For seven continuous days following the historic clash at the Baratie, the floating continent of Merveille sailed through the untracked heights of the lower stratosphere.
Below, the world was descending into a frenzy of rumors, but high above the sea lanes, Arthur turned the week-long voyage into a private crucible of cultivation.
Every sunrise was met with grueling, methodical drills across Merveille’s central plateau.
With the Oto and Kogarashi drawn, Arthur pushed his draconic constitution to its absolute limits, conditioning his muscular density, refining his cardiovascular output, and harmonizing his swordsmanship with the ancient vitality of his first core.
Through seven days of relentless training, his mastery over the Ryu Ryu no Mi, Model: Imperial Pendragon surged from its baseline to an astonishing eighty-five percent.
His six-meter hybrid form had become second nature, its armored crimson scales and draconic wings responding to his thoughts as fluidly as mortal skin.
Yet his ultimate combat capability remained an absolute mystery to the world below.
During the duel against Mihawk, Arthur had only deployed his hybrid physique amidst the veil of sea-spray and storm clouds.
His true, catastrophic trump card—the sixty-meter Full Beast Form—had never been revealed to a living soul.
To Morgans, the Marines, and the Five Elders, he was merely an uncatalogued dragon swordsman of terrifying skill.
None suspected the monstrous, mythical titan that slumbered beneath his aristocratic veneer.
Now, as the seventh day drew to a close, the leisurely cruise ended.
The ascent into the heavens was not a gentle voyage, but a siege against the laws of nature.
Beneath the central landmass of Merveille, the blue expanse of the East Blue dwindled until the ocean resembled a flat, sapphire mirror bounded by the curve of the horizon.
Driven by Arthur’s will, the floating continent climbed steadily past its standard two-thousand-meter cruising altitude, entering the violent, unforgiving expanse of the middle troposphere.
At three thousand meters, the serene warmth of the lower skies abruptly died.
The sky darkened from azure to a bruised, turbulent slate gray.
Howling jet streams slammed into Merveille’s western bluffs with the force of continuous cannon fire.
The sheer atmospheric friction generated deafening roars that drowned out human speech, while the ambient temperature plunged into an arctic freeze.
By five thousand meters, frost began to crawl across the stone ramparts like silver venom.
In the outer gardens, ancient mountain pines bent under the shrieking gales, their needles encrusted in rime.
The decorative marble fountains in the courtyards froze solid in seconds, the water fracturing with sharp, gunshot-like cracks as the cold expanded the ice.
Within the residential corridors, the air turned dangerously thin and razor-sharp.
Merry rushed frantically through the glass-paneled cloisters of the newly settled mansion, carrying iron wedges and heavy oak bracing beams.
His sheep-like curls were dusted with white frost, his breath billowing in thick, white clouds.
“Brace the southern bay windows!” Merry shouted over the screech of groaning timbers, his voice strained as he drove a wooden wedge beneath a shuddering doorframe.
“The differential pressure is warping the frames!
If the glass shatters, the gales will gut the second floor!”
Beside him, Buggy was shouting curses at the wind, his detached torso floating across the foyer as he used his flying hands to hammer iron reinforcements into the greenhouse foundations.
“Damn it all!
Why did we have to fly up?!” Buggy yelled, shivering violently as he adjusted his naval coat, his red nose glowing bright crimson from the frostbite.
“Normal pirates sail on water!
Water doesn’t freeze your lungs!
Hey, watch that timber, you four-horned sheep!”
While the men struggled to reinforce the physical skeleton of the estate, the human toll of the altitude began to manifest.
In the citadel’s eastern domestic quarters, the sudden drop in atmospheric oxygen struck the household staff.
Two servant girls who had accompanied the estate from Syrup Village slumped against the mahogany banisters, gasping for breath, their lips tinged with faint violet as their chests heaved in frantic, shallow rhythms.
Before panic could take root, Kaya stepped through the corridor.
Her stride was firm, her cheeks flushed with the vibrant, unshakeable health granted by Arthur’s draconic vitality.
Clad in a thick, fur-lined wool coat, she carried a mahogany apothecary box divided into velvet-lined compartments of crystal vials.
“Do not gasp,” Kaya’s voice cut through the cold, calm and intensely reassuring as she knelt beside the struggling maids.
“Rapid breathing will only deplete your body’s reserve.
Open your mouths and place these beneath your tongues.”
With practiced dexterity, Kaya placed small, dark-amber lozenges beneath their tongues.
“It is distilled from high-altitude sun-moss,” Kaya explained with quiet medical authority.
“Keep it beneath your tongue.
It will steady your breathing and help your body endure the thinning air.
Breathe slowly through your noses.
Four seconds in.
Four seconds out.”
Within thirty seconds, the servants’ ragged wheezing stabilized.
The violet pallor receded from their lips, replaced by a warm, restorative flush as their pulses settled.
From the adjacent kitchen hall, Makino emerged carrying a massive iron cauldron suspended over a portable brazier, flanked by insulated stone bowls.
The aroma of rich, spiced broth filled the freezing corridor, cutting through the sterile stench of frost.
“Drink,” Makino said with a warm, maternal smile, handing steaming bowls to the servants and the shivering guards.
“The broth is simmered with highland root vegetables and dried sea-beast marrow.
It will keep your cores warm against the frost.”
Kaya looked at Makino, offering a nod of deep mutual respect.
In the face of a hostile heaven, the hearth of the citadel held firm.
Yet, outside the reinforced halls, the mountain continent itself was beginning to groan.
At seven thousand meters, Merveille collided with the violent storm barrier—a colossal, churning wall of black Cumulonimbus clouds that wrapped around the sky like a belt of iron.
Violent vertical wind shear threatened to tear the outer stone terraces away, and lightning bolts began discharging against the continent’s rocky underbelly with concussive fury.
The freezing headwind cut across the promontory with a force sharp enough to numb exposed flesh within seconds.
The time had come for the sovereign to act.
Arthur stepped out onto the southern promontory of the citadel.
He wore no heavy furs.
His black greatcoat, embroidered with gold imperial bullion, whipped against the tempest.
His bare hands rested easily upon the twin pommels of Oto and Kogarashi, his violet eyes completely tranquil as he observed the encroaching ice.
He looked at the frost creeping toward the palace gates.
He looked at the shuddering glass of the conservatory where rare medicinal flora were sheltered.
A king was the shield that broke the storm.
Arthur closed his eyes and drew a slow, deep breath.
Within his soul, the first core stirred.
Operating at eighty-five percent mastery, the Ryu Ryu no Mi, Model: Imperial Pendragon responded to its sovereign with terrifying, primed efficiency.
Deep within his chest, the ancient furnace of the dragon awakened.
Warmth.
Arthur’s eyes snapped open.
Molten crimson light burned within his pupils.
WUUUUUUUUUM—!
A radiant wave of golden-crimson thermal energy erupted from his frame.
It expanded across the southern terraces like the dawning of an imperial sun.
The frost did not have time to melt.
It vanished.
White vapor exploded across the ramparts.
Ice fractured along the stone pathways before evaporating completely into the gale, and a tide of spring-like warmth rolled across the entire expanse of Merveille.
Inside the citadel, frozen hands regained feeling.
The shivering ceased.
For the first time since entering the upper atmosphere, the people of Merveille breathed without fear.
But Arthur was not finished.
His left hand rose, fingers spreading wide.
The Fuwa Fuwa no Mi answered.
Arthur extended the invisible field of his levitation power outward from the floating continent, projecting it across Merveille’s entire physical perimeter.
Arthur felt the strain immediately.
Maintaining a stabilized field across an entire floating landmass was nothing like lifting a boulder, or even a warship.
Thousands of tons of ancient stone, hundreds of structures, and miles of atmospheric turbulence pressed back against his will.
Maintaining the sovereign envelope was not effortless; Arthur could feel the invisible strain spreading through his consciousness like thousands of iron threads pulled taut at once.
Every second demanded focus.
Yet Arthur’s aristocratic expression did not waver by a fraction.
The shearing winds struck the barrier—and bent smoothly around Merveille’s contours.
The pressure shifted—and stabilized.
The thinning atmosphere was drawn close beneath an invisible boundary, held against the continent like a protective ocean of calm air.
Slowly, the screaming heavens fell silent.
Merveille continued its ascent.
Untouched.
Unbroken.
A kingdom carried toward heaven by the unyielding will of its sovereign.
Shielded within Arthur’s sovereign envelope, Merveille accelerated through the cloud ceiling.
Beyond the seven-thousand-meter storm barrier, the black squall abruptly fractured.
The darkness evaporated, replaced by an explosion of blinding, celestial sunlight.
“Look!” Makino’s voice carried a gasp of pure, childlike wonder.
The entire household—Kaya, Merry, Buggy, and the citadel guards—rushed to the balustrades, their breath catching in their throats at the impossible panorama unfurling before their eyes.
At ten thousand meters, they breached the White-White Sea.
Beneath the radiant sunlight, the mortal ocean was completely gone.
In its place stretched a vast, boundless ocean of pure, snow-white clouds that rolled in gentle, rhythmic swells, exactly like water.
Flocks of bizarre, winged sky-fish with translucent fins leaped from the cloud waves, their scales glistening with iridescent light before diving back into the vapor.
And suspended upon this celestial ocean, drifting in the distance like an ancient emerald jewel, was an island that defied all comprehension.
It was not made of clouds.
It was genuine earth—soil, colossal ancient trees that stretched hundreds of feet into the azure heavens, and moss-covered ruins that had rested in the sky for four hundred years.
Upper Yard.
The sacred land of Skypiea.
“An island…
of true earth…
floating upon a sea of clouds,” Kaya murmured, her hazel eyes reflecting the golden light of the ancient canopy.
“The legends of the ancient explorers were true.
There truly is a kingdom above the sky.”
Buggy gripped the brass railing, his eyes gleaming with greedy excitement.
“Upper Yard!
Captain Roger talked about this place!
The city of gold!
The treasure of the sky!”
Arthur stood at the prow, his fingers slowly tightening around the stone balustrade.
There.
At last.
His eyes looked past the ancient ruins, past the golden bell, and locked onto the northern reaches of the sacred forest—toward the towering beanstalk, Giant Jack, and the golden shrine that overlooked the cloud ocean.
The third piece of the throne he intended to build.
Not gold.
Not Skypiea.
Not the ruins of Shandora.
The fruit.
The ultimate Logia of divine destruction.
The power of lightning itself.
In that exact instant, the tranquil heavens above Upper Yard fractured.
A violent change swept through the atmosphere.
The radiant blue sky darkened in an instant, bruised by rolling, purple-black storm clouds that gathered with terrifying, electromagnetic speed directly above the divine shrine.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
Lightning of catastrophic intensity began arcing violently between the thunderclouds.
The electrical charge was so immense that the hair on the arms of everyone aboard Merveille stood on end, the air tasting sharply of ozone.
Through the electrical storm, a presence made itself known.
It was not the heavy spiritual weight of Conqueror’s Haki.
It was something wider, more invasive—a vast, omniscient web of electromagnetic perception that blanketed the entire sky island.
Mantra.
Amplified ten-thousand-fold by the Logia power of the Goro Goro no Mi, the mind of God Enel bore down upon the floating continent of Merveille.
CRACK-BOOOOOM!
A colossal pillar of divine lightning detonated directly into the cloud sea five hundred yards ahead of Merveille’s bow.
The blast vaporized thousands of tons of sea clouds, leaving behind a violently expanding void in the cloud sea.
Then, from the heart of the thunderclouds, a voice descended.
It did not travel through the air; it reverberated through the lightning itself, booming across the White-White Sea like the decree of a wrathful deity, echoing with absolute, unhinged arrogance:
“WHO DARES ENTER THE DOMAIN OF GOD?!”
The voice was deafening, vibrating the stone foundations of the citadel and rattling the glass panes of the mansion.
Buggy shrieked, ducking behind a marble pillar, while Merry instinctively grabbed Kaya’s arm in fear.
Arthur did not flinch.
He did not draw his blades.
He did not shift his feet.
Standing at the absolute prow of his floating continent, the Sovereign of Merveille slowly lifted his head.
His eyes, glowing with the ancient, unyielding majesty of the Crimson Dragon, locked directly onto the epicenter of the lightning storm.
A faint, cold, and predatory smile touched the corner of Arthur’s lips.
His voice was not a shout.
It carried no frantic fury.
Yet, infused with the calm, undisputed authority of an emperor who had matched the strongest swordsman under heaven, his words sliced cleanly through the roaring thunder, echoing with iron finality across the realm of heaven:
“A sovereign.”
Ten thousand meters above the world, within the golden shrine of Upper Yard, the silence returned like a suffocating blanket.
For the first time in years, God Enel’s smile disappeared.
The vast web of Mantra spreading across Skypiea had felt countless voices before.
He had felt the groveling terror of the sky citizens.
He had felt the desperate greed of wandering pirates.
He had felt the hatred of the Shandian warriors.
Fear.
Greed.
Hatred.
Rebellion.
All of them were mortal.
All of them bowed when the heavens flashed with judgment.
But the presence standing upon the floating continent before him was fundamentally different.
It did not tremble.
It did not bow.
And most infuriating of all to the self-proclaimed deity—it did not recognize him as God.
Far beneath the thunderclouds, Enel slowly lowered his golden staff.
His yellow pupils narrowed into furious, sharp points.
Arcs of cerulean lightning crawled violently across his bare shoulders, his long earlobes swinging as the air pressure around his throne dropped into an abyss.
“A sovereign?” Enel whispered, the words tasting like poison upon his tongue.
Behind him, the four priests of Upper Yard—Ohm, Shura, Gedatsu, and Satori—slowly stepped backward, dropping their heads to the floorboards.
In the six years of Enel’s reign, they had never seen that expression on their god’s face.
It was not merely anger.
It was cold, lethal interest.
Then, Enel’s lips parted into a wide, terrifying grin.
This time, there was no lazy amusement in it—only the promise of absolute, unsparing annihilation.
“Then come.”
CRACK—BOOM!
The heavens exploded in a sheet of blinding white fury.
And across the kingdom above the clouds, the war between two rulers began.
[Status Panel]
Name: Arthur Pendragon
Age: 20 (Year 1520)
Height: 2.00m (Human Form) / 6m (Hybrid Form) / 60m (Full Beast Form — Unrevealed / Latent)
Classification: Great Swordsman / Sovereign of Merveille
Overall Combat Tier: Mid-to-High Admiral Class Threshold
Devil Fruit Cores (Vessel Integrity: 2/3 Occupied):
Core 1 (Mythical Zoan): Ryu Ryu no Mi, Model: Imperial PendragonMastery: 85% (+10% through 7 days of intensive celestial training; 6m Hybrid Form mastered, draconic thermal furnace expanded, 60m Full Beast Form latent and completely hidden from the world)Core 2 (Paramecia): Fuwa Fuwa no MiMastery: 62% (Continental Levitation, high-altitude sovereign atmospheric envelope)Core 3: Empty.
Haki:
Observation Haki (Kenbunshoku): Advanced (Future Sight: 3–4 seconds)Armament Haki (Busoshoku): Advanced (Internal Destruction / Emission / Hardening)Conqueror’s Haki (Haoshoku): Advanced (Haoshoku Infusion / Sky-Splitting Class)
Swordsmanship:
Rank: Daikengou (Grandmaster Swordsman)Equipped Blades: Twin Meito Oto and Kogarashi (O Wazamono Grade)
Assets & Territory:
Flagship / Realm: Merveille (Floating Continental Archipelago)Public Perception / Infamy: “The Sky Sovereign” (Classified by Marineford as an uncatalogued Crimson Dragon Daikengou, Zero Bounty, true identity and 60m Full Beast form completely unknown)Round Table Seats & Retinue:1st Seat: Open (Reserved for Dracule Mihawk)12th Seat: “The Jester” BuggyRetinue: Makino, Kaya, Merry