Mouad_ML

Five years before Monkey D. Luffy sets sail to become the King of the Pirates, another name stirs the seas with fear and ambition.

Born on the brutal Noctis Island, Raizen D. Crow witnessed firsthand the cruelty of a lawless world. While others dreamed of freedom, Raizen dreamed of domination. Armed with the forbidden Kuro Kuro no Mi — granting him the power to control living darkness — he vowed to unite the seas under a single iron rule.

Gathering a fleet of the most dangerous outcasts, assassins, and fallen marines, Raizen wages a silent war against the corrupt forces of the world. His mission is clear: seize the ancient weapons, crush the chaotic pirate era, and forge an empire where peace is enforced by absolute power.

As he clashes with rising heroes, secret government agents, and even future legends like a young Crocodile, Raizen’s ambition casts a long shadow across the seas — one that even the World Government cannot ignore.

But far away, a boy with a straw hat is preparing to set sail… and the age of dreams is about to challenge the age of control.

Before the dawn of a new era... there was a storm.

One Piece: Shadows Before Dawn

The heavens were not empty — they were watching.

As the Nadir Wing pierced through the Eye of Oblivion, reality bent inward. Raizen and his remaining crew stepped into a realm outside of time, a vast, cold expanse of obsidian sky and gleaming constellations — each one pulsing like the heartbeat of a forgotten god.

There, they waited.

They appeared not as men, nor beasts — but as shifting forms of light, shadow, flame, and void, each voice echoing from a different dimension.

"You have come far, Raizen," one intoned, faceless and infinite."But you walk paths not meant for mortals."

"Then why did you leave the door open?" Raizen asked.

The gods revealed the truth: the Crown of Shadows was never meant to rule or destroy — it was a seal, forged in desperation during a war against a greater cosmic threat — the Endbringer, an entity born from the first chaos, whose hunger devoured not just worlds, but possibility itself.

"We created the Crown," they said,"to bind what we could not kill.But its power came with a price."

They spoke of the first bearer — a being who tried to control the Crown, and in doing so, fractured the realms.

Ever since, history had become a cycle of puppets and kings — each thinking they were in control, when truly, they were just pieces in the gods' containment strategy.

"So all of it... every death, every betrayal, every lie... it was just to keep your cage intact?"

"No," Raizen whispered."You call it order. But I call it fear."

Join them, take their place, and keep the Crown stable.

Or defy them — and risk unleashing the Endbringer fully upon creation.

The crew looked to him. Some begged for caution. Others for rebellion.

He turned toward the gods — and raised his blade.

"If the only way to save the world is to become what broke it,then it's not worth saving."

The battle was not one of swords, but of essence.Each god wielded a fundamental force — time, gravity, entropy, thought. Raizen countered with something even more dangerous: will.

Their powers weren't stripped — they were absorbed.

Raizen, unwillingly, became what he hated: a vessel not just of the Crown, but of the fallen gods.

The chapter ends with Raizen standing in the hollow remains of the celestial realm, glowing with fractured godlight, eyes burning with power not meant to be held.

And in the distance, the Endbringer stirs, sensing that the final seal has cracked.

Chapter 10: The God’s Fall