When Eleco was still a child, he was unfortunately diagnosed with a rare and tricky sleeping sickness.
This news struck like a bolt from the blue, filling his parents with burning anxiety and robbing them of their peace and rest. Knowing the severe impact this disease could have on their child's future, they spared no effort and immediately mobilized all their resources to treat Eleco.
Eleco's parents were both paragons among elite Celestial Dragons. His father, Fildro Rolde, wielded immense power within the World Government institutions. Relying on his exceptional wisdom and decisive leadership, he navigated the complex political stage of the World Government with ease, commanding respect and wariness from all sides. His mother, Rociephile, served as one of the instructors for the God's Knights; not only was her personal strength formidable, but she also guarded her sacred mission with a rigorous and responsible attitude, making her a figure of universal reverence. It is fair to say they were the epitome of an elite couple.
Yet, even among the lofty Celestial Dragons, distinct hierarchies existed. At the very pinnacle of the pyramid sat the five individuals whose overt power was supreme: the Five Elders. Each of them controlled core authority in different domains, shining as brilliantly and distantly as stars in the cosmos. Among them, the representative of Jaygarcia Saturn, the Warrior God of Science and Defense, defended the security perimeter of the World Government through his profound understanding and innovative application of technology. The Warrior God of Finance, Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, used his sharp business acumen and shrewd financial methods to ensure the sufficiency and stability of the World Government's financial resources. The Warrior God of Agriculture, Shepherd Ju Peter, dedicated himself to promoting agricultural development and guaranteeing a stable supply of daily necessities throughout the world. The Warrior God of Legal Affairs, Topman Warcury, guarded the baseline of the law and maintained the justice and fairness of social order. Finally, the Warrior God of Environment, Marcus Mars, presided over the maintenance of the world's ecological environment. (A personal guess: every time Saturn experimented with some weapon, Mars was the one who had to clean up the mess.)
Undoubtedly, as a transmigrator, Eleco naturally knew of Imu, who secretly ruled over everything. And Eleco's own father was a key pillar under the Warrior God of Finance! He served in the World Government institution bearing heavy responsibilities, functioning like a giant who controlled the economic lifeline of the entire world, holding supreme authority over the flow and management of global finances. The power he wielded was all-encompassing; any matter related to money had to pass through his approval and decision-making, as if he were the master of the monetary world.
Next came the God's Knights, who commanded even greater attention. The order had a commander-in-chief, Figarland Garling—a man of immense power and high standing who anchored the entire organization like a pillar in troubled waters, his status comparable to that of the Five Elders. Additionally, seventeen exceptionally powerful deputy commanders surrounded and assisted him like stars orbiting the moon. Eleco only learned of this information after inheriting the original owner's memories—knowledge that had remained buried like a deep treasure in the previous life's manga storyline, never once revealed.
Going back eight hundred years, twenty kings worked with one heart and mind to defeat their common enemy and jointly establish the massive World Government of today. From that time on, they and their descendants lived high above the Red Line like unapproachable deities, becoming the original Celestial Dragons. However, the Nefertari family at the time—Vivi's ancestors—learned something and resolutely refused the invitation to reside in the Holy Land. Consequently, only nineteen families remained upon the Holy Land. Yet, as the torrent of time rolled relentlessly forward due to various complex reasons, one of those families fell into decline and gradually vanished like a shooting star streaking across the sky. In the end, the number of Celestial Dragon families in the Holy Land remained fixed at eighteen, like a stopped clock. Through his inherited memories and knowledge from his past life, Eleco knew deeply that the erased family was Imu's own. For reasons unknown, Imu had personally wiped her own family from existence, scattering their traces like a sudden gust of wind without a single trace remaining.
Then came the God's Knights. Initially, members of the God's Knights were elite figures carefully selected from these families to maintain a delicate balance. However, as time flowed on, the purpose of the God's Knights subtly shifted, unconsciously degrading into a specialized force dedicated solely to a single individual. As a transmigrator, Eleco saw it with crystal clarity: that individual was Imu, who had weathered over eight hundred years of vicissitudes. It was also because he inherited the original memories that Eleco suddenly understood: the nine members of the God's Knights who appeared in the original work were merely half of the combat force Imu deployed. Even so, this alone was enough to make Dragon of the Revolutionary Army treat them as a formidable enemy, tense and on high alert.
Eleco's mother served as an instructor within the God's Knights, acting like a diligent gardener responsible for nurturing the next generation of members while also serving as a direct subordinate to her own family's representative in the order. Or rather, Eleco's mother had simply fallen slightly short compared to the prominent member of their clan at the time, failing to become her family's stellar representative.
Further down were the ordinary Celestial Dragons and the impoverished ones. Those fallen Celestial Dragons were like trapped beasts sinking into a quagmire, able only to bully the weak in the lower realms as they trapped themselves in an inescapable vicious cycle. Lacking a proper upbringing and education, they degenerated with each passing generation, forever unable to take a step upward, and could only find bitter consolation in tormenting those even weaker than themselves.
It was precisely by virtue of this status and position that Eleco had received, in his early childhood, top-tier medical treatments unattainable by ninety-nine percent of the world's population—it was only a pity that the effects were like a drop of water on a blazing fire, hardly noticeable. The ultimate conclusion was as shocking as a thunderclap: the disease plaguing Eleco originated from a congenital flaw at the genetic level.
After racking his brains and searching bitterly through past memories, Eleco was astonished to discover that his parents were close blood relatives who had married—a cruel prank of fate. In other words, the blood ties between his parents formed a tightly linked chain well within three generations.
Once he realized this, many things suddenly fell into clear perspective. Although both of his parents were brilliant, star-like elite Celestial Dragons blessed with iron-clad physical constitutions and medical examination results as flawless as perfect gems, they had always struggled to successfully conceive a delicate blossom of an offspring. It was not until his father was nearly forty and his mother thirty-seven that they finally welcomed this hard-won child, precious as a rare treasure. Yet who could have anticipated that this hard-fought baby boy would contract a genetic illness as harrowing as a demon.
Upon reflection, compared against the settings of the original *One Piece* story, such a situation was perhaps not entirely unexpected. After all, within the original work, the conditions of the Celestial Dragons showed extreme polarization. Among them were brilliant and exceptionally powerful elite Celestial Dragons who shone like dazzling stars; there were also utterly foolish, near-dimbitted Celestial Dragons who resembled rotting wood; and there was no shortage of razor-sharp, endlessly cunning Celestial Dragons who acted like clever foxes. Some Celestial Dragons were even as deranged and manic as unbridled wild horses beyond control.
Come to think of it, the original twenty royal families only amounted to that many people to begin with. Subtract the Nefertari family, leaving nineteen—no, eighteen families—and intermarry them further, wouldn't they all quickly become relatives? Consanguineous marriage was like a worm-eaten fruit; it could breed any bizarre descendant imaginable!
Then there was his nominal younger imperial sister and actual child bride, Fildro Stephie. Upon learning that the original Eleco might not live past the age of thirty and that the two of them could no longer conceive other offspring, Eleco's parents used a transactional exchange of interests to bring home a meticulously selected younger sister for him when he was eight years old—a girl from an impoverished Celestial Dragon family. Not only did she change her surname, but Eleco's mother personally provided her with all kinds of guidance and education, striving with all her might to groom her into a capable wife for Eleco, one who would bear his children and inherit the family estate.
That's right, Eleco was now a father out of nowhere, with a lovely seven-year-old daughter. Fortunately, his daughter was exceptionally healthy and free of any genetic illnesses.
The memory slowly drew to a close, and his thoughts, as if pulled gently by an invisible hand, returned to the present reality.
"Clear them all away!" Stephie's cold voice rang out like a chilly wind on a winter night, devoid of the slightest emotion.
The moment her command left her lips, a group of respectful attendants trooped in, quickly and skillfully beginning to clean up the shocking corpses on the floor.
It was no exaggeration to say that their household now relied entirely on Stephie's lone, bitter struggle to hold it together, for the time left to Eleco truly amounted to very little.
Watching her daily emaciated imperial brother before her, Stephie felt her heart overflow with anxiety and helplessness, prompting her to advise him: "You know your own physical condition better than anyone, Imperial Brother. Look at how the time you can stay awake each day grows shorter and shorter. Instead of indulging yourself so unrestrainedly, you'd be better off cherishing the time you have left, spending more of it with our Father and Mother, and our lovely Livina. You have no idea how hard Livina is studying medical knowledge right now—she is wholly set on curing her dear papa..."
At the mention of the name "Livina," a faint flicker stirred in Eleco's eyes.
Yes, Livina was his seven-year-old daughter, immensely adorable and sensible.
"But my illness... you know as well as I do, it has long since become incurable, hasn't it?"
Eleco's voice was heavy with despair and bitterness, drifting like a solitary withered leaf blown by the wind.