August, Sea Circle Calendar 1522.
Several months had passed since Gern succeeded as Fleet Admiral and announced a complete break with the World Government, which had dominated the world for eight hundred years.
The world remained in turmoil.
In early July, after an absurd, bizarre wedding farce finally erupted into all-out conflict, Straw Hat Luffy and his companions
faced Charlotte Linlin, one of the Four Emperors, on Whole Cake Island in the New World.
Their captain, Monkey D. Luffy, defeated two powerful Sweet Commanders of the Big Mom Pirates in succession-Cracker and Katakuri.
This clash between vastly unequal forces ultimately ended with the Straw Hat Pirates escaping unscathed, thanks to Germa 66's technological troops, the Fire Tank Pirates switching sides in the midst of battle, and other forces
whose interventions intertwined in a tangled web.
Meanwhile, the president of the World Economy News Paper, "Big News" Morgans, had long since placed a heavy bet on the surging tide of the "new era."
And so, amid an overwhelming flood of reports whose details were difficult to separate into fact and fiction,
Straw Hat Luffy possessed the strength to stand against the Sweet Commanders, with a "Grand Fleet" of over five thousand formidable fighters gathered under his banner.
After the Whole Cake Island incident, he had even officially welcomed the former Shichibukai, "Knight of the Sea" Jinbe, into his crew!
Strength, influence, reputation, legendary exploits... with Morgans fanning the flames and shaping public opinion,
"Straw Hat Boy" Monkey D. Luffy's bounty reached 1.5 billion Beli!
The name "Fifth Emperor of the Sea" spread like wildfire, placing him alongside the Four Emperors in the eyes of the world.
A "Fifth Emperor" who was only nineteen?
Absurd, yet so perfectly suited to this mad age.
Meanwhile, the movements of other factions stirred the situation