The surrounding area was filled with the shouts of pirates and the roar of cannon fire.
Kenji ignored these noises, his attention already focused on the system prompts that had just appeared.
Most of the prompts were unsurprising, just normal quest notifications and descriptions. However, a small part of the content piqued Kenji's interest.
[You led the Marine warship, escorting the Legendary Pirate, Golden Lion Shiki, back to Marineford, only to be ambushed by a large number of pirates along the way!]
[You feel a bit strange. The enemy was able to precisely locate your warship, as if they knew its navigation route!]
[After a battle, you discovered that the attackers were the Flying Pirates, under Golden Lion Shiki!]
[You learned from pirate captives that they had obtained intelligence in advance, allowing them to grasp the warship's navigation route!]
[You decided to eliminate this pirate fleet!]
[Mission (Side): Exterminate the Flying Pirates! Friendly forces' personnel loss must not exceed one-third!]
[Reward: Upgrade a random owned trait 3 times!]
"Pirate extermination mission? Hmm, the reward is decent…" Kenji quickly scanned the mission and reward content, nodding slightly.
On the surface, it seemed like they were exterminating a Legendary Pirate's force and it seemed to be a difficult task.
In reality, they were exterminating the Flying Pirates, who were without their Legendary Pirate. Besides Golden Lion Shiki, no other formidable individuals within this pirate crew were known.
Even if there were formidable powerhouses, this mission only required extermination and did not demand guaranteed success.
Therefore, overall, the difficulty of this mission was not very high. In comparison, its rewards were quite good. Yet, such relatively generous rewards did not hold Kenji's gaze for long.
He glanced over it, not even looking closely at the reward content, his gaze and attention returning to a certain prompt earlier.
"Through intelligence, they obtained the warship's whereabouts in advance?" Kenji frowned slightly, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"With Shiki's intelligence network… could he achieve this level?"
He pondered for a moment, then reached into his embrace and pulled out a special Den Den Mushi, used for contacting those CP0 personnel.
However, after taking out the Den Den Mushi and examining it for a moment, Kenji ultimately shook his head and put it away. This small matter was not enough to warrant using his hidden connections.
"Forget it, I'll deal with those pirates first, then capture some prisoners for interrogation afterward." Kenji made a decision in his mind.
This world was different from the technological era of Earth. Various torture methods and punishments still existed.
Nor were there any civilized individuals or intellectuals who would jump out and criticize the need for civilized law enforcement. In this world, the fist was the greatest law.
"Phew... After eating snacks, I feel a bit sleepy. I'll go rest for a bit."
After deciding to eliminate the surrounding attacking pirates, Kenji walked into the ship's cabin.
As for Shiki's subordinates, they would naturally be handled by Kuzan.
Kuzan couldn't defeat enemies of Legendary Pirate calibre, but could he still not defeat these ordinary pirates?
In fact, Kenji had already used Observation Haki to sense and observe the attacking pirate fleet, and there were no powerful individuals among them.
The strongest one was still far from the current Oden, and even inferior to "World Destroyer" Byrrndi World.
Of course, entrusting the extermination mission to Kuzan didn't mean Kenji wouldn't intervene.
If Kuzan didn't handle it properly, Kenji would naturally help him handle it properly, and give him a long-term hellish devil training.
On the deck.
Numerous Marine soldiers bustled back and forth, a flurry of heads and intertwined figures, yet they were orderly and each performed their duties.
Kuzan stood at the bow, observing the enemy's movements while directing the warship's counterattack.
Cannon fire was everywhere, and smoke drifted from all directions, temporarily obscuring the sky.
Looking up, the sky was filled with dense cannonballs.
However, due to the warship's evasive maneuvers and the defensive measures taken by the elite soldiers firing back, the entire warship, from the start of the battle until now, miraculously hadn't been hit by a single cannonball, not even once.
Those seemingly terrifying cannonball rains either missed their targets or were detonated beforehand.
Boom!!!
Another cannonball was fired, exploding in mid-air and detonating the cannonball rain. And the one who fired the cannonball was naturally Kuzan.
"Heh, this kind of defensive cannonball throwing, as Garp-san said, isn't difficult at all." Kuzan casually tossed a cannonball with one hand, his eyes scanning around, seemingly looking for the next spot to throw a cannonball.
"Alright, that's where it'll be!"
Kuzan selected a location and threw the cannonball.
What seemed like a casual throw was actually faster than a cannon fired from a barrel.
The cannonball, under high-speed impact, gained much more power.
In an instant, the cannonball plunged into the distant cannonball rain, once again detonating a large number of cannonballs, creating a chain reaction of explosions.
And this time, because the center of the explosion was close to the sea surface, a pirate ship below suffered severe repercussions.
The mast and sails of this large pirate ship were instantly destroyed.
Following closely, the explosion's shockwave blasted towards pirate ships further away.
Four or five ships in a row were affected. Besides the large pirate ship at the very bottom, which was severely damaged, the other ships suffered varying degrees of damage.
However, this was only the beginning. As Kuzan continued to throw cannonballs, waves of chain explosions erupted.
The first two or three layers of pirate ships in the encirclement were almost completely destroyed, and crucially, the cannonballs that destroyed these ships came from their own artillery.
"Is there still no one of significant stature stepping forward?" Kuzan scanned his surroundings, a look of surprise on his face.
In reality, his cannonball throwing was more for defensive purposes, merely a probing attempt.
Its purpose was to force out the stronger individuals within the opposing pirate crew.
Yet, even as two or three pirate ships were visibly sinking from the explosions, no one of significant stature jumped out.
"Speaking of which, in the Flying Pirates, besides Golden Lion Shiki, I don't recall hearing about any other particularly strong individuals." Kuzan recalled information about the Flying Pirates, speculating in his mind.
"Perhaps… too many strong individuals make them difficult to manage?"
The Flying Pirates, though called a pirate crew, were actually a fleet, a pirate fleet.
Since it was a pirate fleet, its discipline naturally couldn't compare to the Marines, and the quality of its personnel varied.
In such a situation, if Shiki dared to recruit a large number of powerhouses, it would inevitably lead to countless small factions, turning into a mini-version of the Rocks Pirates.
In fact, among the three Legendary Pirate forces, only the Roger Pirates had powerful cadres.
Whitebeard's pirate crew consisted of a bunch of young individuals who still needed time to grow.
As for Golden Lion's Flying Pirates, Kuzan looked left and right, but he didn't see any powerful pirate worth his full effort.