Chapter 57: Hegemony vs. One-Step Return to Blade!
Before Suzaku could even finish his commentary on the depths of Ulquiorra's strength, an anomaly occurred in the sky above the Little Garden that silenced the entire jungle.
The air pressure didn't just drop; it vanished, replaced by a suffocating heaviness that pressed against the eardrums.
High above the prehistoric canopy, where the two massive Giants stood ready to crush the ant-sized intruder, a terrifying singularity began to form.
Ulquiorra Cifer, hovering in mid-air with his hands deep in his pockets, finally removed his right hand. His expression remained a mask of absolute indifference as he pointed a single, pale index finger at the titans towering over him.
Zzzzt...
The atmosphere screamed.
A sphere of pitch-black energy, rimmed with sickly, neon-green lightning, began to condense at his fingertip. It was small, no larger than a marble at first, but it possessed a gravitational weight that distorted the light around it. It didn't reflect the sunlight; it devoured it, creating a hole in reality.
The prehistoric insects of the jungle—creatures that had buzzed for millions of years—stopped chirping instantly. The dinosaurs in the distance, from the massive Brachiosaurus to the ferocious T-Rex, fell silent. Every living creature with a survival instinct froze, their biological alarms ringing with the threat of extinction.
"That energy..." Brogy's eyes widened. His warrior intuition, honed by a century of constant battle, was screaming danger. The hairs on his massive arms stood up. "It's not Haki! It feels cold... like the underworld itself! What is that?!"
"Oh~!" Suzaku, watching from the ground with his arms crossed, raised an eyebrow. A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. "He's starting with that right off the bat? That's a 'Cero Oscuras'—the Black Zero. It seems he really hates wasting time."
The next moment, Ulquiorra's lips moved barely an inch.
"Cero."
BOOM!!!
The sound was not an explosion; it was the roar of a tear in the fabric of space.
A massive, bluish-black pillar of destructive light erupted from Ulquiorra's fingertip. It tore through the sky, obliterating the clouds and twisting the very space around it. The beam was wide enough to swallow a Navy galleon whole, and it moved faster than the blink of an eye, leaving a trail of distorted vacuum in its wake.
"Guard!!!" Dorry roared, his voice cracking with urgency as he raised the remnants of his shield.
"Too fast!" Brogy yelled, desperately crossing his massive axe in front of his chest.
The destructive pillar of light slammed into the two Giants with the force of a meteor impact.
KABOOOM!
The explosion was blinding. A dome of green and black energy expanded outward, vaporizing the ancient trees in a radius of hundreds of meters. The ground shook violently, cracks spreading like spiderwebs beneath Nami's feet, magma bubbling up from deep within the earth due to the sudden pressure change.
A shockwave of superheated air, pulverized rock, and dust roared toward Suzaku's group like a physical tsunami.
"Eek!" Nami shrieked, crouching down and covering her head with her arms. "We're going to die!"
The wall of debris, moving at supersonic speeds, threatened to flay the skin from their bones.
Just as the destruction was about to hit them, a graceful figure stepped forward.
Albedo didn't rush. She didn't panic. She simply moved to stand in front of Suzaku, her back to the explosion, her beautiful face utterly calm and composed.
"Insolence," she whispered, her golden eyes flashing.
She waved her hand casually, as if swatting away a fly.
Ping.
A complex, translucent golden hexagon barrier—a Tier Magic spell from Yggdrasil—materialized in the air instantly.
[Skill: Wall of Jericho]
The roaring shockwave, capable of leveling a town, slammed into the barrier. Instead of shattering, the force was diverted harmlessly to the sides, carving deep trenches into the jungle behind them. Inside the barrier, the air remained still. Not a single speck of dust touched the hem of Suzaku's crimson coat.
"Wow! Ulquiorra... Ulquiorra is so amazing!" Nami peeked out from behind Albedo's black wing, her jaw dropping as she looked at the mushroom cloud rising in the distance. "He created an explosion that big with just his finger?! Is he a human weapon?!"
Rem, standing beside Suzaku with her morning star flail ready, nodded vigorously. Her azure eyes sparkled with professional admiration. "Lady Albedo is also very powerful! Her barrier deployment speed was instantaneous. Perfect defense!"
However, Albedo didn't look pleased by the praise. A trace of obvious impatience flashed across her delicate face. She brushed a stray leaf away from Suzaku's shoulder with a look of disgust, treating the apocalypse behind her as a minor annoyance.
"How noisy..." she complained softly, her golden eyes narrowing at the dust cloud. "This unnecessary commotion... the dust raised will surely tarnish Lord Suzaku's heroic appearance. It is truly unforgivable. That bat needs to learn restraint, or I will pluck his wings."
"That's enough, Albedo," Suzaku chuckled, reaching out to pat her head. "He's just doing his job. Efficiently."
He turned to the stunned Nami and Rem, assuming the role of the knowledgeable captain explaining the terrifying reality of their crew.
"And just so you know, Nami... this is far from Ulquiorra's full strength."
"Ehhhh?!" Nami's eyes popped out, looking like they might fall from her sockets. "That wasn't full strength?! He just nuked the island!"
"Not even close," Suzaku grinned, enjoying her reaction. "Arrancars like him have a release form called 'Resurrección.' You can think of it as a Zoan-type Devil Fruit awakening, but for their soul. And Ulquiorra... he's special. Unlike others, he has two stages."
He held up two fingers.
"With each release, his power increases geometrically. If he completes the 'Second Stage Resurrección,' the power he gains... well, I haven't tested it yet against this world's power system, but I estimate it will be at least comparable to a Marine Admiral."
"Admiral?!" Nami slumped against a giant fern, dizzy. "You mean like Aokiji or Kizaru? Those monsters? We have a Kizaru on our ship?!"
"Better," Suzaku winked. "We have a Nihilist Batman."
As the dust from the Cero Oscuras began to settle, a groan echoed from the crater, sounding like the earth itself was in pain.
The smoke cleared, revealing the miserable yet imposing figures of the two Giants.
Dorry and Brogy were still standing.
Their heavy Viking armor was shattered, hanging off their massive frames in scrap metal. Their bronze skin was covered in crisscrossing scorch marks, smoke rising from their flesh where the spiritual energy had burned them. The ground around them had been turned into molten glass.
But they were standing. Their feet were planted deep into the bedrock.
"Gah... hah..." Brogy coughed up a mouthful of blood, gripping his melted axe handle. "That... stung a bit."
"Heh..." Dorry wiped soot from his beard, his eyes burning with an intense, blue flame. "A bit? That nearly took my head off, Brogy! Don't act tough! Your beard is on fire!"
"Look who's talking! Your shield is gone! It vaporized!"
Despite their severe injuries, the two Giants exchanged a glance. They didn't see fear in each other's eyes. They saw the fire of Elbaf.
"Warriors of Elbaf..." Dorry rumbled, straightening his back, ignoring the pain of his burnt skin.
"...Do not fall so easily!" Brogy finished, his voice rising to a roar that shook the remaining leaves off the trees.
The two titans raised their broken weapons. Their fighting spirit ignited the air around them, a visible red aura of pure warrior will. For a hundred years, they had fought each other to a standstill. Pain was their old friend. This intruder was just another challenge.
"What an astonishing physique," Suzaku murmured, genuinely impressed. "To take a Cero Oscuras head-on and still want to fight... The vitality of the Giant Race is truly absurd. No wonder the World Government has spent centuries trying to gigantify their soldiers."
In the distance, Ulquiorra hovered silently above the devastation he had caused. His emerald pupils reflected the charging behemoths, yet there was still no ripple of emotion within them. No surprise. No disappointment. Just cold analysis.
"Stubborn," Ulquiorra stated flatly. "You possess no hope of victory, yet you persist. Illogical."
He did not retreat. Instead, just as the Giants' massive weapons—Dorry's Terry Sword and Brogy's Bruiser Axe—were about to crush him in a pincer move, his figure vanished.
He didn't run; he ceased to exist in that location.
Zwoosh.
"Sonído."
The next instant, he appeared standing on Dorry's shoulder. To the Giant, it felt like a mosquito had landed, but the intent was lethal.
Ulquiorra's katana, Murciélago, flashed in a cold arc.
Slash!
A fountain of blood erupted from Dorry's neck.
"What?!" Dorry swatted at his shoulder, but he hit nothing but air.
Before the Giant could even register the pain, Ulquiorra flickered again, appearing at Brogy's knee. The blade flashed.
Slash!
Brogy roared as his tendon was severed, forcing him to one knee with a ground-shaking thud.
Moving at a super-high speed that the naked eye could not catch, the Arrancar wove a deadly net of steel around the two Giants. He was a blur of white and black, a wasp stinging two elephants.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
"Too fast!" Dorry shouted, swinging blindly at the air. The wind pressure from his sword cut the clouds, but he couldn't touch the small man. "I can't see him with my eyes!"
"He's everywhere!" Brogy yelled, covering his face as cuts appeared on his arms. "My Observation Haki can't keep up!"
In seconds, the two legends were covered in dozens of shallow but bleeding wounds. Blood rained down on the jungle floor like a macabre storm, dyeing the ferns crimson.
Dorry and Brogy panted heavily, standing back to back to cover each other's blind spots. They knew things were bad. They were outmatched in speed, and their legendary durability was failing against the Arrancar's spiritual steel. Continuing like this would surely lead to a disgraceful defeat.
"Brogy!" Dorry shouted, his voice deep and resolute. "We have no choice! Let's use that move!"
"Yes!" Brogy nodded, gripping his axe with both hands, his eyes blazing. "Let him witness the pride of Elbaf! The technique that can pierce the Red Line itself! If we can't hit him with speed, we'll hit him with everything we have in one blow!"
The two Giants suddenly pulled away from each other, creating space. They planted their feet firmly, cracking the bedrock to anchor themselves.
They raised their weapons high above their heads. Dorry's Terry Sword and Brogy's Bruiser Axe crossed in the air.
A massive vortex of air pressure began to swirl around them. The clouds above began to spiral downward, sucked into the vacuum created by their immense strength.
"Focus every ounce of strength!" Dorry roared, his muscles bulging to the point of tearing.
"For the glory of the Giant Warrior Pirates!" Brogy bellowed.
Massive energy—a combination of physical might, shockwaves, and warrior spirit—began to converge at the tips of their weapons. The shockwave caused the trees to bend and snap for miles around.
"HAKOKU...!" (Sovereignty...!)
The two weapons swung forward in perfect unison.
"...SOVEREIGNTY!!!"
BOOOOOM!!!
A colossal cylinder of compressed air pressure, shaped like a spiraling drill, shot forth from their weapons. It tore through the fabric of the atmosphere, disintegrating everything in its path. It was a localized hurricane, a beam of pure destruction aimed directly at the tiny white figure floating in the sky.
This was the ultimate technique of the Giant Race. A move capable of killing the Island Eater goldfish. A move that even Big Mom would later mimic.
Facing this combined attack, powerful enough to erase an island from the map, Ulquiorra finally stopped moving.
He hovered in the direct path of the beam. His white coat fluttered violently in the wind pressure, threatening to tear away.
"Power," Ulquiorra whispered, watching the destruction approach. "Raw, unrefined power. Is this your answer to the emptiness?"
He slowly raised his katana. He pointed the tip of the blade down, perpendicular to the ground.
The air around him darkened.
It wasn't just a visual change. A heavy, suffocating spiritual pressure—like an ocean of cold, black water—began to leak from his body. It washed over the island, causing Nami to fall to her knees, gasping for air.
Green rain began to fall from the sky. It wasn't water; it was condensed Reiatsu.
"Then I shall show you... true despair."
Ulquiorra's voice was low, clear, and echoed across the battlefield, drowning out the roar of the Giants' attack.
"Enclose, Murciélago."
FLASH!
A pillar of black and green spiritual energy erupted from Ulquiorra, expanding instantly to meet the Giants' Hakoku Sovereignty head-on!
"BOOM——!!!"
The collision was apocalyptic.
The blinding light swallowed the entire Little Garden. The violent energy clash pressed the ground at the center of the collision down, creating a massive crater. Shattered stones turned instantly into powder. The sound was so loud it rendered Nami temporarily deaf.
"Is... is the island sinking?!" Rem shouted, shielding Suzaku from the wind.
When the light finally dissipated, silence returned to the jungle. But it was a heavy, fearful silence.
Dorry and Brogy gasped for breath, their chests heaving. They leaned on their broken weapons, staring nervously toward the center of the explosion, hoping against hope that their strongest attack had worked.
"Did... did we win?" Brogy wheezed, blood dripping from his beard.
"How is that possible..." Dorry whispered, his eye twitching. "Even our 'Hakoku'... hit nothing but darkness..."
Their whispers stopped abruptly.
Within the clearing smoke and dust, a new figure slowly emerged.
He was no longer the small, slender man in a white coat.
He was a demon.
His upper body was clad in a white, form-fitting bone carapace. Deep, dark green markings ran down his pale face like tears of the abyss, stretching from his eyes to the bottom of his jaw.
A pair of gigantic, black bat wings slowly unfurled behind him, blocking out the sun and casting a long, terrifying shadow over the Giants.
A ghastly white bone helmet with curved horns sat atop his head. The spiritual pressure emanating from him was heavy, dense, and suffocating—like being crushed at the bottom of the deep sea. It was several times stronger than before.
He held a light-javelin made of green energy in his hand, humming with the power to erase souls.
Ulquiorra Cifer. First Stage Resurrección: Murciélago. Complete.
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