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Currently at chapter 126
The muscles and bones felt like they were melting, unraveling in slow motion.
In addition to the weakening sensation brought on by Sanctification, Kanbaru's body began to deteriorate rapidly.
This was the side effect Kurotsuchi Mayuri had mentioned—a probable gene collapse triggered by the serum.
But because of the Hōgyoku's protection, that collapse didn't progress.
Instead, it initiated another leap in Kanbaru's existence.
Reiatsu, strength, speed, endurance, defense—even his very life level—underwent a sudden and massive evolution.
The forces merged, and the overwhelming pressure of Reiatsu washed across his entire being.
This was not simply a temporary power boost.
It was bloodline evolution.
"Is this... Blut Vene?"
The free-floating Reishi in the air rushed toward him, rapidly assimilating into his body.
Branching, vein-like lines crawled over the surface of his skin. Faint, but undeniable—they were the markings of a Quincy bloodline awakening.
The Blut system—specifically Blut Vene, the defensive version—had activated.
With this layered atop Kanbaru's own defenses, even if he simply stood still and took a hit full-on, a captain-level Shinigami would find it nearly impossible to breach his defense!
This was more than power.
This was lifeform evolution.
And the Hōgyoku's fusion was what made it possible.
Compared to the flawed Hōgyoku, the complete one offered far more: seamless fusion speed, stabilization, and exponential power amplification.
BOOM!
In that moment, blue-violet Reiatsu exploded outward, surging in spiderweb patterns across the ground and walls before collapsing back into Kanbaru's frame—converging with the blood-red vascular lines.
Fusion, complete.
The perfected Hōgyoku had fully merged with his soul.
And so too had his pure Quincy bloodline.
"Then next... it's your turn."
Kanbaru flexed his fists, feeling both the overwhelming power... and the strain.
His gaze turned cold.
"You really thought you could just keep using me for Sanctification?"
There was no hesitation now.
Kanbaru dove straight into the spiritual core of the Hōgyoku, using it to wrest back his stolen Reiatsu.
When Sanctification occurs, it opens an invisible gate—one that forcibly pulls both life force and spiritual power from the Quincy to empower Yhwach.
That's the curse of being a pureblood Quincy.
It forges an automatic link to Yhwach... and makes one vulnerable to his theft.
But now, Kanbaru was reversing it.
BOOM!
The bloody vein-like lines surged across his body once again—the power of Blut Vene: Anhaben, fully active!
At the same time...
A steady, relentless stream of Reiatsu was being drawn back—this time, not stolen, but retrieved.
It was his own Reiatsu.
"If you were awake, even slightly, I wouldn't dare try something like this," Kanbaru murmured.
"But it'll still be another twenty years before you truly wake."
"And if this is the extent of the power Sanctification can use while you're unconscious..."
Reiatsu kept flooding in, growing heavier and denser.
There was no denying it.
Yhwach was becoming stronger—even while in slumber.
Not only had he returned to his peak... he was surpassing it.
But for now, Kanbaru was right—Yhwach couldn't awaken so easily.
He still needed to sleep, stealing strength from the Quincy across generations.
Which meant...
He was vulnerable.
And in this spiritual tug-of-war, Yhwach was on the losing end.
Not only that—Kanbaru wasn't just reclaiming his own Reiatsu.
He was taking some of Yhwach's as well.
The Hōgyoku, at its perfect level, actively assisted in the theft—analyzing, countering, and integrating Yhwach's energy signature to pull the threads of power directly into Kanbaru.
What had once been a slow integration was now accelerating.
The Hōgyoku-Kanbaru fusion progressed rapidly.
And then—
As if sensing the power loss...
Sanctification was canceled.
Yhwach had retreated into deep slumber once again.
It was over.
Kanbaru pressed his hand gently to his chest, feeling the warmth of the Hōgyoku and the residual heat of the scarlet veins still faintly visible across his skin.
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
This time, the harvest was immense.
"In the end, all my Reiatsu returned to me."
With a quiet hum, Kanbaru canceled the enchantment that blocked outside perception.
Although the trip to Soul Society had been filled with risk, the reward had proven worth it.
At the very least—
The fusion speed with the Hōgyoku had multiplied by nearly tenfold.
The difference between a perfected Hōgyoku and the flawed version was staggering—they weren't even in the same realm of comparison.
Not only had he retrieved every ounce of stolen Reiatsu...
He'd even captured a small portion of Yhwach's own power.
Kanbaru could feel it.
He'd grown much, much stronger.
"What the hell did you just do?"
"Why'd you suddenly set up an enchantment?"
As the visual and auditory barrier dissolved, Kurotsuchi Mayuri eyed Kanbaru with sharp suspicion—only to freeze mid-sentence as his pupils shrank.
"Wait a minute..."
"Is that a successful fusion I'm sensing?"
"How the hell did you manage that?!"
"And this woman beside you—she's Adjuchas-class Menos, isn't she? No, wait—an Arrancar of Adjuchas level, right?!"
"You're not just pulling tricks, are you? Did you really achieve full fusion?"
Kurotsuchi Mayuri's voice trembled, not out of fear, but from the rush of scientific madness and curiosity.
Perfect Hōgyoku fusion?
It was something even Aizen Sōsuke had failed to control in full.
Even though Aizen had reached a transcendent state, he was ultimately sealed—his fusion remained unstable, and his evolution incomplete due to resistance from the Hōgyoku itself.
But the situation here was different.
Kanbaru had harmonized with the Hōgyoku.
He didn't suppress it like Aizen had tried to. He resonated with it.
And that made all the difference.
"I didn't 'do' anything," Kanbaru replied plainly, brushing aside the bloodline markings still fading into his skin.
"It was the Hōgyoku... and myself. We accepted each other."
"Accepted?" Mayuri's voice rose in pitch. "That thing chooses on its own! Even Aizen couldn't force it! Are you saying... it recognized you?!"
Kanbaru didn't answer.
He simply looked down at his palm, where threads of spiritual light coiled and danced faintly.
That was no mere Reiatsu.
It was a manifestation of potential—the Hōgyoku pushing the boundaries of what Kanbaru could become.
The orb didn't forcibly twist its host into something unnatural. Not when it was complete. A perfect Hōgyoku worked in tandem with the soul's deepest desire.
And Kanbaru had only one desire: freedom from all systems of control, including Yhwach's domination.
The Hōgyoku responded to that clarity.
It resonated with it.
Just as it had rejected Aizen's delusions of godhood, it responded to Kanbaru's intent to evolve and remain independent.
Mayuri's eyes burned behind his lenses.
"It's impossible... no, improbable. Statistically unrecorded! And this Arrancar next to you, how are you suppressing her Hollow Reiatsu? Wait—no, don't tell me... Is she connected to the fusion?!"
Kanbaru cast a sideways glance at the Adjuchas-class Arrancar girl silently observing.
She hadn't moved since the process started, and yet her spiritual pressure now held a faint Quincy resonance—as if a subtle Hōgyoku-derived Reishi adaptation had taken place within her, too.
"She resonated during the fusion," Kanbaru said slowly, watching Mayuri's expression twist into something between horror and ecstasy.
"It's likely temporary, but for now, her spiritual nature has stabilized."
Mayuri's jaw clenched. "You... used her to moderate the balance of spiritual components during the fusion. That's not a resonance. That's a living spiritual circuit stabilizer!"
Kanbaru turned away, uninterested in indulging Mayuri's scientific ravings.
He had no need to explain everything.
He had gotten what he came for.
And more.
The most important thing wasn't just the Hōgyoku's fusion. It was what came after.
Thanks to the short tug-of-war during Sanctification, Kanbaru had successfully rewritten the Quincy link within his soul—severing his dependency on Yhwach's system.
In other words...
He could now draw from Quincy powers freely, without being drained by Yhwach.
He was liberated.
Even Uryū Ishida, the last pureblood Quincy in canon, had never achieved this level of independence—not with the Emperor's shadow looming over every Quincy soul.
But Kanbaru had managed it.
With the perfect Hōgyoku's help, he had evolved beyond even the Vandenreich's framework.
It was not just survival.
It was ascension.
Mayuri, still seething with questions, clenched a mechanical fist, his grin twitching.
"You—! You just restructured your entire soul system while bypassing the Emperor's anchor...!"
"Not bypassed," Kanbaru corrected.
"Severed."
"Impossible," Mayuri hissed. "That's like denying the sun's existence!"
"No," Kanbaru replied, his tone absolute.
"It's like becoming the sun yourself."
The bloody lines across his skin faded entirely, replaced by a warm pulse of Reiatsu that burned clean, focused, and complete.
The fusion was irreversible now.
And unlike Aizen's grotesque, ever-mutating form—Kanbaru retained his humanity, his stability, his agency.
That was the difference between forcing evolution...
...and earning it.
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