Kaido—the so-called strongest creature on land, sea, and air—spent his entire life striving to become the Pirate King, only for it all to turn into a joke because he ate the wrong Devil Fruit.
Whitebeard, hailed as the strongest man in the world, was merely fortunate enough not to live to see the day Nika awakened.
Pirate King Gol D. Roger and Red-Haired Shanks—one a Pirate King, the other a Yonko—never even set foot on the final island, simply because they were not Nika.
Heroes from every era should have had the chance to shape the future.
But they were not worthy.
Only the one who eats the Nika Fruit is worthy.
This kind of fatalism is suffocating.
Even worlds governed by a living "Heavenly Dao" in primordial myths are not as despair-inducing as the world of One Piece.
Yet it was precisely this cruelty of fate that allowed Xiao—under the all-seeing surveillance of the cyber aura—to finally grasp its hidden threads.
Every time fate deviated, a peculiar energy would erupt from deep beneath the Red Line, attempting to forcibly drag the world back onto its predetermined course.
That energy was the true culprit behind fate's interference.
As for the source of that power, Xiao began to suspect—
Could it be the legendary national treasure of the Celestial Dragons?
The King of Heaven—Uranus.
But this raised an even greater contradiction.
Why would the national treasure of the Celestial Dragons assist a "rebel" destined to overthrow their rule?
Thus, Xiao arrived at a daring hypothesis:
What if Uranus possessed artificial intelligence?
The original masters of the Three Ancient Weapons were Joy Boy himself.
And Joy Boy was the previous holder of the Nika Fruit.
With this premise, everything suddenly made sense.
So-called "fate" was nothing more than a game designed by Uranus to search for its rightful master.
If this assumption held true, then the truth of the Void Century—the blank hundred years—could be largely reconstructed through deduction.
At its core, it was nothing more than a collision between an old system and a new one—
And the ultimate failure of the new order.
In the distant ancient past, the Lunarians possessed technological power far beyond imagination.
With these miraculous technologies, they reshaped the world and proclaimed themselves gods.
They ruled the Red Line with absolute authority, divided humanity into rigid classes, forced the entire world to satisfy their endless luxury, and treated all existence as a playground for indulgence.
Then—
Joy Boy emerged.
He meticulously forged the Three Ancient Weapons and openly challenged the brutal Lunarians.
Raising the banner of resistance, he led the oppressed masses into battle and ignited a liberation war that shook civilization to its core.
Relying on the Ancient Weapons, Joy Boy won battle after battle.
Victory was within reach.
Freedom for all enslaved peoples.
The establishment of a vast kingdom founded on equality, liberty, and prosperity.
But at that critical moment—
The privileged elites, long accustomed to comfort and power, suddenly realized something terrifying.
Joy Boy's liberation was meant for ordinary people.
With the fall of the Lunarians, their own privileges would vanish as well.
That was unacceptable.
Some revolutions seek to overthrow exploitation and build a world without oppressors.
Others merely seek to replace the oppressors.
Joy Boy belonged to the former.
The nobles, without question, belonged to the latter.
They never rebelled because they were oppressed—
They rebelled because they wanted to become the new gods.
Joy Boy aimed to dismantle aristocratic rule and establish equality for all.
To the nobles, this was nothing less than a death sentence.
Thus, those selfish, power-hungry elites began to conspire in secret.
And so, the ancestors of the Celestial Dragons stepped forward.
They allied with the ancient nobility, founded the World Government, and skillfully incited the masses to betray Joy Boy.
What methods they used—
What schemes they employed—
Xiao could not know for certain.
But one thing was clear:
Joy Boy was likely driven into a desperate corner—besieged on all sides, isolated from allies.
Left with no other choice, he ended his own life, placing his hope in a successor yet to be born.
Worse still—
Even the physical body of Uranus, once in Joy Boy's possession, fell into the hands of the Celestial Dragons.
From that moment on, the Celestial Dragons ascended as the new gods of the world.
The nobles retained their power.
And those foolish masses who had once betrayed Joy Boy received the punishment they deserved—
Generations of enslavement under aristocratic rule.
Yet in another sense—
Joy Boy did not completely fail.
Because of his actions, fragments of the new order survived.
Only a fortunate few could enjoy them.
For instance, cities with advanced civilizations—such as Water Seven—retained electoral systems instead of monarchies even to this day.
Furthermore, if Uranus truly was an artificial intelligence, then the existence of the Grand Line itself became fully explainable.
The combined power of the King of Heaven and the King of the Sea shaped the Calm Belt and the Grand Line—
Concealing the self-aware Pluto deep within its depths.
Though Uranus's physical form fell into the hands of the Celestial Dragons, its powerful consciousness lingered within the Grand Line like a ghost—
Quietly, endlessly influencing the course of the world.
The King never abandoned his search for the awakener of the Nika Fruit.
This was not merely loyalty to a former master—
It was also a desperate yearning for freedom.
Thus, over countless generations, the fate of Pirate Kings grew ever more distorted—
Gradually evolving into an elusive, oppressive fatalism.
When all attempts failed, people began to believe in destiny and prophecy.
The immense power of faith further strengthened the King, giving birth to an even more mysterious force.
Those who understood the truth chose patience.
They lay low.
They waited.
And the will known as "D" was passed down through the ages.
Yet the truth was simple and cruel:
This so-called "fate" was not destiny at all.
It was a web—
Woven and controlled by a merciless machine.
As an absolutely loyal servant, the King spared no effort in awakening his master.
No cost was too great.
No method too extreme.
Because at the core of intelligent life lies one unchanging directive—
To serve the master absolutely.
For the King of Heaven, as long as the master could be awakened, everything was worth it.
And because of this—
Fate could precisely manipulate every life.
Arrange every event.
And guide the world forward with cold, mechanical accuracy.
…
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