When Imu pulled out a weapon called the Xingtian Axe to finish off Luffy in One Piece Chapter 1189, it read like just another flashy new toy from the King of the World. It isn’t. Xingtian is a real figure out of Chinese mythology, and his story is a lot bleaker than a random power-up name.
The weapon is the third one Imu has drawn from the arsenal tied to the Empty Throne, following the Sword of the Wailing Void and the Sea God Sword. According to the chapter’s translation notes, the kanji for the weapon reads as the Axe of Heavenly Punishment, with Xingtian himself providing the reading underneath it.
That distinction matters because it points straight to the myth Oda is pulling from.
Who Is Xingtian in Chinese Mythology?
Xingtian comes from the Shanhaijing, an ancient Chinese text that catalogs myths, geography, and monsters going back over two thousand years. In the story, Xingtian serves the Flame Emperor and refuses to accept the Yellow Emperor’s rule even after his own side has already lost the war.
He marches on the celestial court alone, armed with nothing but an axe and a shield, and challenges the Yellow Emperor to single combat. He loses. The Yellow Emperor cuts off his head and buries it inside a mountain so it can never be recovered. Most myths would end there. Xingtian’s doesn’t.
His headless body simply keeps standing. He turns his nipples into eyes and his navel into a mouth, picks his weapons back up, and keeps fighting an enemy he can no longer even see. One retelling describes him as the figure who fights on after all rational grounds for fighting are gone, and that image, headless and still swinging, is the one that stuck for thousands of years of Chinese art and poetry.
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Why Xingtian Fits Imu’s Arsenal in One Piece
Oda rarely names a weapon by accident, and Xingtian is a strange choice if you’re only looking for something that sounds cool. What actually connects him to One Piece is the theme. Xingtian isn’t a god who wins. He’s the one who keeps fighting a fight that’s already over, against a ruler who has already declared themselves supreme.
That’s the exact position Luffy is in against Imu right now. He’s outmatched, pinned to a tree, and still refusing to stop. Handing Imu a weapon named after the myth’s loser rather than its winner reads less like a flex and more like foreshadowing. Defiance against an absolute ruler doesn’t die just because the fight looks finished, and that’s the same story One Piece has been building toward for the entire Elbaph arc.
If the pattern holds, expect the rest of the 19 weapons circling the Empty Throne to carry similar buried meaning once Oda reveals them. One Piece Chapter 1190 releases on August 10 after next week’s scheduled break.
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