has brought King Goa enormous, unspeakable benefits."

Sakazuki asked, "Shazo is merely the head of the 77th branch. What benefits could he possibly offer to get a king to cover for him?"

Lieutenant General Tsuru glanced at Sakazuki and said with a sneer, "Of course, it's the estates of those nobles who were killed, the estates of whom had no heirs."