'One Piece' 1022 Teases King's Mysterious Origin [Spoilers]

"One Piece" 1022 spoilers offered a lot of exciting updates about the War in Onigashima but one that struck many fans is the teaser about King the Conflagration's mysterious race.

King is said to be Kaido's strongest commander and with the latest spoiler offering snippets on what he is capable of, fans crave more information about him. Things get more interesting when Marco spewed a theory about King and his race.

According to the former first division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, there used to be a race that lived on top of the wall. He seemingly teased that King is from that race and instead of calling him King the Wildfire, which is the All-Star's moniker, the term used in the spoilers is kaen (fire) instead of Kasai.

Big Mom also dropped some clues about King when they met in Wano. According to the Emperor of the Sea, three races are missing in her country and one of those is believed to have been "extinguished" from history.

Surprisingly, Big Mom told King, "But you are alive and standing here." The Emperor of the Sea also offered to forgive King's transgressions if he joins the Big Mom Pirates. But Kaido's commander bluntly turned her down.

Interestingly, mangaka Eiichiro Oda used the term extinguished instead of erased or expunged when referring to the race to which King presumably belongs. While the term extinguish literally means to put an end it also strongly suggests anything related to fire ceasing to burn or shine.

Many fans believe that King is a Kotengu. The term has evolved over the years but in Japanese mythology, it is used to refer to the older and more animalistic yokai spirits called Karasutengu.

While the term karasu means crow, the Kotengu were not modeled after crows but featured a strong resemblance to large birds of prey like the Japanese Black kite hawks. Kotengu, like all other Tengu spirits, is believed to have the ability to shapeshift while spending most of the time in its natural form.

Aside from those, fans also noticed striking similarities in King, Magellan and Shiryu of the Rain's clothing. Based on a popular fan theory, King was once the warden of Impel Down. Unfortunately, all of these are theories and speculations.

It seems Eiichiro Oda is not yet ready to disclose to the massive fan base of "One Piece" the mysterious race King belongs to.

"One Piece" 1022 is scheduled to release Sunday. The incoming chapter is titled "The Stars' Entrance."