Astonishing Bounty

After Ryan and his group left, Fili gathered everyone together. He made promises and comforted the crowd, as he was still quite skilled at handling cleanup work.

However, when they walked out the front door together and stepped onto the parade ground, ninety percent of the crowd behind them threw up.

For ordinary people who had seen little of the world, a purgatory on earth was nothing compared to this.

A trembling marine said with trembling lips, "Are they really all dead?"

Fili closed his eyes. Although he knew Rong and his cohorts got what they deserved, seeing this scene still made his heart run cold. That Ryan either had to join the marine ranks or be arrested.

If today it was guilty marines, what about tomorrow?

Who knew if Ryan would turn bad in the future? But one thing was certain: Ryan was dangerous!

Fili opened his eyes, looked at his subordinates beside him, and said.

"Report the situation here to headquarters, including the crimes committed by Rong and the others."

Seeing a subordinate who had yet to recover his wits, he shook his head.

"I'll do it myself."

Fili shouted to the marines beside him, "Take them to the base to get some good rest!"

The startled marine instinctively replied, "Yes, Colonel Fili."

Grand Line—Headquarters of the World Marines—Marineford

A man wearing a gull hat was sitting at a desk processing paperwork, with seven bold characters behind him: "Absolute Justice Ruling the World."

The man was none other than Marine Admiral Sengoku the Buddha. The navy had already entered a period of power transition.

Because of the advent of the Great Age of Pirates, current Fleet Admiral Kong, weighed down by age and the injuries from years of combat,

felt he was no longer able to suppress an era that was beginning to run wild, and was ready to hand over the position and responsibilities of fleet admiral to Sengoku.

The arrival of the Great Age of Pirates made the navy exceptionally cautious, and the handover of the fleet admiral position had to be foolproof at this juncture.

For a smooth transition of power, Sengoku had already begun doing the work of the fleet admiral.

"Bilibili," the Den Den Mushi nearby rang. Seeing that it was the Transponder Snail connected to the South Blue marine branch, Sengoku wore a puzzled look.

Although strange, Sengoku answered it immediately.

Because the Four Seas branches generally did not contact headquarters unless there was a major event; headquarters always issued orders for the branches to execute.

"Is this Fleet Admiral Kong?" The Transponder Snail's voice came through.

"I am Sengoku!"

"It's Admiral Sengoku. I have important intelligence to report to headquarters."

"Speak."

"..."

10 minutes later

"I understand. I will dispatch 500 soldiers from headquarters to arrive in the South Blue together."

With that, he hung up the phone.

After hanging up, Sengoku sighed. "What a turbulent era. When will this runaway era ever stop!"

Thinking of the Red Hair Pirates and Count Patrick Redfield, who had been exceptionally active in the New World recently, trouble had broken out in the South Blue once again.

He had heard that a short while ago, The Lone Red Patrick Redfield had single-handedly annihilated a marine fleet in the New World, and Fleet Admiral Kong was currently busy formulating a plan to capture Patrick Redfield.

"Send for Borsalino and Kuzan," Sengoku instructed a marine at the door.

Before long, a man wearing yellow-striped clothing with a somewhat wretched appearance walked in. The newcomer was Marine Vice Admiral Kizaru.

"Yo, Admiral Sengoku, what do you want with old man me this late at night? I'm very busy right now, you know." The man's breezy words drifted over.

"Borsalino, didn't you just return from your vacation yesterday?"

"Is that so? The doctor said my memory has started deteriorating lately. I can't remember a thing, Sengoku-chan!"

Hearing this, veins popped on Sengoku's forehead. Everyone was like this; Garp was like this, and Borsalino was too. Sengoku cursed angrily in his heart.

At that moment, a marine vacationing in the East Blue while eating a donut sneezed.

"Could Sengoku be missing me?" The man rubbed his head.

"Admiral Sengoku, what do you want with me so late?" A curly-haired man wearing an eye mask on his forehead walked in.

Seeing that Kuzan had also come, Borsalino pouted and said,

"Yo-yo-yo, even Kuzan is here. It seems something big must be happening."

"Just now, the marine branch stationed in the Goth Kingdom of the South Blue was wiped out, and 1,034 marines perished without a single survivor. It was done by two teenagers in their early teens."

"What?!" Kuzan exclaimed.

"How terrifying!"

"Borsalino, shut up!" Sengoku got angry just hearing Kizaru's breezy tone.

After being disrupted like that, Kuzan actually calmed down. Realizing there was a contradiction in Sengoku's words just now, he quickly asked.

"Wait, wasn't it 'no survivors'? How do you know about it now? Someone must have notified you, otherwise it wouldn't have spread so fast."

Sengoku looked at Kuzan with a gratified expression and continued.

"Colonel Fili communicated it to me just now, because Colonel Fili had been locked up by Major General Rong, which accidentally allowed him to escape the disaster."

"Locked up?" Kuzan asked.

Kizaru next to him also expressed curiosity.

"Because Colonel Fili discovered that Major General Rong was trafficking slaves at the marine base and locked him up. It was precisely because of this slave trafficking that Major General Rong ended up dead."

Kuzan's worldview was constantly being impacted. A marine base? Trafficking slaves! Rong—these words kept surfacing in Kuzan's mind.

Rong had graduated from the same training camp period as Kuzan. Because the two shared similar understandings of justice, they got along very well and eventually became friends as time went on.

Seven years ago, due to the daily increasing number of pirates in the South Blue, headquarters had sent Rong to guard the region.

Whether by coincidence or not, every time Rong returned, Kuzan happened to be out on a mission, causing them to miss several opportunities to meet.

Since then, Kuzan and Rong had never seen each other again, though he sometimes heard news about the other party.

He never expected to hear such news tonight.

Looking at the somewhat dazed Kuzan, Sengoku sighed slightly. This was something Kuzan had to experience on his path of growth.

He himself had walked down that same road back then, and this hurdle had to be crossed independently by Kuzan; no one else could help him.

This world was not simply black and white; where there was light, there would surely be darkness, and the vast majority of that darkness lurked right beside the light.

All they could do was use their own methods to make this world just a little bit better.

"That's why I need one of you to make a trip over there."

"First, investigate the ins and outs of the whole matter to see if it is as Colonel Fili said."

"Second, since everyone is dead, we temporarily need to pull manpower from headquarters to take over, and bring them along when you go."

"Third, the people who massacred the entire marine branch must be captured. No matter what Rong did, the majesty of the navy cannot be challenged. If this isn't handled well, the entire South Blue will fall into chaos."

As soon as Sengoku finished speaking, Kuzan's voice rang out immediately.

"I'll go!"

"I'm from the South Blue; I'm more familiar with that place."

Sengoku looked at Kizaru.

Kizaru spread his hands. "I've been busy lately..."

"Alright then, Kuzan will make the trip. In addition, the wanted posters for these two people will be issued tomorrow, and I'll have to trouble you with this matter as well."

With that, he handed two freshly made bounty posters from the desk to Kuzan.

Kizaru curiously leaned in to take a look and his mouth twitched. This twitch made Kizaru look exceptionally wretched at that moment.

As for why Kizaru reacted this way, one only had to ask about the contents of those two bounty posters.

Ryan: Bounty 100,000,000 Beli

Beli: Bounty 30,000,000 Beli

For two rookies who hadn't even entered the Grand Line, these two bounty posters were unprecedented, especially Ryan's hundred-million-Beli bounty, which counted as a major pirate even in the Grand Line.

This demonstrated the severity of the incident and Ryan's dangerousness. If every rookie pirate learned from Ryan, the entire Four Seas would be thrown into chaos.

Kuzan stared fixedly at the two people in the bounty posters, as if he wanted to deeply engrave Ryan and Beli into his mind.

If Ryan were here right now, he would probably belt out a song.

You exist in the depths of my mind,

in my dreams,

in my heart,

...

[The author simply couldn't resist playing around here; writing is too tedious and requires the author to find the joy in writing for himself.]