"Yhwach…"
"Judging from that look on your face, it seems you've already realized it…"
"A nameless sword, nameless letters—how could they possibly kill me?"
The Monk of the Eyes curled up the corner of his mouth.
His smile looked downright vicious.
Behind him, black smoke coiled and writhed. Ink gathered from all directions, condensing into three dark rings circling his body like halos.
At this point, just from the scene alone, anyone could tell at a glance—
He clearly held absolute advantage!
Especially when…
Yhwach's weapon had already been splattered and stained pitch-black by that ink.
The figure under the blood-red cloak looked all the more lone and powerless, buried in that spreading darkness.
It was as if…
He might be eroded by the blackness at any moment, merge with it, be assimilated—
Until, in the end, even his name was gone…
Even the meaning of his existence was stripped away!!!
With this scene broadcast to the world, the blackness grew and grew, plunging the entire screen into gloom.
The viewers' mood was dragged down with it.
That heavy, suffocating, boundless fear was all brought on by the release of Ichimonji!!!
"Too insane…"
"According to what that monk said…"
"Doesn't that mean that any enemy—so long as they fight him—whether it's their weapon or their Zanpakutō…"
"As soon as it gets dyed black, it just… stops existing?!"
Inside Las Noches,
Every face in the Arrancar army changed, twisting with terror.
After becoming Arrancar, most of the power they'd had as Hollows had been sealed into their Zanpakutō.
Only when they released their blades could an Arrancar's true strength fully bloom.
Which meant…
The Monk and his Zanpakutō, Ichimonji, were their natural worst matchup.
So long as that black ink was flung around—
So long as even a little splashed onto them, or so long as they were brushed, swept, or nicked by the released Ichimonji even once—
They'd never be able to Resurrección.
Their power would be forcibly stripped away and they'd be completely crippled!!!
"Looks like…"
"Being weak trash isn't necessarily a bad thing sometimes…"
Nnoitra mocked himself. By now, he had seen through it all.
He was no longer like he'd been at the beginning—
Back then he couldn't open his mouth without shouting about being "the strongest."
In contrast, now that he understood just how huge the gap was between himself and the true monsters…
Nnoitra had accepted reality and stopped struggling for the top.
He'd lain down flat.
Gone full Buddha-mode.
Wasn't that every salted fish's dream?
Especially when you had someone like the Monk and a Zanpakutō like Ichimonji—this kind of completely broken existence!
What was there even left to say…
From now on, in all of Hueco Mundo, just sitting obediently in the audience seats…
Was already the greatest contribution they could make to that "world administrator"!
"Mm…"
"I have to admit, that Zanpakutō really is unblockable."
Barragan's brows knit together.
Ancient memories began to churn up inside him as he recalled events from long ago.
It must have been several thousand years, at least.
Back then, Barragan hadn't yet become the ruler of Hueco Mundo.
Among the ancient Hollows there had been another Vastolorde whose status rivaled his own.
Taking advantage of chaos, that one had invaded Soul Society, defeated the Head Captain of the Gotei 13, and in the end supposedly even fought his way all the way up to the Soul King Palace!
At the time,
Barragan had thought that thanks to that Vastolorde's actions, the Hollow race was finally going to rise up and rule the world.
But he hadn't expected…
That it would all be brought to an end by the Monk.
And the means and process were exactly the same as what they were watching now—
The Vastolorde's whole body had been dyed black.
Its name was stripped away and it was sealed inside a Zanpakutō.
As someone who would later become the ruler of Hueco Mundo, Barragan naturally knew this story.
So the scene before his eyes awakened those ancient memories.
Barragan suddenly felt as if he'd aged countless years at once, full of crushing frustration.
Whether back then…
Or now…
This ancient man, the Monk, was still completely invincible.
And in comparison, himself?
He wasn't even the ruler of Hueco Mundo anymore.
So what exactly had he been living these last few thousand years for? What a failure!!!
——
Meanwhile, in the video—
"Tch…"
"So I lost my weapon. So what?"
Grinning savagely, Yhwach raised his hand toward the camera, attempting a counterattack.
"Usurpation Altar——!!!"
As his shout rang out,
The viewpoint zoomed out, switching to a long-shot perspective.
The viewers could see clearly—
Around the Omotesandō, hexagram-shaped blue reishi light appeared, crackling like lightning and blazing like a six-pointed star.
It looked for all the world like a floating, gigantic altar!
And right at the center of that altar—
The Monk was trapped!
"An altar that can seize others' powers…?"
Kyoraku Shunsui's eyes widened.
"Don't tell me—when he fought the Head Captain, Yhwach used the same method…"
"To forcibly steal the power of Ryūjin Jakka?"
The more Shunsui thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
In terms of raw combat strength, the Monk was clearly above old man Yamamoto by quite a bit.
If Yhwach could pull this trick on the Monk,
There was no reason he wouldn't have used the exact same ability on the Head Captain down in the world below!
"However…"
Staring at the screen, Shunsui still sounded doubtful.
"I don't think Yhwach will actually succeed. Ichimonji is already released, after all."
The other captains shared the same thought.
At the moment,
Including the Head Captain, everyone's eyes were glued to the live broadcast, not daring to even blink.
The outcome from here—
Didn't just determine the victor of this battle.
It was tied to the Soul King's life and death in the future, and could even rewrite all three worlds!
That's how outrageous it was.
If the Monk's power were really stolen and he fell—
Then atop the Soul King Palace…
There would be no one left who could stop Yhwach.
Slaughtering the Soul King and taking his place wouldn't just be empty talk anymore.
The result revealed itself very quickly—
"Useless!!!"
With a roar, his voice shattered the clouds and churned the darkness.
The Monk bared his teeth in a feral grin.
"My power… is black!!"
"Once Ichimonji is released… every black thing in this world—whether Shinigami or Quincy—"
"Belongs to me!!!"
He swung the brush down.
In an instant, Ichimonji's blade poured a waterfall of ink straight onto Yhwach's body.
"Splaaaash——!!!"
In the time it took to blink—
Yhwach was coated from head to toe in pitch black.
Even his facial features vanished, his whole face swallowed by the darkness.
The camera zoomed in,
Giving him a full-body close-up.
"Tch…"
The viewers only needed a single glance.
The sound of people sucking in cold breaths exploded across every corner of the Shinigami world.
Now—
Aside from still having a roughly human silhouette of pure black…
There was no reiatsu, no pressure, no aura at all.
His name stripped away, his power gone—
He'd simply vanished on the spot, dissolving into nothingness!!!
"Holy—"
"This is way too over the top!!!"
"That's the Quincy King! The most evil man in the world! And he…"
"He just gets forcibly erased and turned into a piece of the darkness?!"
Shock.
Awe.
The entire Shinigami world was in an uproar.
Anyone who saw this scene had their worldview blown apart once again,
Utterly crushed by Ichimonji's overwhelming power!!!
"Yaaah, yaaah…"
"Good thing this ranking video was revealed in advance, and Yhwach went to test the waters first."
"Otherwise, in the future, if you just barged into the Royal Palace on a whim, you might have ended up exactly like that…"
As time passed,
Gin Ichimaru's injuries had mostly healed.
And with Yhwach as a shared enemy,
The grudge and distance between him and Aizen had, for the moment, been set aside by unspoken agreement.
They'd slipped back into the kind of conversation they'd had during that hundred-year span before everything went wrong.
Hence the teasing remark he'd just made.
"Gin, you're not wrong…"
Faced with Gin's jab,
Aizen's expression stayed calm. He didn't bother responding directly, but he still admitted the truth:
"If I went up against the Monk without sufficient intel beforehand…"
"Then whether it's Yhwach or myself… the result would be the same."
Once he finished speaking,
Aizen's brow creased.
For once, his face showed a clear disturbance.
Even merely watching from the sidelines in his current, sealed Shinigami state, seeing Yhwach die in such a way on the screen…
Sent a chill down his spine.
He too now regarded Ichimonji as an extremely troublesome Zanpakutō.
Even with Aizen's own strength and cunning,
For the moment he couldn't think of a single effective countermeasure.
In the depths of his heart—
For the first time in his life, he felt that things were slipping out of his control.
That sensation of not holding all the strings…
Sat badly with Aizen, making him uncharacteristically uneasy and annoyed.
"No matter what…"
"Once his name is erased…"
"'Yhwach,' 'Quincy King,' 'Emperor of the Wandenreich'—every title and epithet he ever had will all vanish completely."
"This battle should be wrapping up right about now!!!"
Gin narrowed his eyes in a sigh.
The clash between two rulers had its conclusion: Yhwach's utter defeat.
At the same time,
With this full, live broadcast of the fight,
The Monk and his Zanpakutō Ichimonji had displayed overwhelming power.
For this oldest of Zanpakutō to rank third—
No one dared voice a single objection!!!
——
After that,
The video carried the Monk's mocking whisper aloud to the world:
"You used to be Yhwach's men…"
"Losing your name… must be quite a painful feeling, huh?"
"Next, pitiable as you are… I'll graciously give you a new name!!!"
His mouth twisted, voice edged with fury.
Right now, the Monk looked like a creator god, holding the power to recreate names.
And in truth—
Back when Soul Society itself was born, that was exactly what he'd done!!!
"Whoooosh——!!!"
The massive brush swung again.
Around the Monk's body,
He swept out a wide arc.
But this time…
The streaming "smoke" around him…
Was no longer pitch-black. It had shed its skin and turned pure white.
In a heartbeat, the whole backdrop changed, the darkness blown away.
Viewers' eyes lit up again, all of them filled with curiosity at this new development.
"Shopkeeper…"
"What do you think?"
"What's the Monk planning? Yhwach's already lost."
Inside Urahara's small shop,
Tessai Tsukabishi stroked his chin, his expression puzzled.
At this point, killing Yhwach should've been easy.
All the Monk had to do was stab him through the heart with the brush.
So why go to all this trouble to unleash some new ability?
It might well be… a completely new ultimate technique!
Urahara Kisuke didn't answer right away.
Those emerald-green eyes of his flickered faintly.
He stared at the screen, at the countless white threads of "smoke" dancing like fine silk, twining and spiraling around the Monk.
Finally, in a measured tone, he spoke:
"…If I'm not mistaken, this should be bankai."
"Bankai for the Zanpakutō Ichimonji."
"Huh?"
That answer stunned not only Tessai, but Yoruichi as well.
"You're kidding, right? Just the shikai alone already pushed things to the absolute extreme! Isn't that enough?"
"And he still needs to go bankai?!"
"The Monk's petty as hell—what a ruthless guy!"
Yoruichi clicked her tongue, genuinely shocked.
In her eyes, choosing to go bankai here—
Was basically no different from flogging a corpse.
He was just humiliating the pure-blood Quincy clan at this point!!!
"He can't help it…"
"If you break into the Royal Realm without permission, you'd better be prepared to face this kind of fate."
Urahara shrugged, as if this outcome were only natural.
He was, after all, the head of the Royal Guard—
One of the oldest existences in this world.
If you provoked the Monk on a whim, the ending was going to be a brutal one.
And then,
In front of the camera,
And under the gazes of countless viewers across the Shinigami world—
A shocking scene unfolded.
"True Strike!!!"
"White Brush Ichimonji!!!"
Just as Urahara had guessed.
With a twitch of the Monk's brush, a long band of white "smoke" was suddenly drawn in toward the massive brush, linking up with it.
Now it looked almost like a huge white broom.
Every swing left trails of white, like paint being carelessly slapped down.
"My White Brush Ichimonji…"
"According to the latest terminology Shinigami use these days, I suppose you'd call this bankai."
Facing the camera,
The Monk muttered almost to himself as he calmly explained Ichimonji's power after bankai.
"This blade…"
"Can inscribe new names onto anything that's been painted by Ichimonji."
"And, by doing so… grant them new forms of life! Isn't that just wonderful!!"
His declaration,
Carried by the ranking video, resounded through the real world like thunder.
Hearing it,
Without exception, everyone felt chills down their spine.
Their eyes flew wide open, stunned cries bursting out from every mouth.
"Holy crap!!!"
"He really turned into a creator god!"
"The oldest Zanpakutō, and the oldest bankai… its ability really is beyond imagination!!!"
But the ones panicking the most…
Were the handful of people inside Silbern, the Quincy fortress.
"Damn…"
"That perverted demon monk…"
"What exactly is he planning to carve into His Majesty?!"
Even Haschwalth was rattled this time.
Yhwach wasn't just the progenitor of the pure-blood Quincies.
He was the source of everyone's Schrift powers.
Put simply—without Yhwach,
There would be no Wandenreich.
There would be no Sternritter.
If, next…
The Monk went to extremes—
And carved some unspeakably shameful words onto him—
Then…
The Wandenreich's dignity would be in tatters.
And every pure-blood Quincy would feel humiliated!!!
Yet the more you dread something, the more likely it is to happen.
The answer was revealed in the very next moment.
Haschwalth's heart plummeted.
"Splaaash——!!!"
White "smoke" splattered everywhere.
Under the camera's dynamic tracking, each stroke was shown in crystal-clear detail as it was written, character by character.
Against that sea of pitch-black—
The white stood out far too sharply, drawing everyone's eyes like a magnet.
Just like that,
Those messy strokes were casually scrawled across the black form.
When they finally joined together…
They became two characters—
"Black Ant."
"You used to be Yhwach's black ant…"
"That's what a gap in power looks like. You were never anything more."
"Now then…"
"Just like a black ant—be crushed beneath my heel!!!"
(End of Chapter)
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