One Piece’s most nightmarish death just set an unsettling precedent for the series’ endgame

One of the more unique, incredible aspects of a series like One Piece continuing for nearly three decades is that it has never stopping surprising readers in all that time. Series creator Eiichiro Oda can still make you scream, “Holy sh**!” after 27 years of telling this one continuous story.

But chapter 1125, chillingly called “What Death Means,” is a particular hallmark. It’s safe to say that it offers the most nightmarish, horrifying death in the series.

One Piece is not a stranger to shocking moments of violence. This is a series where, relatively early on, the main character got stabbed through by a hook-hand. The image of Ace at Marineford is burned into everyone’s mind. But nothing—nothing—has happened in all of One Piece to rival the events of chapter 1125.

If I can say anything with confidence, it’s that the endgame just got a whole lot more interesting.

Major spoilers for chapter 1125 and the end of the Egghead arc ahead!

For a while now, One Piece fans have been wondering what the nature of the connection between Imu and the Five Elders is. We don’t have full answers yet, but it turns out the theory that Imu is supplying Five Elders’ power and life force is correct. And the ramifications of that is more horrifying than anyone could’ve imagined.

One moment, Saint Saturn is shooting a vice-admiral to shut him up about Vegapunk’s broadcast. The next, his very life force is getting sucked up (remotely!!) by Imu. Eerie dark wisps, calling back to the Elders’ horrifying transformations, leave Saturn en masse. Saturn’s skin begins to wither, until his body combusts and rocks the whole ship. Only his skeleton remains.

It is, I think rather inarguably, the scariest sequence in all of One Piece. In a series where you’re never quite certain whether someone’s actually dead, this is one of the more definitive deaths. Granted, Saint Saturn was godawful and absolutely deserved the series’ most painful and horrifying death so far. But still: holy sh**.

This moment is a huge turning point for the series. For one, what the hell are all those Marine vice-admirals who witnessed the death going to do from here on out?! Quit the Navy and go rogue? Join SWORD? Attempt to convince themselves that they saw nothing and continue at their posts in a state of terror? Dear god.

Even more importantly, we’ve gotten further confirmation that the final struggle of One Piece won’t be straightforward. We now know the Five Elders can die, but it seems possible that only Imu can kill them. And we definitely got confirmation that there’s some mysterious, supernatural force afoot. Whether that’s the ramifications of the use of the Op-Op Fruit to make Imu immortal, or something else, we don’t know.

But it seems like someone will have to kill Imu to kill the Five Elders, and killing Imu won’t be a simple punch-em-up task. You wonder whether this means that the final battle of One Piece won’t be a classic shonen fistfight, but something less straightforward—which is an incredibly exciting prospect.

Anyway, RIP Saturn, you piece of sh**.