Piccolo turned his gaze to Naruto. "Brat, if you kneel and apologize right now, I might consider sparing you. Perhaps I'll let you polish my shoes."
Naruto ignored him completely. He turned to Bulma's family. "I'll get rid of this punk right away. I'll need your help with something later."
"You-" Piccolo began to fly into a rage, but Naruto snapped his fingers. Both he and Piccolo vanished.
The next moment, they appeared thousands of kilometers away. Nearby, the figures of the Z Fighters materialized.
"He looks almost exactly like Kami, is that Demon King Piccolo?!" Sharp-eyed Tien spotted them first.
"What an incredible aura!" Goku exclaimed.
"Didn't Naruto go to Mount Paozu? How did he encounter him before us?" Krillin asked.
"Wait, something is off about him. He looks younger," Yamcha noted.
The group descended from the sky and landed beside Naruto and the Demon King. A little over a month had been enough time for these warriors to learn Flight.
"More martial artists popping up."
Piccolo, facing Naruto, glanced at the Z Fighters with an expression of sudden understanding. "I get it now. You want to surround me with these guys?"
"You're feeling the strength of my power now that I've restored my youth, aren't you? You think this is enough to defeat me?" Piccolo spoke with absolute confidence. "Giving me my youth back was your biggest mistake."
"So that's it, he's restored his youth." Tien nodded, his expression grave. He could faintly sense the opponent's terrifying power.
Tien had already begun to learn Ki Sensing.
"Something like you lot probably won't even require me to strike personally." Piccolo smiled. "Don't think numbers can defeat me."
With a retching sound, Piccolo spit out a giant egg.
As the shell cracked open, a large, green, muscular figure covered in bumps walked out.
"Let me introduce my new subordinate: Drum the Demon Clan Warrior."
"He'll be more than enough to deal with you."
Namekians possessed a remarkable ability: asexual reproduction. They produced offspring by spitting eggs. However, only all-rounder Namekians could master this. Warrior-type Namekians, like the future Piccolo, could not.
Normally, a Namekian's egg would always hatch a Namekian. Whether because Piccolo was a split entity of Kami or because he called himself part of the Demon Clan, whatever hatched from his eggs did not seem to be pure Namekians.
Each one looked bizarre and grotesque.
More importantly, Piccolo didn't treat them as his own sons.
"I'll take this one." Krillin stepped forward first.
"I don't have much confidence against the Demon King, but I can handle this guy."
"Hahaha, just a little runt."
Drum glanced at Krillin with contempt. "Look at me once and I'll snap your neck."
Krillin and Drum clashed, and the result caught Piccolo off guard. Instead of the one-sided crushing he imagined, Krillin and Drum went blow for blow. Soon, Krillin took the lead, steadily building an advantage.
*Thud*
Krillin's fist slammed into Drum's stomach.
"Im... impossible..."
With a furious roar, Drum collapsed at Krillin's feet.
Having trained under Kami, Krillin had surpassed Tien's power from the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament.
"Just a bald human. Why would he have power on par with my elite?" Piccolo couldn't believe his subordinate had been taken down.
Suddenly, Drum snapped his eyes open and gripped Krillin's body.
"Let's die together!"
Drum's body began to glow white, the sign of imminent self-destruction.
"Well done!" Piccolo burst out laughing. "That's my boy."
"Damn it!" Goku, Tien, and the others tried to help, but they were too late.
The white light grew brighter and brighter, and then... nothing happened. Black, tadpole-like seals covered Drum's body, binding him tightly in place.
"Self-Cursing Seal!" Naruto hooked a finger and said calmly, "Danzo's cursed seal technique turned out to be unexpectedly useful."
He turned to Krillin. "This isn't a sparring match. When dealing with enemies, you must always deliver the fatal blow."
"Alright, this one's mine too."
Naruto placed his hand on Drum. With a swirl, Drum vanished. Krillin had narrowly escaped death.
"Second one."
"I can't sense Drum anymore." Piccolo stared intently at Naruto. "Was Tambourine's disappearance your doing too?"
Though phrased as a question, Piccolo spoke with certainty.
Piccolo yanked off the red cloak draped over his body. "Come at me all at once. It's time for you to witness this Demon King's terror."
"So he's stepping out himself?"
"I'll go!" Goku stepped forward.
Except for the Planet Namek arc, where the power gap was too vast and they had to gang up on one person, they always fought one-on-one. They were martial artists, after all.
"Let me go first." Tien blocked Goku and stood in front of him. "If I fail, then you go."
"Planning to come at me one at a time?" Piccolo sneered. "Worthless warrior's pride. I'll take care of you first."
"Hah!" Tien 's back rippled, and two more arms sprouted from his torso.
'Four Witches Technique!'
Power level 250 Tien versus Power level 260 Demon King Piccolo.
Tien and Piccolo fought from the ground into the sky. Neither gained a significant advantage. Piccolo relied on the overwhelming power of his techniques, while Tien leveraged a diverse range of skills.
"Impressive fighter." Piccolo wiped a spot on his lip where Tien had landed a hit. "You're the only martial artist so far who has pushed me this far."
"If this is all you've got, then this is where it ends."
"You are no match for my full power."
"I am not," Tien admitted without pretense, then turned to Goku. "This one's all yours, Goku."
"You mean this kid is stronger than me?" Piccolo had no respect for Goku. He didn't believe the boy possessed power greater than his own. In truth, the only person he feared was Naruto.
"Then let me show you the terror of my full power!"
Piccolo let out a strained roar, and the earth began to tremble. Electrical arcs flickered across his body.
His full 260 combat power was on display.
Right. A whopping 260.
"Can you feel it? My terrifying power!" Piccolo continued talking to himself, unaware of what Naruto was thinking. "This power terrifies even me."
"One minute. I only need one minute to finish all of you."
A minute passed, and Piccolo had not defeated Goku. Instead, Goku's attacks had ravaged his body. In terms of raw combat power, Goku had already surpassed him.
Goku: 300 combat power.
Half an hour later, Piccolo knelt on the ground in resentment, his chest torn open by a massive hole. "I never imagined someone in this world could defeat me."
The gap in strength made him a complete weakling against Goku. He knew he would fall today.
He made a decisive choice.
"But the Demon Clan will not perish so easily."
Piccolo glanced sideways at the others and gathered ki throughout his entire body.
"Explosive Demon Wave!"
Using himself as the epicenter, he released his ki in a massive Destructive Wave.
At the same instant, Piccolo's right hand glowed red and swung toward Naruto.
"Super Demon Cannon!"
The Destructive Wave engulfed him.
The purpose of these two techniques was not to harm the enemy, but to cover his next move. Piccolo gathered all the energy in his body into his throat. With a squirm in his throat, he forced out another giant egg.
He used every ounce of strength to spit the egg away.
"You damned humans," Piccolo gasped, watching the giant egg drift into the distance.
"Wait and see. My child will avenge me. He will kill every single one of you."
"The world still belongs to our Demon Clan!"
"Is that so?" Naruto's voice rang out behind Piccolo. "I don't think so."
Piccolo turned as if he'd seen a ghost. Before he could react, a long strip of cloth wrapped around him, binding him in the shape of a mummy.
"Sealing Jutsu!"
In the center of the 'mummy,' the character for 'Seal' appeared.
While sealing jutsu from the Naruto-verse weren't as powerful as the Evil Containment Wave, they were surefire against opponents weaker than the user.
With a warp in space, the sealed Demon King Piccolo vanished.
At the same time, a tadpole-like symbol gradually appeared on the giant egg flying into the distance.
The Flying Thunder God Mark.
Naruto had waited specifically for the moment Piccolo spat out the egg.
Piccolo was the evil side of Kami, but the egg was different. He was neither part of the Dragon Clan nor the Demon Clan, he was an entirely new warrior-type Namekian.
"Where did Piccolo go? Did he run away?"
When the smoke cleared, the Z Fighters began searching for any trace of him.
"Stop searching." Naruto gathered the Z Fighters and addressed them. "I have some good news and bad news for everyone."
"The good news is that Piccolo is no longer in this world."
"Piccolo's dead?!" Krillin cheered. Having fought Drum, he knew exactly how terrifying Piccolo was.
Once the others confirmed the news, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
"Don't celebrate yet," Naruto said, cutting through their excitement. "Now for the bad news. Before Piccolo died, in his final moments, he spat out a child who carries all of his power."
Naruto held up three fingers. "Three years. That child will likely only need three years to grow into an adult. By then, he will certainly be stronger than Piccolo ever was."
"If you don't train hard, even Goku won't be a match for him."
"Wha... what?" Krillin's face twisted. "A guy several times more terrifying than Piccolo?"
"A more powerful opponent is more interesting." Tien and Goku were the only two Z Fighters who looked happy. Their eyes blazed with fighting spirit.
"You all need to keep training," Naruto encouraged. "It only took you a month to reach this level. Imagine what you could do with three years."
"You might not be that much weaker than him."
"Oh right," Naruto added. "When you reach The Lookout, remember to have Kami fix Shenron. Piccolo killed him."
Naruto pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Goku. "Tell him that based on these notes, he should add every possible upgrade to Shenron. Modernize him."
The original Shenron was virtually useless to powerful martial artists, aside from wishing for resurrection, and even then, only if the dead hadn't been gone for more than a year.
He was nothing more than a tool.
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