Another month passed...
Yes, Shaya's warship had been sailing the seas for over a month.
Over that month, Shaya had witnessed the "local customs" of many countries.
And he had gained quite a few slaves...
Yes, pirate slaves.
As for beautiful girls, Shaya had seen plenty...
But none of them could compare to the young and beautiful Stussy by his side.
After all, Stussy's original self had been personally certified by the World's Strongest Man, Edward Newgate! She far surpassed those ordinary, vulgar women...
Shaya was quite picky when it came to women. He was not like someone from a certain domestic TV drama, desperate enough to swallow anything.
As for where Shaya's pirate slaves came from?
Yes, during Shaya's voyage, they had encountered quite a few pirates.
Most of those pirate crews had been intercepted by that old fellow Garp, who would charge straight at them the moment he spotted their pirate ships.
Yes, whenever Garp encountered pirates, he often acted on his own...
Ignoring the safety of Shaya, a Celestial Dragon, to rescue merchant ships or civilian fishing boats being pursued and harassed by pirates.
Shaya was quite happy to see that.
After all, whenever Garp defeated those pirates...
Shaya would always detain their leaders, brand them with the mark of the Hoof of the Heavenly Dragon, and send them to Mary Geoise as slaves.
Surely not just Shaya—even any Celestial Dragon in this world would be delighted to obtain a group of pirate slaves with bounties in the millions or tens of millions for free, right?!
At the same time, in order to quickly amass slaves, Shaya often deliberately had his subordinates steer their warship toward places frequently infested with pirates, setting traps for them.
And whenever Shaya's warship arrived in such an area, he would specifically have World Government agents lower the World Government flag aboard the ship and disguise it in a simple manner.
Or they would use ordinary merchant ships to lure pirates into attacking...
Then, once pirates actually appeared! Shaya would usually lean against the railing of the Marine warship, silently admiring Garp's heroic figure as he beat down pirates, while using his powerful learning ability to replicate Garp's every move.
At the same time, Shaya would put on an expression as though he greatly admired Garp.
And whenever Garp returned in triumph after defeating pirates, Shaya would look at him with the arrogant bearing of a lofty Celestial Dragon...
Then, with his chin raised, as if every word he spoke to Garp was an honor Garp should be proud of for the rest of his life, he would say, "Garp, become my son... I mean, become my guard! As long as you become my personal guard, I can satisfy you with the three things men dream of—money, status, and women. Then you can do whatever you want! Even the position of Fleet Admiral—I can find a way to help you get it!"
"My apologies! This old man is too weak to deserve Your Excellency's favor."
"As for Fleet Admiral? Hahaha, this old man has grown too lazy and carefree. I can't even become an ordinary Admiral, much less Fleet Admiral, the Commander-in-Chief!"
Unfortunately, whenever Shaya invited Garp, Garp always refused him.
Yet even so, Shaya tirelessly continued inviting Garp.
After all, inviting Garp was fake; putting on a show for the people around them was real...
Having those World Government agents report this matter to their superiors was real.
Making Garp change his opinion of him was real as well.
At the same time, Shaya was preparing for the day when he could rightfully interfere with the Marine's internal personnel arrangements, as well as go to Foosha Village in the Goa Kingdom of the East Blue under the pretext of having Garp pay him a visit, so he could train Straw Hat Luffy.
As everyone knew, among the three types of Devil Fruits, Zoan Devil Fruits—whether Mythical Zoans, Ancient Zoans, or the most ordinary varieties—were the easiest to replicate...
As long as the Lineage Factor of a Zoan Devil Fruit user could be perfectly replicated, an almost one-to-one replica of that Zoan Devil Fruit could be created!
Of course, there might be slight differences in color at most!
For example, Kaido's Azure Dragon Fruit had been replicated by Vegapunk into a pink dragon fruit...
Come to think of it, Sun God Nika was a Zoan too, wasn't it?!
Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Sun God Nika?
Every member of Shaya's future Divine Knights would get one!
Azure Dragon Fruit, Great Buddha Fruit, Phoenix Fruit, Nine-Tailed Fox Fruit, Nika Fruit, Great Mouth True God Fruit, Great Monk Fruit, Yamata no Orochi Fruit, Pegasus Fruit...
A wide variety of Mythical Zoans for you to choose from! If he did not replicate more of them, people might think Shaya could not replicate Mythical Zoan Devil Fruits?!
Many years later, Shaya looked coldly at Imu, whom he had trapped within the Holy Land, and said, "Imu, give up resisting! Nika is everywhere outside..."
Yes, Shaya never did meaningless things. For everything he planned to do, he would begin preparing years, or even decades, in advance!
To ensure the success of every plan...
As time passed.
In the blink of an eye, another month quietly went by.
During this month that Garp and Shaya spent together...
Garp's impression of Shaya changed greatly.
At the very least, Garp discovered that Shaya was different from ordinary Celestial Dragons.
Although Shaya was as lawless as other Celestial Dragons, disregarded the World Government's laws, and never treated the Marines with any respect...
It was as if every Marine loyal to the World Government in this world were Shaya's private guards! He barked orders at Marine warships and the commands of every base.
But at least Shaya did not obstruct his fight against pirates. Instead, he strongly supported Garp's efforts to crack down on pirates. It was only that the pirates Garp defeated were not imprisoned in the jails of various bases as Garp had wished, nor were they sent to Impel Down, the great prison of the deep sea.
Instead, without ever being judged by a single judge, they were directly forced by Shaya to receive the mark of the Hoof of the Heavenly Dragon and become his personal slaves.
At the same time, Shaya was strict in his selection of slaves. Petty thieves were not wanted, and neither were pirates with bounties below one million...
Worthless weaklings who flew pirate flags but could barely afford food, bringing shame upon the name of pirates, were not wanted either! All such weaklings were sent by Shaya to other prisons...
However, the more lawless, vicious, murderous, and utterly evil the pirates were, the more Shaya liked them.
In Shaya's words: "Everything in this world belongs to us, the descendants of the creators of this world—the great Celestial Dragons. In other words, it belongs to me."
"Only we Celestial Dragons may disregard the laws of the World Government or other nations! As for everyone else, whether they are kings of nations, privileged ordinary nobles, wealthy merchants, or powerful pirates, they must obey the law!"
"Anyone who refuses to obey the laws made by us Celestial Dragons shall be branded with the Hoof of the Heavenly Dragon and become slaves of us Celestial Dragons for life. You were given freedom! Unfortunately, you did not know how to cherish it! Then you do not deserve even a little freedom."
"You pirates who think yourselves evil, you hypocritical abusers! Experience what true abusers, the true 'evil' of this world, the greatest beasts of the Four Seas—the great Celestial Dragons—are really like. Taste the feeling of being worse off than dead..."
Yes, in Shaya's eyes, these petty pirates who only bullied ordinary people and took pride in massacring defenseless towns had no idea what true evil was.
And what Shaya loved most in this life was making those self-righteous fools experience true evil and awakening the female within their hearts.
Those who loved killing and massacring towns would be sent into the Holy Land's beast arena to constantly fight savage beasts for the amusement of the Celestial Dragons.
Those who loved robbery would have their wealth, reputation, and names stripped away! They would own nothing for the rest of their lives, and even their very identities would be taken from them...
As for those who loved rape...
Damn it, even beastly Celestial Dragons knew to capture handsome men and beautiful women from the roadside and give them the title of husband or wife, using it as a not-so-convincing fig leaf.
As for livestock even more beastly than Celestial Dragons, they would be sent directly to the Holy Land and handed over to Celestial Dragons with unusual tastes, twisted personalities, and XP systems developing in strange directions, to be repeatedly XXed.
When it came to justice, perhaps the Marines were not the most just force in this world.
But when it came to evil, no one could surpass those beastly people—
Yes, as a Celestial Dragon in this life, Shaya had already risen above the lowly amusement of oppressing ordinary people. After all, he had been an ordinary person in his previous life. It was precisely because he had been bullied before that he understood the helplessness of ordinary people.
Because Shaya had once stood in the rain, he would not claim to become an umbrella and help others—he did not possess such lofty morals, nor was he that great! But at the very least, he would not become rain himself and deliberately drench others. That was Shaya's bottom line.
Since Shaya had been fortunate enough to obtain power, he would make those self-righteous, lawless people experience what it felt like to be bullied.
And Garp had seen all of Shaya's actions over these past days.
Therefore, in Garp's eyes, Shaya counted as a Celestial Dragon with some conscience—a beast with a conscience.
At the same time...
The large batch of pirate slaves Shaya had collected over these two months at sea also gave him an explanation for this trip.
After all, the purpose Shaya had reported to the Five Elders for this voyage was that his household had too few pirate slaves, not nearly enough for him to play with, so he had to personally sail out and capture more.
For Celestial Dragons, personally going to sea to catch slaves was simply too normal. It could even be called a common occurrence...
Some Celestial Dragons even crazier than Shaya would do something as brainless as bringing a group of retainers and government officials, without a single Admiral-level figure accompanying them, and daring to sail privately to Fish-Man Island to capture fish-man slaves.
Now, Shaya had gathered enough slaves, Garp's favorability had been raised to about the right level, and according to Shaya's calculations, the timing was perfect to seek out Roger.
It had now been ten months since Roger became the Pirate King...
No matter how one looked at it, Roger should have already met Rouge.
Judging by the timeline, Roger should have successfully gotten Rouge pregnant with Ace.
And according to Shaya's deductions, Ace should have already spent three months in Rouge's womb...
By the technological standards of the Pirate King world, it was already difficult to abort an embryo at three months.
Simply put, Ace in Rouge's womb was now enough to threaten Roger, while Shaya also had Garp's protection.
Shaya had double insurance in his hands. Therefore, he believed it was time to set out for Baterilla Island and meet Pirate King Roger.
Yes, although Saint Shaya was not weak, he truly was far too prudent when handling matters.
Please recommend, invest, and keep reading, brothers~
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