Bury the Throne—Let This Fire Burn the Celestial Dragons Too!

On the rooftop.

Kahn opened his eyes.

His golden pupils cut through the night with a dangerous gleam.

"A stain, huh."

Kahn let out a mocking chuckle.

These self-righteous pigs.

They really treated the Celestial Dragons as inviolable gods.

But that was fine too.

If the prey was too clever, the fun of the hunt would be greatly diminished.

Kahn rose to his feet.

He stretched lazily.

His bones crackled like popping beans.

After three years of steady growth.

The golden energy within him had become terrifyingly dense.

If enduring Garp's Conqueror's Coating at the age of nine had been somewhat difficult.

Then now, at twelve.

Even if he faced Marine Headquarters' strongest fighters head-on, he could still grind them into the dirt.

At that moment, a pitch-black albatross fluttered down onto the roof.

It was a messenger bird specially bred by the Eclipse Organization.

It was incredibly fast and extremely discreet.

The albatross opened its beak.

It spat out a small waterproof bamboo tube.

Kahn picked up the tube and poured out the slip of paper inside.

There was only one simple line written on it.

"The goods are in position. The mousetrap is ready to close."

The signature was the image of a sun half-covered in shadow.

This was Eclipse's highest operational code.

Kahn curled his fingers slightly.

The note turned to ash and drifted away on the wind.

"It's finally starting."

Kahn looked down at the brilliant lights of distant High Town.

Those lights looked so glaring in the darkness.

Yet so fragile.

The reason he had hidden in this weakest of seas for so many years.

Was partly to let this Kryptonian body pass through its developmental stage safely.

And partly to set up a scheme.

One great enough to completely reshuffle East Blue.

The great fire of the Goa Kingdom.

The Celestial Dragons' inspection.

The Revolutionary Army lurking in the shadows.

All those events destined to happen in the original story.

Were now all pieces on Kahn's chessboard.

"You want to burn the garbage."

Kahn murmured softly.

His voice scattered with the wind.

"Then I'll burn you, along with that lofty throne of yours, into ash."

Kahn raised his foot.

And lightly stomped on the roof.

Inside the wooden house below.

The three brothers, who were scratching their heads in frustration, shuddered at the same time.

"Why did it suddenly get cold?"

Luffy rubbed his nose.

"Quit talking! Hurry up and write!"

Ace slapped the back of Luffy's head.

"If we don't finish before sunrise, we're dead!"

Listening to the commotion below, Kahn found himself inexplicably pleased.

Enjoy this last bit of peace while you can, brats.

Kahn tilted his head back and looked at the bright moon in the night sky.

After dawn, this world was about to become interesting.

Eclipse's net-closing operation.

Had officially begun.

The night wind scattered the ashes of the note.

Kahn stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at distant High Town, ablaze with lights.

That cluster of lavish buildings looked like nothing more than a pile of blocks about to collapse in his eyes.

Three years.

He had lurked in this weakest of seas for a full three years.

This Kryptonian body had fully adapted to the rules of the One Piece World—and ruthlessly trampled them beneath its feet.

And Eclipse, which he had built with his own hands, had become an invisible giant net that swallowed East Blue's entire underground order clean.

Now, it was time to draw in the net.

Facing the sea breeze, Kahn's lips curved into a dangerous smile.

Eclipse's first battle to stabilize the world would begin here.

The Goa Kingdom, praised as the most beautiful country in East Blue.

Was actually a garbage bin reeking of filth.

To welcome the Celestial Dragons' inspection, the nobles had decided to burn away everything unsightly.

Including the tens of thousands of living people in Gray Terminal.

In the original story, this fire had created Sabo's tragedy and drawn in Dragon's Revolutionary Army.

But now, the dealer at the card table had changed.

Using this fire, Kahn intended not only to wipe out the Goa Kingdom's nobles in one stroke, but also to prepare a grand gift for the Celestial Dragon who was about to arrive.

The sky had just begun to brighten.

Mornings on Mount Colubo were always shrouded in thick fog.

Yawning, Dadan pushed open the wooden door with a basin of wash water in her hands.

She glanced at the disastrous state of the hall, and her hand trembled. The basin nearly fell to the floor.

Three kerosene lamps had burned dry.

Luffy lay sprawled on the floor, half a pencil clamped between his teeth, drool pooling all around him.

Ace was slumped over the table, tightly clutching a crumpled ball of waste paper in one hand, grinding his teeth in his sleep.

Sabo was still sitting upright, but his head kept bobbing, and the dark circles beneath his eyes made him look like a raccoon that had been punched in the face.

"Get up, all of you."

A calm voice came from outside the door.

Kahn strode into the house without even sparing Dadan a glance.

Dadan quickly slipped into the kitchen along the wall, hardly daring to breathe.

Hearing that voice, Luffy sprang up from the floor like a corpse coming back to life.

"Meat! I want meat!"

Bang.

Kahn slapped the back of Luffy's head, pressing him back onto the floor.

"Hand in your assignments."

Ace jolted awake and hurriedly gathered the messy pile of scribbled papers on the table.

Sabo quickly rubbed his face as well, then handed over the thick stack of densely written pages.

Kahn pulled over a chair and sat down, picking up Luffy's "self-criticism" first.

A gigantic head was drawn on the paper, with three stick figures beside it.

Next to the enormous head was a crookedly written character for "big."

All three stick figures had huge X's drawn over them.

"This is your ten-thousand-word self-criticism?"

Kahn shook the tattered sheet of paper.

Rubbing his head, Luffy looked completely justified.

"I can't write, so I drew it instead."

"That big head is Big Brother. The three of us got beaten by Big Brother."

"I think this drawing means far more than ten thousand words."

Kahn laughed in exasperation.

This kid's thought process really was different from ordinary people's.

He tossed Luffy's drawing aside and picked up Ace's.

Ace's handwriting looked like a dog had crawled across the page.

The entire thing recorded how he had been beaten up yesterday.

"The first punch hit my left cheek. It hurt."

"The second kick hit my stomach. It hurt even more."

"That black fist was really hard. I couldn't beat him."

"Next time, I'll definitely beat him."

Kahn could not keep reading after only half of it.

This was not a self-criticism at all. It was clearly a revenge diary.

Last was Sabo's.

More than a dozen pages of writing.

It was all standard noble-style formal prose, full of ornate phrasing and sincere-sounding remorse.

But after reading the whole thing, it was all meaningless nonsense.

Kahn slapped the three self-criticisms onto the table.

"All of you failed."

The three brats' faces immediately fell.

Luffy clutched his stomach and wailed.

"It's over. There's no breakfast today."

Ace gritted his teeth and glared up at Kahn.

"Kill me or torture me, do whatever you want. I already did my best."

Sabo sighed with a bitter smile.

He knew Kahn did not care what they had written at all.

Kahn tapped the table, producing a steady knocking sound.

"Do you think those two pirates yesterday were strong?"

Ace and Sabo exchanged a glance.

Was that not obvious?

Great pirates with bounties over a hundred million were practically an overwhelming force in East Blue.

"Very strong," Ace reluctantly admitted.

"I couldn't block those fists covered in that black stuff at all."

Kahn stood up and walked to the window.

Sunlight streamed through the window lattice onto him, making his perfect body glow faintly gold.

"Then do you think the nobles of the Goa Kingdom are strong?"

Sabo froze.

He did not understand why Kahn had suddenly brought that up.

"They aren't strong," Sabo answered honestly.

"They only know how to hide behind guards. They're a bunch of trash themselves."

Kahn turned around and looked at Sabo.

"That's right. They're trash."

"But tonight, this group of trash will set fire to all of Gray Terminal."

"Tens of thousands of lives, along with your so-called secret bases, will all turn to ash."

That sentence exploded through the room like a bomb.

Ace shot to his feet, knocking over the chair behind him.

"What did you say?!"

Luffy even forgot about being hungry, his eyes going wide.

"Burn it down? There are still so many people living there!"

Sabo's face turned deathly pale, and his whole body trembled.

He knew those nobles' true faces better than anyone.

For the sake of their so-called dignity, they really were capable of doing something like this.

"Why..." Sabo's voice shook.

"Because the Celestial Dragons are coming."

Kahn's tone was calm, as though he were talking about something trivial.

"The World Nobles are coming to inspect the most beautiful country in the world."

"So the garbage and the lowlifes must be cleaned up."

Ace grabbed half a water pipe from the floor and charged outside.

"I'm going to settle this with them!"

Bang.

Kahn did not even move. An invisible Bio-Force Field sent Ace flying back, smashing him heavily against the wall.

"What are you going there for?"

"To throw your life away?"

Kahn looked down at the struggling Ace.

"High Town's walls are lined with cannons now."

"Several thousand fully armed guards have already surrounded Gray Terminal."

"With a broken water pipe, how many people can you stop?"

Ace gritted his teeth, his eyes red-rimmed.

"Then are we just supposed to watch from here?!"

"Watch those people get burned alive!"

Kahn did not answer him. Instead, he looked at Sabo.

"What about you, young noble?"

"Your biological father is one of the planners behind this fire."

"What are you going to do?"

Sabo clutched his head in agony.

His stomach churned violently.

This was the world he had tried so desperately to escape.

Hypocritical, cruel, and revolting.