Chapter 1116

Audiences across the planet are still reeling from Vegapunk's warning about the world-ending Ancient Weapons when the scientist pivots to a second confession. He admits he built an energy source meant to lift humanity forward, the Mother Flame, and that he counted it among his proudest accomplishments even while it remained unfinished. The shameful part, he says, is that a piece of it was stolen from under him.

The broadcast then lays out a timeline. Two weeks after the theft, light flared in the sky over the Lulusia Kingdom, and shortly afterward the entire nation vanished, leaving only the trace of a worldwide tremor. From that, Vegapunk concludes the stolen Flame had powered one of the long-dormant Ancient Weapons, an act of mass killing he counts himself complicit in. He frames it as proof that the flood of the distant past was no natural disaster but a deliberate one, and notes that Joy Boy chose to hand these terrible weapons down to later generations. He refuses to take a side in the old war, yet insists the moment of full revelation is drawing close, and that only Roger's crew ever uncovered what truly happened.

Aboard the collapsing facility, Edison urges Stussy to flee before an Elder reaches her, and she asks to free Kaku so he avoids the fallout, promising to keep him off the Straw Hats' trail. Edison apologizes for ever turning her against Cipher Pol and tells her the very anguish she feels confirms her humanity. Elsewhere York, baffled that Vegapunk knew of her betrayal despite her severed memory link, traces the broadcasting snail to the Iron Giant and relays its location to the Five Elders. At Shakky's bar, a drunken Rayleigh muses that old men like himself and Vegapunk ought to keep quiet and leave the thrill to the young.

Vegapunk publicly explains the Mother Flame, his intended gift to mankind, and reveals a portion was stolen from his lab and used to fuel an Ancient Weapon. He connects that theft to the disappearance of the Lulusia Kingdom and states that Joy Boy meant to preserve the Ancient Weapons past the great conflict for reasons unknown. Edison grants Stussy permission to release Kaku, but with the facility wrecked he can no longer stretch the clouds to launch the Thousand Sunny. Ju Peter swallows the captured Cipher Pol agents who tumbled off the structure. York deduces and warns the Elders that the transmission snail sits inside the Iron Giant's care.

The chapter belongs to the Egghead Arc, with a cover continuing the Oni Child Yamato side story. A glimpse of Pangaea Castle shows Imu keeping a portrait of Nefertari D. Lili, and Arabasta is shown after Vivi's vanishing, with Cobra laid to rest in a rebuilt royal tomb. In the original magazine printing, the cover character Some was later redrawn as a different person and Chuji removed for the volume edition to fix a continuity clash with a later chapter, and S-Snake's mistakenly black hair was corrected to white.