One Piece Just Doubled Down on Its New Strongest Character & No, It’s Not Luffy

The Elbaf flashback has quietly become one of One Piece’s most disruptive arcs, not because of lore reveals, but because of how aggressively it rewrites the series’ power hierarchy. With the final saga underway, Eiichiro Oda is no longer protecting old legends or familiar benchmarks of strength.

Rather than placing Luffy at the center of this escalation, the story instead crowns an entirely different figure. Through the long-teased tragedy at Aurust Castle, One Piece makes it clear that a new monster has emerged whose power eclipses figures once thought untouchable, fundamentally changing how fans view the world’s strongest characters.

The Fall of One Piece Legends and the End of Old Power Scaling

For years, characters like Rocks D. Xebec and King Harald represented unreachable peaks of strength in One Piece. Their clashes reshaped landscapes, erased life for miles, and forced alliances between icons like Roger and Garp. Even among legends, these figures stood apart, elevated by supernatural enhancements and godlike reputations.

Oda reinforces just how absurd their power was by reminding readers that neither Yonko nor Pirate Kings could casually surpass them. Harald’s Deep Sea Covenant and Rocks’ unnatural amplification placed them in a tier where victory required cooperation, perfect timing, and overwhelming Haki. They were not stepping stones, they were walls.

That’s precisely why their defeat matters so much. By establishing how far beyond normal scaling these figures were, the story ensures that whoever overcomes them isn’t just strong, but historically unprecedented. This groundwork makes the next revelation hit far harder than a simple “stronger than Luffy” moment ever could.

Loki’s Rise Changes Everything in One Piece

Loki’s transformation from disgraced prince to unstoppable force is where One Piece fully commits to its new hierarchy. With the acceptance of Ragnir and mastery over Elbaf’s legendary Devil Fruit, Loki doesn’t merely gain an advantage, he becomes a walking calamity, wielding power comparable to multiple top-tier fighters combined.

What truly breaks the scale is how effortlessly Loki overwhelms Harald at his absolute peak. This isn’t a symbolic victory or a clever trick. Loki achieves something Roger and Garp could not do together, placing him above the Pirate King, Whitebeard, and Rocks in raw combat dominance.

Yet Oda adds one final twist, because Loki has already been defeated once. That loss, at the hands of Shanks, reframes everything. It confirms Loki’s terrifying ceiling while quietly elevating Shanks beyond every human legend before him. In doing so, One Piece declares that the era of familiar power comparisons is over, and Luffy is no longer the measuring stick.