Chapter 13
One Piece: Legacy of the Pirate King
The sun over Amazon Lily rose slow and golden, shining upon a world recovering once again from the impossible.
The Timeforged were gone—for now. But what they left behind were more than just shattered ruins and scorched memories.
They left behind a question.
Who created the Calypso Core?
Robin sat in the palace library, ancient texts and fragments of prophecy scattered across her desk. In her hand was a shard from the broken Core—left behind during the final clash between Luffy and the Timeforged.
She had seen its markings once before. Not in any book… but on an ancient wall deep in the ruins of Laugh Tale.
A symbol of the sun.
The same one etched into Luffy's back when he activated Gear Fifth.
The same one painted on the sails of Joy Boy's ship.
With trembling fingers, Robin decoded the final line carved into the fragment:
"The sea cannot forget what the sky abandoned."
She looked up, eyes wide.
"This wasn't a weapon," she whispered. "It was a compass. A map... written in time."
And it led somewhere forgotten by the world.
Meanwhile, far from Amazon Lily, in the hollow mountains of Elbaf, storms gathered.
Within a cave sealed by ancient runes and protected by guardian giants, he slept.
Old.
Wounded.
But alive.
He stirred now, awakened by the tremor of Lian's Chrono Haki reaching across the sea.
His beard was braided with gold. His eyes glowed like the dying sun. And on his chest was the scar of a devil fruit long lost to history.
He whispered through cracked lips:
"So... Joy Boy's heir walks the sea."
He stepped forward. The runes shattered.
And the first builder of the Calypso Core returned to the world.
His name had long been erased.
But the world once knew him as:
Cymos, the Time-Builder.
Back on Amazon Lily, the Straw Hat crew gathered for a serious meeting in the new war hall. Luffy sat at the head of the table, Lian beside him, legs swinging off the chair too big for him.
Robin finished her report.
"Before Laugh Tale, there was another island. One that was hidden between the folds of time. It was called—Ecliptoris.**"
"Sounds like a disease," Sanji muttered.
Robin continued, unbothered. "It was where Joy Boy first discovered time could bend with Haki. Where he met Cymos… and where they attempted to stop the first Sky Collapse."
Zoro blinked. "Sky Collapse?"
"It's a cycle," she said. "Every few hundred years, the sky begins to shrink. Time folds inward. Reality becomes unstable. The Calypso Core was built to anchor time."
"But Joy Boy failed," Chopper whispered.
Robin nodded. "He died trying to use the core to stabilize it. And Cymos… vanished."
Luffy looked down at Lian, then back to the others.
"So the world's about to collapse again."
Robin's eyes met his. "Unless we stop it before it begins."
Training began the next day.
Zoro took Lian to a mountain waterfall carved with strange clocks—an area where time flowed differently due to a nearby Poneglyph shard.
"You'll learn by feeling," Zoro said. "Not thinking."
They clashed wooden blades for hours, Lian's Haki sparking in flashes.
Each strike with Zoro made time twitch—slowing, accelerating, skipping frames.
But Lian smiled with every bruise.
"I'm not afraid," he grunted.
"You should be," Zoro replied, wiping blood from his lip. "Fear keeps you sharp."
Robin joined later, teaching Lian how to listen to echoes—faint memories stuck in time.
They heard voices trapped in the stones—whispers of Joy Boy. Of Poseidon. Of a girl who sang to the sky when the sea forgot its shape.
By dusk, Lian could see memories as they flickered.
And then—he saw something none of them expected.
A man with a straw hat.
Not Luffy.
But Joy Boy himself.
Smiling down at him.
That night, Luffy found his son sitting alone by the tree where he and Hancock used to watch the stars.
"You okay, buddy?"
Lian looked up. "Dad... did Joy Boy have a family?"
Luffy blinked.
"I don't know. But he had friends who were like family."
Lian touched his chest. "He told me I had his heart. Not because I'm his heir… but because I chose to love instead of rule."
Luffy ruffled his hair.
"Smart guy."
They sat in silence for a while.
And then, the wind changed.
On the outer coast of Amazon Lily, a strange vessel surfaced from the deep.
A giant orb made of gold and broken time, carried by jellyfish-like creatures with glowing blue eyes.
And standing atop it—cloaked in black robes, surrounded by bending air—was Cymos.
He had come not to fight.
But to test the child.
Luffy sensed him instantly and appeared before the ship with Zoro, Sanji, Robin, and Hancock.
"Who are you?" Luffy demanded, his Haki vibrating the shore.
Cymos raised his head slowly. His eyes reflected centuries.
"I built the Core."
Everyone flinched.
"But I did not awaken it," he continued. "He did."
He pointed to Lian.
Robin stepped forward. "Why now?"
Cymos removed his hood.
His body was half-machine, gears ticking from under his skin.
"The Sky Collapse begins in three years. If the boy cannot stabilize time… everything ends."
He turned to Luffy.
"Let me take him. I will train him in Ecliptoris, where time flows differently. One year there equals one week here."
Luffy stepped forward, Haki rising like a storm.
"He's not leaving this island without me."
Cymos tilted his head. "Then both of you must come. But know this, Monkey D. Luffy—"
He looked at Lian.
"If the boy fails, the sea will devour the sun."
End of Chapter 13
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Luffy and Lian journey to Ecliptoris with Cymos, entering a realm where time fractures and old enemies are reborn as memories. But deep within the core of the island sleeps an entity sealed by Joy Boy himself—a being that remembers every defeat... and every death. Lian's real trial begins