Inside the ceremonial hall of Mary Geoise…
The kimono-clad elder sheathed Shodai Kitetsu, then slowly raised his head to look at the enormous mural carved into the ceiling.
A long dining table.
Twenty richly dressed figures seated in a row.
It looked like a grand banquet—like the last supper of a massive gathering.
Except—
In front of thirteen of them, the plates didn't hold food.
They held "fruits," each different in shape and style.
And among them…
The figure seated at the very center had his entire face covered in shadowy illusion—only a single orange ripple-patterned eye was visible.
That was no one else.
It was Imu, the one on the Throne of the Highest God.
"The Last Supper of the Twenty Creators…"
The kimono-clad elder lowered his head and muttered,
"I never imagined Romu would reach this level. To force us to use the power of those thirteen… Once awakened, they must sleep again for a hundred years."
The elder in a black suit took a silk cloth and wiped the blood from his arm.
"A mere hundred years. If we erase Romu, even five hundred years will be worth it. The world will return to true order."
The elder in red spoke coldly.
"If the thirteen awaken, not a single person on that battlefield will survive. Should we let Kong and the rest withdraw first?"
The elder in deep blue hesitated.
"Notify them for what? Awakening the cursed thirteen takes time. We need them to stall Romu."
The elder in green twitched his mustache and sneered.
"Let them all die. It's perfect—use the thirteen, and let these lowly worms see what a real god looks like!"
So that was the truth:
The "living sacrifice" ritual the Five Elders performed…
was to awaken thirteen of the twenty who unified the world eight hundred years ago—those who founded the World Government and called themselves Creators.
On the battlefield…
Garp stared up at the sky, his black pupils reflecting the sixty-two dragon-swords shining with emerald light.
We can't win.
No matter how we struggle, we're nothing but toys—being played with by a monster.
In that moment…
Even the "legendary Marine," even the inheritor of the Will of D…
felt his fighting spirit crushed into dust under Romu's shadow.
The others were the same.
The blood-stinking battlefield fell into dead silence—everyone waiting for the final judgment of those sixty-two emerald blades.
But then—
In the stunned gaze of everyone present…
Those sixty-two dragon-swords began to fade, one by one.
Romu began to descend.
"…Did his energy run out?"
Roger said blankly.
But before anyone could answer, even Roger's own mouth twisted into a bitter self-mockery.
Romu's presence was an ocean.
There wasn't the slightest hint of exhaustion.
Still—seeing Romu withdraw that sword formation—
the remaining seven couldn't help but exhale, just a little.
High above…
The red flower drifted downward.
Ignoring the shattered men beneath him, Romu muttered:
"Something's about to come out."
The instant the words left his mouth—
A pressure so suffocating it felt unreal blanketed all of God Valley.
The wind changed.
The sea around them surged into violent waves, slapping the already ruined island with repeated crack-crack-crack impacts.
And then—
A deathly aura flooded in.
Corpses.
Romu's lingering killing intent.
Even scattered weapons and shattered rocks—
the moment they touched that death aura, it was as if something was being drained from them.
They turned black.
Then… they began to wither.
"Damn it! What kind of freak move is this?!"
Roger stumbled backward, two steps without thinking.
"It's not Romu."
Kong's brows knotted. He pushed his Haki outward to the limit.
"Look—what's blackening isn't just corpses. Even Romu's broken vines… even rocks are 'withering'!"
What could cause everything it passes—living or not—to turn black?
The realization hit like ice.
Something had surfaced—
and it wasn't theirs.
Romu's brows dipped.
"So it wasn't their doing…"
"Then what is this…?"
He knew—this was the crisis his Observation Haki had warned him about.
He remained calm, but his vigilance sharpened.
Dual Haki spread across his body.
Because that death aura didn't just eat life.
It ate energy.
Organic or inorganic—everything was drained and reduced to decay.
But Romu wasn't panicking.
With True Thousand Hands as his last trump card, he believed he could smash anything that dared stand in front of him.
At that moment—
On the golden altar, the thirteen fruit-like patterns were fully dyed blood-red.
The red markings… moved like living things.
They crawled toward the "tree-shaped emblem" at the center.
And the instant the thirteen markings fully merged into it—
The "tree" flashed with a black glow.
Then the entire golden altar twisted—
warping into a terrifying spiral vortex—
and began sinking downward, like it was dragging the world with it.
The vortex grew larger and larger.
Everything nearby—matter itself—seemed unable to escape.
It warped… and sank… toward an endless abyss.
Flash—! Flash—!
One light beam, then another, then another…
Thirteen beams exploded up at the island's edge, lighting the entire battlefield like day.
"So much energy…!"
Kong blurted, stunned.
"Who the hell is that?!"
Roger's face tightened with fear.
In his senses, each beam carried a terrifying presence—every single one felt stronger than him.
"This isn't something Romu created," Sengoku said, nose wrinkling, eyes sharp.
"This death aura… it's the exact opposite of Romu's energy."
Garp and the rest didn't speak.
They only watched Romu—still on edge, still wary.
A hundred meters away…
Romu narrowed his eyes at the thirteen beams, each soaked in dead silence.
"I didn't expect God Valley to hide power like this."
He clenched his hands slightly, frowning.
"This thing…"
He could feel it.
That field—was restricting his power.
On the nearby barren island…
The spectators noticed the change too.
Thirteen massive light pillars—each several meters thick—shot into the sky.
People murmured in fearful whispers.
"What's happening?! Where did those pillars come from?"
"Is it Romu's move again?!"
"Maybe… Who could've imagined Romu would kill an admiral-level fighter like it was nothing?"
"Two swords—one instantly killed Gaban, one chopped Zephyr's right arm clean off…"
"Now only Kong, Garp, Sengoku, one-armed Zephyr, Roger, Rayleigh, and Bullet are left. They won't survive Romu's next move."
"The Marines are finished…"
But at the very front—
Whitebeard and the others saw it differently.
"This new power… feels wrong."
Shiki's brows were furrowed hard.
Kaido snapped, impatient.
"Wrong how?! You're saying it's not Captain Romu's move?!"
Whitebeard shook his head, gripping Murakumogiri.
"Feel it yourself. Romu's power is plant-nature—full of life."
"But this… reeks of death."
Kaido froze.
"Then whose power is it?!"
Whitebeard and Shiki both shook their heads.
They didn't know.
Then—
A strange voice spoke from nearby.
"Impossible…"
"That legend is real…?!"
It was "Red"—the Lone Red.
"Legend?"
"What legend?!"
Whitebeard, Shiki, and Kaido demanded at once.
Red stabbed his umbrella-sword into the rock.
He went silent for a moment—then spoke slowly:
"God Valley… isn't just a place where Celestial Dragons hold rituals."
"They say…"
"Thirteen Creators were buried here, eight hundred years ago."
"Creators…?!"
Whitebeard and Kaido's minds went blank.
Shiki's face, however, changed instantly—like he'd heard fragments of this before.
"Don't tell me…"
Red nodded heavily, then sank onto a dust-covered rock as if recalling something ancient.
"This is what I learned while roaming the world… from whispers tied to the Poneglyph history."
"Long ago, the world wasn't like this. Kingdoms warred endlessly. Pirates were everywhere."
"Until eight hundred years ago…"
"Twenty kings—strongest of all nations—joined together."
"They were beyond the limit of 'humans.' People called their power something only 'gods' could possess."
"After uniting…"
"In just one year, they destroyed over half the world's kingdoms and countless pirates—then created the World Government and the Marines."
"From then on, the world became more stable… and the current order was born."
"And those twenty kings were called 'Creators'…"
"…the ancestors of today's Celestial Dragons."
Whitebeard and Kaido stood stunned.
The true history had been erased.
The World Government sealed the past.
They'd never imagined the world had such a foundation.
Creators were real?
The Celestial Dragons—who now acted like they owned the world—were the descendants of world-changing "gods"…?
Red kept going, voice steady:
"After they broke the old world and rebuilt the new order…"
"One Creator withdrew from the alliance for unknown reasons…"
Kaido snapped, unable to hold back, pointing at the increasingly blazing thirteen pillars.
"So you're telling me there are thirteen eight-hundred-year-old monsters inside that island?!"
Red didn't even scold him.
He only glanced at those thirteen beams, visibly uneasy.
"These were once just rumors."
"But now it's clear… they were true."
"Out of the twenty Creators…"
"One abandoned that divine power and left."
"And thirteen… ate the fruits they called the 'Sea Devil's Curse.'"
"They became known as—"
"the Cursed Thirteen Creators."
"They died, and were buried here by secret methods."
"And now…"
"The Celestial Dragons behind the World Government must have sensed Romu as a threat."
"So they awakened the thirteen."
Silence hit like a weight.
Thirteen Creator-level monsters.
Ancestors of the Celestial Dragons.
"God" class beings.
Thirteen of them.
Who could face that?
Not just the spectators—
even Kong's group on God Valley felt the same suffocating dread.
Back on God Valley…
Roger clenched his jaw.
"God Valley… what secret are you hiding?!"
Garp snarled back:
"How would I know?!"
A massive boom shook the ground.
The whole island trembled violently—because the altar's vortex was growing, swallowing everything within dozens of meters.
Romu watched coldly.
"A Celestial Dragon backdoor…"
He could feel it—his energy was being restricted even more.
Then—
From within the thirteen light pillars—
came a strange rhythm:
clop clop clop clop…
Footsteps?
No—
horse hooves.
Everyone snapped their gaze toward the beams.
Inside each one, a mounted silhouette emerged.
Thirteen riders.
Thirteen horses.
And in the span of that stunned heartbeat, they rode out fully—
each holding a knight's lance with a conical spearhead, each wearing armor.
Their bodies radiated not only overwhelming death—
but a pressure and dignity that felt like "ruling authority."
As they advanced…
Behind them, the pillars went out one by one.
And as each pillar died…
their armor began to shine.
When the final pillar extinguished—
Light erupted from the thirteen riders like molten lava bursting from within.
Their armor turned silver.
Their horses snorted lightning.
Romu's eyelid twitched.
A single word formed in his mind:
"Danger."
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