Five Stars

The message on the sky screen was like a pebble tossed into a pot of boiling oil.

[Notice: This is not "one person."]

The same guess flashed through everyone's mind at once.

At Marine Headquarters, Sengoku's face turned deathly pale within three seconds.

Tsuru turned to look at him. Their eyes met, and each read the same answer in the other's gaze.

"The Five Elders."

Sengoku's lips barely moved, but the words seeped out through his teeth.

"It's going after the Five Elders."

At the end of the corridor, the dark red flames on Akainu's arms flickered. He looked at the message on the sky screen, and something immensely complicated finally appeared on his previously expressionless face.

"Finally, it's their turn."

His voice was low.

"The people sitting at the very top should step forward and face judgment."

The golden characters on the sky screen assembled stroke by stroke, moving at a torturously slow pace.

The whole world waited.

At last, the words took shape.

[Ten Great War Criminals, second place]

[The World Government's highest authority—the Five Elders]

[Saint Jaygarcia Saturn]

[Saint Marcus Mars]

[Topman Saint Warcury]

[Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro]

[Saint Shepherd Ju Peter]

The five names were lined up on the sky screen, as orderly as five tombstones.

Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world had never heard those names before.

To ordinary people, the World Government was simply the World Government. They knew about the Celestial Dragons and the navy, but they had never known that five old men sat above it all, pulling the world's strings.

"The Five Elders? What's that?"

"The World Government's highest authority? Higher than the Fleet Admiral?"

"Higher than Kong?"

"Doesn't that make them the most powerful people in the world?"

The shock of that realization sent a huge tremor through the civilian population.

But to those truly at the top of the pyramid of power, the appearance of the list meant one thing.

The livestream had put a knife to the world's throat.

Holy Land Mary Geoise, the Room of Authority.

Five old men sat at the table they had occupied for who knew how many years, wisps of steam rising from the teacups before them.

The blond elder's fingers stopped on the tabletop. He looked up at the golden light from the sky screen shining through the curtains.

"It's here."

His voice was entirely without inflection.

The elder with the long sword gripped the hilt of the First Generation Kitetsu, his knuckles tightening slightly.

"Faster than expected."

"I thought it would at least deal with all the pirates and navy people before coming for us."

The bald elder picked up his teacup, took a sip, and set it down.

"It's speeding up."

"From Teach in tenth place to Dragon in third, the amount of information on each person has increased, and the scope of its attacks has widened."

"It has a purpose. It's peeling away the layers of this world one by one."

"Teach was the scum on the outermost layer."

"Doflamingo was the link between the World Government and the Four Emperors."

"Sengoku and Akainu were the foundation of the navy's justice."

"Kong was the World Government's military cornerstone."

"Dragon was the banner of the resistance."

"And we are the final layer."

"Once it peels us away, it will reach the core."

The last sentence silenced all five of them.

The core.

That core had only one name.

Imu.

The blond elder stood up.

"Whether or not it knows of Lord Imu's existence, we can't sit here and wait for death."

"Activate the highest level of alert from this moment on. All CP0 members are to stand by, and the Holy Knights are to prepare to deploy."

"If that livestream dares mention that name, we must immediately erase the memories of everyone who hears it."

"How?"

The curly-haired elder's voice was grave.

"Billions of people around the world are watching that sky screen."

"You're going to erase the memories of billions?"

The blond elder did not answer.

Because he had no answer either.

The question had appeared on the sky screen.

[Question: What role did the Five Elders play in the Paramount War?]

[A. As the highest decision-makers, they approved the overall plan to launch a war using Ace as bait.]

[B. During the war, they used secret orders to manipulate the course of several key developments on the battlefield.]

[C. After the war, they used information control to cover up all of the navy's mistakes and crimes during the war.]

[D. All of the above. The Five Elders were not only the decision-makers behind the Paramount War, but also the final signatories of every massacre carried out in the name of "justice" over the past eight hundred years.]

The last half of option D exploded across the world's seas like a depth charge.

The past eight hundred years.

Every massacre carried out in the name of justice.

The final signatories.

Those three phrases together carried more weight than the crimes of all the previous war criminals combined.

"Eight hundred years?"

In a fishing village in East Blue, the hand holding an old fisherman's pipe trembled.

"Those old guys have lived for eight hundred years?"

"That can't be possible. How can people live for eight hundred years?"

"But everything that livestream has said is true. It's never been wrong."

In Water 7, Iceburg adjusted his glasses, his expression turning graver than ever before.

"Eight hundred years of crimes."

"If this is true..."

"Then the World Government was built on a mountain of bones from the day it was founded."

At Revolutionary Army Headquarters, Dragon looked at option D on the sky screen, and a sharp light finally flashed in his eyes.

"Sabo."

"Here."

"Are the paper and pen ready?"

"They're ready."

"Write it down. Don't miss a single word."

Dragon's voice was steadier than ever.

"This is what we've been waiting over a decade for."

The countdown to answer on the sky screen reached zero.

This time, no one hesitated. The answers from around the world converged into a single voice almost instantly.

D.

Everyone chose D.

Even within the navy, some people silently chose D in their hearts.

[Correct answer: D]

When the golden letters lit up, there were no cheers or discussions around the world. There was only a heavy sense of oppression descending from the sky screen.

Everyone knew that what came next would be more terrifying than anything they had seen before.

The sky screen began playing the explanation.

The first frame showed neither Marineford's battlefield nor a navy conference room, but a dim, ancient chamber.

The stone walls were carved with patterns from eight hundred years ago. A huge round table stood in the center of the room, covered by a sea chart of the entire world.

Five figures sat at the table.

They were the Five Elders.

The Five Elders, exactly as they were now.

The exact same faces.

The exact same clothing.

The exact same expressions.

The timestamp in the bottom right corner showed that this was five hundred years ago.

Everyone in the world felt their scalp go numb.

"Five hundred years ago?"

"They looked like that five hundred years ago?"

"What on earth are they?"

In the footage, the blond elder from five hundred years ago opened a document and signed his name at the end.

The sky screen zoomed in on the document's title.

[Order authorizing a "historical cleansing" operation against an island nation in North Blue]

The footage cut.

Two hundred years ago.

The same five men sat at the same table, signing another document.

[Order authorizing an "information purification" operation against an academic city-state in South Blue]

The footage cut again.

One hundred years ago.

[Order authorizing a "spark extermination" operation against three islands in West Blue]

Three documents, three different eras, and five identical faces.

The explanatory text on the sky screen read coldly:

[Over the past eight hundred years, the Five Elders have authorized more than two hundred large-scale military cleansing operations in the name of maintaining world order. They have destroyed more than thirty nations in total and wiped out populations numbering in the millions.]

[They do not age, and they do not die. They are the oldest rulers of this world, and also its most silent executioners.]

The world fell silent.

This was not the kind of silence that had come before, when anger or grief had choked off every voice.

This was the blankness left after one's understanding had been destroyed.

One person had lived for eight hundred years.

No, five people had lived for eight hundred years.

They had sat at the highest point in the world, signing death warrants for eight hundred years.

Then they had drunk their tea and held their meetings as if nothing had happened, waiting for the next name to be marked for elimination to appear on their table.

When Lin Qi saw the footage in the tavern, he was halfway through chewing a peanut and forgot to swallow.

"Wait, in this game, the Five Elders really are supposed to be immortal?"

He stared at the screen for a long while, then the corner of his mouth twitched.

"Eight-hundred-year-old monsters, more than two hundred major purges."

"That's a ridiculous setup for villains."

"But I like it."

His fingers danced across the keyboard a few times.

"Major villains on this level need a punishment to match."

The explanation on the sky screen continued, but the footage had begun shifting away from the historical records in another direction.

A direction that made the Five Elders' hearts pound even harder.

[Additional information: The source of the Five Elders' power]

In the Room of Authority in Holy Land Mary Geoise, the five old men stood up at once.

The blond elder pressed his hand against the table, his knuckles cracking.

"It's going to expose our abilities."

The words on the sky screen appeared one character at a time.

[The Five Elders are not ordinary humans. Their immortality comes from an ancient pact as old as the World Government.]

[Their true forms are—]

The image suddenly froze there.

Everyone waited for the next line to appear.

But the golden words on the sky screen began to flicker, as though something were interfering with them.

In the tavern, Lin Qi's expression changed as he saw a new prompt pop up on the screen.

[Warning: The question setter is approaching the boundary of system permissions. This content involves information classified as a "World Core Secret." Confirm disclosure?]

[Confirming disclosure will consume all Reputation Points accumulated by the question setter.]

"All my Reputation Points?"

Lin Qi frowned.

"What does that mean? I'm not qualified to make this public?"

He glanced at his Reputation Points balance and gritted his teeth.

"Forget it. I'll skip this one for now. The punishment can go ahead as usual, and the details of their abilities can wait."

He modified the output and pressed confirm.

The flickering words on the sky screen disappeared, replaced by a new line.

[The question setter has chosen to postpone revealing information about the Five Elders' true forms.]

[The punishment ruling will proceed as normal.]

A chorus of disappointed boos rose around the world, but everyone soon turned their attention back to the punishment.

After all, a punishment capable of hurting eight-hundred-year-old monsters was worth looking forward to in its own right.