The essence

North Blue.

A warship was sailing slowly toward the next island to resupply.

Two years earlier, the legendary pirate Rocks had fallen at God Valley, plunging the New World into chaos.

Countless pirates fought with bloodshot eyes over the territory and power Rocks had left behind.

Meanwhile, remnants of the Rocks Pirates, including Golden Lion, Whitebeard, and Charlotte Linlin, recruited their own forces and steadily grew in power.

Unable to maintain control, the Navy pulled its forces back to the first half of the Grand Line and cracked down hard on pirates.

In a sense, this also indirectly weakened the pirates of the New World.

Some pirates who had lost the struggle in the New World fled as well.

They returned to their homelands and recruited in large numbers, intending to make a comeback.

Sakazuki had requested permission to patrol the Four Blues, with those pirates as his primary targets.

After failing in the New World, those pirates returned to their homes in the Four Blues.

They took away large numbers of young, able-bodied people who never returned. The consequences were foreseeable.

An island's population was already limited. With so many young, able-bodied people leaving, the population aged severely, births declined, and productivity fell.

Even as productivity fell, taxes remained unchanged, multiplying the pressure on ordinary people and creating a vicious cycle.

To train their troops, these pirates would also seek out villages, towns, and islands whose inhabitants had feuds with people back home, then slaughter entire settlements.

For now, this was still a temporary problem, with only those defeated pirates returning to recruit.

Sakazuki's pursuit had greatly reduced how often this happened.

The Great Pirate Era Roger would later usher in was the true source of the turmoil that plagued the world.

The rise of the Revolutionary Army was directly connected to it as well.

Countless young, able-bodied people rushed toward the New World without looking back. With more elderly people, fewer births, declining productivity, and heavier taxes, ordinary people could no longer survive.

Meanwhile, those young people gained vast wealth through a few rounds of slaughter and gradually lost their reason.

Most islands had only the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled left behind, making the pirates' behavior increasingly brutal.

Burning, killing, and looting became routine. They slaughtered entire villages and towns at the slightest provocation, leaving countless people dead.

There was no point arguing that good pirates existed too. There were many ways to go to sea.

Flying a pirate flag was not a requirement. No one would stop someone from setting sail on their own, yet they chose to raise a pirate flag.

A pirate was a pirate. There was no distinction between good ones and bad ones.

Did saving a few people or towns make someone a good pirate? The consequences they brought about were still impossible to predict.

Of those who admired them and went to sea, how many could truly claim to have a clear conscience?

In the original story, Bartolomeo had gone to sea out of admiration for the supposedly "good pirate" Luffy. Why was he called the "Cannibal"?

Why did his brief, few-line history mention shelling innocent civilians in a city and uploading footage of pirates being skewered and tortured to death for his amusement?

Even the influence of a good pirate was more than ordinary people could bear...

The Great Pirate Era Gol D. Roger had unleashed caused countless deaths.

And the Revolutionary Army founded by Monkey D. Dragon led those people who could no longer survive because of Roger.

It led them in rebellion against their own countries and the World Government.

From eight hundred years ago to the present, the will known as D. had never stopped stirring up the world.

And behind those words, "stirring up"...

Lay Joy Boy's so-called ideal of freedom, a legacy for which countless people died.

Lay Roger's ideal of turning the world upside down with a single declaration, ushering in the Great Pirate Era in which hundreds of thousands died at pirates' hands every year.

Lay Dragon's ideal of liberating the world, igniting a revolution that shocked everyone.

This was also why the World Government and ordinary people hated and feared the clan of D.

They acted however they pleased, heedless of the consequences.

Some people followed blindly, living their entire lives without ever seeing hope, even at death.

They lost their loved ones to pirates in childhood, joined the Revolutionary Army under oppression in their youth, and died fighting the government in middle age.

They might not even have known what they were doing. They only wanted to survive.

Those who saw the truth feared D.

Those who could not kept joining the Revolutionary Army.

They hoped D. would lead them in building a free world without governments.

They blindly followed D., fixing their eyes only on the government.

Yet they overlooked the fact that D. was also one of the sources of their suffering...

Aboard the warship.

"Report! Pirates spotted on the resupply island ahead!"

As he gazed at the island, already ablaze and billowing thick smoke, Sakazuki's low voice rang out.

"Pick up speed."