King of the World
Those three words hung high in the heavens, their golden light dyeing the sky over the entire world a color never seen before.
[Master of the Empty Throne—Imu]
No one spoke.
The fishing villages of the East Blue fell silent, as did the ports of the South Blue, the snowy plains of the North Blue, and the city-states of the West Blue.
The pirate ships on the Grand Line fell silent, as did the territories of the Four Emperors in the New World, Sky Island in the clouds, and Fish-Man Island ten thousand meters beneath the sea.
The silence lasted a full ten seconds, longer than any before.
This time, it was not because some powerful emotion had left them speechless.
Their brains had stopped working.
Everyone was trying to digest the same fact: someone sat on the World Government's throne, the one no one was allowed to sit on.
Someone who had never appeared in any public record.
Someone whose name no one had ever heard.
He had ruled this world for eight hundred years.
On Drum Island, Doctorine's wineglass stopped at her lips. The sea breeze blew her long, cotton-candy-like hair into a mess, but she did not move.
She had lived for more than a hundred and forty years and believed she had seen most of the absurd things this world had to offer.
But this was beyond her limits.
"Even higher than the Five Elders?"
Her voice held a tremor peculiar to the elderly.
"Eight hundred years? This world has been ruled for eight hundred years by someone nobody knows?"
Chopper huddled behind her, clutching the hem of her clothes tightly with his hooves.
"Doctorine, is that Imu a bad person?"
"I don't know."
Doctorine put down her glass.
"But a king who needs to hide could never be anything good."
Alabasta, the royal palace.
King Cobra's wheelchair was parked in front of a window, with Vivi standing behind him. Both were looking at the name on the sky screen, a name that had never appeared before.
"Father, Alabasta has been a member of the World Government for hundreds of years."
Vivi spoke softly.
"Our ancestors took part in the founding of the united government eight hundred years ago, didn't they?"
Cobra nodded.
"Then did our ancestors know Imu existed?"
Cobra did not answer. His fingers slowly tightened around the armrests of his wheelchair.
"Vivi, do you remember the story of the Empty Throne?"
"I do."
Vivi recited the words she had heard since childhood.
"Eight hundred years ago, the twenty founding kings made an oath in the Holy Land Mary Geoise and planted their weapons around the throne, symbolizing that no one person could claim the world for themselves."
"That is the foundation on which the World Government was built. The Empty Throne will never be occupied."
She paused.
"At least, that's what we've always been taught."
Cobra closed his eyes.
"Of the twenty founding kings, the descendants of nineteen became Celestial Dragons and moved to Mary Geoise."
"Only our Nefertari family remained in Alabasta."
"I always thought it was because our ancestors didn't want to leave their people."
"But now I'm considering another possibility."
Vivi looked at her father's profile.
"What possibility?"
"What if our ancestors discovered that Imu existed and chose to stay because they didn't want to be involved?"
The speculation sent a chill down Vivi's spine.
In the Room of Authority in the Holy Land Mary Geoise, five points of light were pinned to the world map on the sky screen. The blond elder's fingernails were nearly digging into the wooden table.
"It knows Lord Imu's name."
The elder with the long sword sounded as if the words had been scraped from deep in his throat.
"Not just the name. It knows about the Empty Throne."
The bald elder sat back down, picked up the largest shard of the broken teacup from the floor, and placed it on the table.
"There's no point discussing how it knows now."
"What matters is what it says next."
The curly-haired elder looked at the additional text still appearing on the sky screen, his voice tight.
"If it reveals Lord Imu's abilities."
"If it tells them about that weapon."
"If it reveals what Lord Imu did to the Lulusia Kingdom."
With each possibility he raised, the temperature in the room dropped another degree.
The blond elder cut him off.
"Enough."
"There's only one thing we can do now."
"Pray that the question setter doesn't have enough authority."
"The system stopped it when it revealed our true forms before. It didn't have enough credibility points."
"Information about Lord Imu is classified at an even higher level than our true forms. It probably can't reveal anything too detailed either."
"Probably?"
The elder with the long sword repeated the word coldly.
"You're gambling Lord Imu's eight hundred years of security on 'probably'?"
The blond elder did not respond, because he was not certain himself.
The text on the sky screen continued to appear, line by line.
[Question: What role did Imu, master of the Empty Throne, play in the Paramount War?]
[A. Imu was the true instigator of the Paramount War and personally issued the original order to execute Ace]
[B. During the war, Imu directed multiple key battlefield decisions from afar through the Five Elders]
[C. Imu authorized the Five Elders to carry out a final purge of Marineford if necessary, eliminating pirate and Marine witnesses alike]
[D. All of the above, and Imu's true purpose in starting the war was not to eliminate Whitebeard, but to use it to determine the threat level of the D. Clan bloodline]
People across the world looked at the four options. Many no longer knew what expression to make.
The bloodline of the D. Clan.
Threat level.
Together, those words gave off an oppressive feeling that made people instinctively want to turn away.
The New World, aboard the Red Hair Pirates' flagship.
Shanks stood at the bow, his red cloak billowing in the sea breeze. He looked at the text on the sky screen, one hand resting on the sword at his waist.
"The threat level of the D. Clan."
He repeated the phrase softly.
Benn Beckman walked over to him, a cigarette between his lips.
"Boss, do you know this Imu?"
Shanks did not answer.
His eyes were fixed on the name on the sky screen, an extremely complicated emotion swirling in them.
"Beckman."
"Yeah?"
"I never fully understood what Captain Roger saw on Laugh Tale."
"But now that this name has appeared, I think I'm starting to understand a little."
Benn Beckman exhaled a cloud of smoke and asked no further questions.
He knew that whenever Shanks mentioned Roger, it meant things had already gone beyond what ordinary pirates could understand.
The East Blue, in the little tavern in Foosha Village.
Lin Qi stared at the screen for a long, long time.
He had finished his peanuts and drained his beer, but he did not get more. He remained in his chair as if pinned to it.
"Imu."
He spoke the name aloud.
"The most mysterious character in the original story, that silhouette sitting on the Empty Throne."
"A figure who was never fully explained, even by the end of the manga."
"System, you can actually provide options this detailed?"
He glanced at the explanation that popped up on the screen.
[The question setter's knowledge and the system database jointly constitute the information source. The system has automatically filled in missing information in the worldline based on the question setter's understanding]
"Automatically filled it in?"
Lin Qi scratched his head.
"So I know the general idea, and the system fills in the details for me?"
"That's way too handy."
His spirits lifted again, and he pulled another can of beer from the fridge.
"All right, it's a game anyway. Who cares where the information comes from?"
"Let's see how these NPCs react to seeing Imu's name."
He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs, and took a sip of beer.
Only thirty seconds remained on the countdown on the sky screen.
Eyes around the world were fixed on the four options, but this time, few people rushed to answer.
Everyone realized that whichever answer was correct, it would forever change their understanding of the world.
The person sitting on the throne had been manipulating everything from the shadows since eight hundred years ago.
The countdown ticked through the final ten seconds.
Five seconds.
Three seconds.
One second.
Zero.
A flash of golden light swept across the sky screen.
[Correct answer: D]