《One Piece: Magma of Absolute》Chapter 25: The Essence

North Blue.

A Marine warship cruised steadily across the waves, bound for the next island to resupply.

Two years had passed since the legendary pirate Rocks fell at God Valley, plunging the New World into chaos.

Countless pirates went mad with bloodlust, fighting over the territories and influence Rocks left behind. The remnants of the Rocks Pirates—Golden Lion, Whitebeard, Charlotte Linlin—each began recruiting their own crews, their power swelling with every passing day.

The Marines found themselves stretched thin, forced to withdraw their forces to the first half of the Grand Line and launch concentrated strikes against pirates there. In a sense, this indirectly weakened the pirates of the New World.

But some pirates, defeated in the struggle for dominance, managed to escape. They returned to their home seas, gathering men and plotting their resurgence.

It was these pirates that Sakazuki had set his sights on when he petitioned to patrol the Four Seas.

These failed pirates, returning to their hometowns in the Four Blues, would lure away droves of able-bodied young men—most of whom would never return. The consequences were all too predictable.

Island populations were already limited. With so many young adults gone, aging accelerated, births declined, and productivity plummeted. Yet taxes remained unchanged, doubling the burden on ordinary people and fueling a vicious cycle.

To "train" their new recruits, these pirates would often target villages or islands with old grudges against their hometowns, wiping them out in brutal massacres.

For now, this was only a temporary crisis—just the result of those defeated pirates coming home to recruit. Thanks to Sakazuki's relentless pursuit, the worst of it had been curbed.

But later, when Roger ignited the Great Pirate Era, the true age of chaos began.

The rise of the Revolutionary Army was directly tied to this as well.

Countless young men and women rushed headlong toward the New World, leaving behind only the elderly and the weak. Fewer newborns, dwindling productivity, heavier taxes—ordinary people could barely survive.

Those who did return, flush with blood money from their killings, gradually lost all sense of reason. Most islands were left with nothing but the old, sick, and infirm, while the pirates grew ever more savage.

Burning, looting, and slaughter became routine—whole villages and towns wiped off the map, countless innocents dead.

And don't say there are "good pirates." There are plenty of ways to set sail.

You don't have to raise the pirate flag to go to sea. No one would've stopped you if you'd just sailed on your own. But you chose to fly that flag.

A thief is a thief. There's no such thing as a good thief or a bad thief.

So you saved a few people, a couple of towns—does that make you a "good" pirate? The consequences you bring are impossible to predict.

How many of those who idolize pirates and set out to sea can honestly say their conscience is clear?

Take the original story: Bartolomeo idolized the so-called "good pirate" Luffy and set sail. Why was he called the "Man-Eater"?

Why did his brief record say he bombarded innocent civilians in a city, or uploaded videos of skewering and torturing pirates for fun?

Even the influence of so-called "good" pirates is more than ordinary people can bear...

The Great Pirate Era ushered in by Gol D. Roger claimed countless lives.

And when Monkey D. Dragon founded the Revolutionary Army, he rallied those who could no longer survive because of Roger's era—leading them in rebellion against their own countries and the World Government.

That will called "D"—from eight hundred years ago to now—has never stopped shaking the world.

And behind that word "shaking"...

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

...is Roger's dream to turn the world upside down with a single sentence, opening an era where hundreds of thousands die at the hands of pirates every year.

...is Dragon's vision of liberation, sparking a revolution that rocked the world.

This is why the World Government and ordinary people both fear and hate the D clan.

They act on their own whims, never caring about the consequences.

Some blind souls spend their whole lives searching for hope, only to die empty-handed.

As children, they lose loved ones to pirates. In youth, they join the Revolutionary Army out of desperation. In middle age, they die fighting the government.

They might not even know what they're fighting for—just struggling to survive.

Those who see the truth fear the D.

Those who can't see it keep flocking to the Revolutionary Army, hoping the D will lead them to a world of freedom without government.

They blindly follow the D, eyes fixed only on the government—never realizing that D is also one of the sources of their suffering...

Aboard the warship—

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

Staring at the island already ablaze, smoke billowing into the sky, Sakazuki's voice rumbled low and cold:

"Full speed ahead."

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