The Erased Kingdom

The preview text on the Sky Screen hung in the night sky over the entire world for a full thirty minutes.

During those thirty minutes, no one left.

Pirates in taverns forgot to drink, soldiers at Marine Headquarters forgot to change shifts, and guards at Impel Down forgot their patrols. Even the Sea Kings in the New World's storm zones floated quietly on the surface, turning their enormous eyes toward the sky.

The Void Century.

Those words had killed countless people over the past eight hundred years.

It was the ultimate taboo the World Government protected with Buster Calls, the reason the entire island of Ohara had been destroyed, and the reason Nico Robin had been hunted for twenty years.

Now, the Sky Screen was going to lay it bare.

Lin Qi sat behind the tavern bar, a beer can beside his keyboard, his fingers sliding across the system panel.

A prompt popped up on the screen.

[The question setter is approaching the world's deepest secrets. This countdown will consume a large number of Reputation Points. Continue?]

He clicked confirm.

"The Void Century."

He said the name aloud, the corners of his mouth curving upward.

"The biggest bombshell in the entire series. If I don't open with this, what else would I use?"

His fingers settled on the editing field for the first question. He typed a few lines, checked them, changed two word choices, then pressed publish.

The Sky Screen's golden background darkened by a shade.

It was no longer the warm gold from before, but a deeper, oppressive color, like a sky stained rusty red by the setting sun before a storm.

People across the world sensed the change in color.

A line of text appeared.

[Countdown: The ten greatest hidden truths of the pirate world]

[First truth: The Void Century]

The text remained for three seconds.

Then the next line appeared.

[Eight hundred years ago, an enormous kingdom existed on these seas]

[This kingdom possessed technology and ideas beyond those of the present age. Its name was thoroughly erased from all records by the World Government]

[But its will did not perish]

[It was carved into indestructible stones]

When the last line appeared, everyone in the world who knew about the Poneglyphs realized it at the same time.

In Water 7, Franky stood beside the dock. The wrench in his hand fell to the ground with a sharp metallic clang.

"Stones."

"Poneglyphs."

A memory flashed through his mind: the thing Mr. Tom had once protected, that massive stone the World Government had wanted to reclaim at any cost.

Somewhere in the waters of the New World, aboard the Red Hair Pirates' ship, Benn Beckman held a freshly lit cigarette between his lips, his eyes fixed on the Sky Screen.

"At last."

Shanks stood at the bow, one hand resting on his sword, without speaking.

His gaze lingered on that line on the Sky Screen for a long time.

"Technology and ideas beyond those of the present age."

Benn Beckman read it aloud.

"Captain, is this connected to what you saw on Laugh Tale?"

Shanks didn't answer.

His thumb rubbed against the hilt of his sword, the pad of his finger tracing the edge of its engraved pattern.

"Roger laughed after he saw those things."

His voice was a shade lower than usual.

"He laughed for a long time."

"Then he cried."

Benn Beckman's cigarette paused at his lips.

In all his years following Shanks, this was the first time he had heard his captain describe the details of Roger's reaction on Laugh Tale.

On the Sabaody Archipelago, Luffy stood where he was, his straw hat back on his head, the shadow of its brim hiding everything above his eyebrows.

Rayleigh had already gotten up from the base of the wall. His eyes were still red, but he had regained the composure that belonged to the Dark King.

"Rayleigh."

"Yeah?"

"Do you know about the Void Century?"

"I know some things."

Rayleigh tapped his fingers twice against his arm.

"But not everything."

"After Roger reached Laugh Tale, he read the complete truth on the final Poneglyph."

"But that truth was too big. So big that there was nothing we could do at the time."

Luffy tilted his head.

"Couldn't do what?"

"Couldn't change anything."

Rayleigh's voice slowed.

"Roger said we were too early."

Luffy blinked twice and ran a finger along the brim of his straw hat.

"What does too early mean?"

"It means that truth needs the right person to face it at the right time."

Rayleigh looked at the Sky Screen.

"Maybe that time is now."

More text appeared on the Sky Screen.

[Question: What was the true cause of the destruction of the kingdom erased during the Void Century?]

Four options appeared in a row.

[A. It fell apart on its own due to internal division]

[B. It was destroyed by a natural disaster]

[C. It was conquered by force and utterly destroyed by an alliance of twenty kingdoms, which subsequently established the present World Government]

[D. It suffered divine punishment for defying the gods]

The moment option C appeared, in the Room of Authority in the Holy Land Mary Geoise.

The Five Elders sat around the table, the marks of the Light of Judgment still glowing faintly on their bodies, their locations visible to the entire world.

Venus Saint was the first to speak.

"It said it."

Mars Saint pressed his fingers against the tabletop, his nails digging into the grain of the wood.

"Twenty kingdoms, an allied army, conquest by force."

"Put those words together, and everyone will think of the same thing."

Saturn Saint's gaze swept over the other four.

"The World Government's founding myth: the righteous alliance of creation, twenty heroic kings defeating the evil Ancient Kingdom."

"Option C turns that story on its head."

"Conquest."

"Destruction."

Mercury Saint forced the words out through his nose.

"It didn't use liberation or salvation. It used conquest and destruction."

"Wording is a statement of position."

Jupiter Saint had remained silent. He sat in the farthest chair, his hands folded over his knees, his gaze resting on the teacup before him.

The surface of the tea bore the faintest ripples. They weren't caused by the wind, but by his trembling hands.

"Gentlemen."

He finally spoke.

"From this moment on, the countdown has begun for the foundation of our power."

"If C is announced as the correct answer, the whole world will know the World Government is not a product of justice."

"It is the spoils of a war of conquest."

The countdown on the Sky Screen ran its course.

No one rushed to answer.

It wasn't that they didn't want to. They didn't dare.

The question was too weighty, so weighty that all the clever people in the world chose silence.

The three minutes were up, and the countdown reached zero.

The text on the Sky Screen changed color, from gold to a cold white.

[No answer received. The system will automatically reveal the correct answer]

[Correct answer: C]

A judgment followed the answer.

[Eight hundred years ago, twenty kingdoms formed an alliance and launched an extermination campaign against a civilization later known as the Great Kingdom]

[The war lasted for decades and ended with the complete destruction of the Great Kingdom]

[After their victory, the kings of the twenty kingdoms ascended to the summit of the Red Line and established the Holy Land Mary Geoise. Their descendants became the Celestial Dragons]

[To ensure that future generations would never learn of this history, they launched a worldwide book-burning campaign, destroying every document that recorded the history of those hundred years]

[This is the origin of the Void Century]

[History was not lost naturally]

[It was deliberately erased]

A low rumble arose across the world at that moment. It wasn't a sound, but the resonance of air moving as countless people drew a sharp breath at once.

In Alabasta, Cobra sat on his sickbed, his fingers clutching the edge of the blanket so tightly that the bones of his knuckles stood out.

"Burning books."

His voice trembled.

"Erasing history."

Vivi stood beside him, her hand on her father's shoulder, feeling the tremors running through his body.

"Father, the Nefertari Family was one of the twenty founding kings."

Cobra closed his eyes.

"Our ancestor was the one who stayed here, the only king who didn't go to Mary Geoise."

"Now I understand why he didn't go."

His voice grew low.

"He knew what they had done."

New footage began playing on the Sky Screen.

Its colors were unlike those of every previous replay. It had an aged quality, its muted shades like a memory peeled from a stone tablet.

At the center of the image was a continent.

There were cities on the continent, their architecture unlike that of any country in the present world: taller and more complex. Some kind of glowing vehicles traveled along the streets, while platforms floated in the sky, linked to one another by bridges.

A caption appeared at the bottom of the image.

[The Great Kingdom. Its name has been deleted from all surviving records. The designation used in the Poneglyphs will be used below]

Luffy looked at the image and tilted his head.

"Rayleigh, what's that flying?"

Rayleigh looked at the floating platforms, his fingers clenching.

"They're just like the ruins I saw on Laugh Tale."

Something profound welled up in his voice.

"Exactly the same."

In the footage, the city square was full of people. Their clothing and builds were no different from those of people in the present day. They laughed, talked, and went about every part of their daily lives.

Then the Sky Screen added a line of text in the corner of the image.

[The Great Kingdom's core ideals: freedom, equality, coexistence]

[The kingdom had no system of slavery]

[It imposed no hierarchical barriers on any race]

[Humans, Fish-Men, the Giant Tribe, the Mink Tribe—all races enjoyed the same rights in this kingdom]

When those lines appeared, King Neptune's trident slipped from his hand and crashed onto the floor of Ryugu Palace on Fish-Man Island.

Behind him, Princess Shirahoshi covered her mouth.

"It's the same as Fish-Man Island's dream."

Neptune's voice echoed through the water.

"What Queen Otohime spent her life pursuing, someone had already achieved eight hundred years ago."

"And then it was destroyed by twenty kingdoms."

The image on the Sky Screen changed.

The same city.

But the sky had changed.

The sky was red. Fires rose from every corner of the city, buildings collapsed, and the floating platforms fell one after another, crashing into the square and sending chunks of stone and debris flying.

People were running through the square.

Beyond the city, a vast, dark mass of troops was advancing. Their flags bore twenty different emblems, each flag representing a kingdom.

An allied army.

The Sky Screen displayed a line of text.

[In the seventy-third year of the Void Century, the allied forces of twenty kingdoms broke through the Great Kingdom's final line of defense.]

[This city, which had once been home to every race, was razed to the ground in three days.]

In the footage, a man in a long white robe stood on a raised platform in the center of the city, surrounded by several others dressed in the same white robes.

A massive slab of blue-gray stone lay before them, and someone was using some kind of tool to carve words into its surface.

The Sky Screen zoomed in.

The writing on the stone was an ancient script, entirely different from the modern common language.

But the Sky Screen provided a translation at the bottom of the image.

[We carve this history into stone that cannot be destroyed.]

[For paper can be burned and spoken words forgotten, but stone will remain.]

[If anyone can read these words, please tell the world the truth.]

As the final line of the translation appeared, the Sky Screen showed the white-robed man's face from the front.

There was blood on his face and a wound on his forehead that was still bleeding, but he was smiling.

That smile brought the same person to the minds of viewers around the world at the same instant.

Roger.

It wasn't that their faces looked alike. It was the way they smiled.

The way he smiled in the face of utter despair, as though nothing had happened, was exactly like the Pirate King's smile on the Execution Platform.

The Sky Screen displayed a line of text.

[Identity: the last king of the Great Kingdom. His name was erased from history by the World Government.]

[But a letter has been passed down through his bloodline from generation to generation.]

The final line appeared.

[That letter is D.]

At that moment, voices across the world joined together into a river.

In Impel Down, Ace's chains rattled wildly.

At Marine Headquarters, Garp pressed his hand against a wall, and the force of his fingers cracked the concrete surface.

In the Sabaody Archipelago, Luffy looked at the letter on the Sky Screen and touched his chest with a finger.

"D."

He said it once.

Rayleigh stood beside him, and in that instant, his entire bearing changed. The old shipwright who had drunk too much became the man who had once stood at the Pirate King's right hand.

"Roger laughed."

His voice was very soft.

"When he saw the truth on Laugh Tale, he laughed."

"Because he learned what D meant."

"Because he learned where he came from."

The footage on the Sky Screen continued, but a new preview appeared in the corner.

[Supplementary material coming up: the final decision made by the last king on the day the Great Kingdom fell.]

[And the full text of the last passage he carved on the stone tablet.]