The Zero Division Detached Palace trembled violently.
Aizen and Ichibe clashed again and again.
On the vast structure, one terrifying fissure after another opened up.
At the sight of their battle, not only the shinigami of Seireitei were stunned, even the members of the Royal Guard were utterly shaken.
Kirio covered her mouth, staring at the battlefield in shock. "Senjumaru, just how strong has Aizen become?"
Ichibe was the strongest among them; even without releasing his zanpakuto, he possessed power enough to destroy heaven and earth.
It was said that long, long ago, Tenjiro had once challenged Ichibe, and had nearly been beaten to death by nothing more than the man's brush.
Senjumaru's expression was unusually solemn. "Aizen's strength... has already surpassed ours."
Kirio's heart jolted. She understood what Senjumaru meant.
It wasn't that Aizen was just stronger than they were now—Aizen was stronger than them even in their bankai states.
And each of their bankai forms, without exception, possessed enough power to shake all three worlds.
The shinigami of Seireitei, however, were not all that surprised.
After all, in their eyes, Aizen had always been a monstrously strong existence, far beyond reason.
As everyone whispered among themselves, Ichibe suddenly swung his massive brush, blocking Aizen even as he left a single character hanging in midair.
"Honō (Flame)!"
In an instant, heavenly fire surged across the sky.
Roaring flames burst forth from nothingness, igniting half the heavens in a heartbeat.
Beneath the blood-red sky, the temperature of the blaze skyrocketed, like the bankai of Ryūjin Jakka, heat comparable to the surface of the sun.
Aizen didn't even have time to dodge before the searing flames crashed into him head-on.
The white hollow matter covering his body was burned pitch-black.
Landing that one hit, Ichibe gave Aizen no chance to breathe. He roared and swung his brush again, writing several more characters across the sky.
"Kaminari (Thunder)!"
"Kaze (Wind)!"
"Ki (Wood)!"
"Abura (Oil)!"
The instant the four black characters took form, heaven and earth changed color, as if the very rules of the world were being rewritten by those words.
In the sky, lightning danced like serpents.
Thunderbolts fell like divine punishment, like dragons of lightning crashing down from the heavens.
Gales howled through the air.
The invisible wind seemed to turn solid, taking on a pure white form as it rampaged.
On the ground, life erupted.
Thick trees tore up from the earth, their roots like living things, writhing to coil around Aizen.
Last came the oil, pouring down from the sky like a torrential rain, soaking everything for several kilometers around and feeding the flames into an even more frenzied inferno.
Though it all seemed to unfold slowly, in truth, less than a minute had passed.
By the time the shinigami of Seireitei—Shinji, Rukia, and the others—managed to react, the scene before their eyes had already become an apocalypse.
The grasslands burned with sky-devouring fire, tongues of flame shooting up like a mountain of fire into the heavens.
Its heat was enough to ignite anything.
Spears of lightning flickered and crashed down like a torrential shower, forcing everyone to confront the sheer terror of nature's fury.
Aizen's figure was completely swallowed by the sea of lightning and flame.
Yet even after unleashing such an attack, Ichibe still felt it was not enough. He swung his brush once more.
"Fū (Seal)!"
As that single character took shape, countless black symbols appeared out of thin air, writhing toward the flames like venomous serpents before plunging into them.
At a glance, the patterns and curves of those characters were the same as the kido that had once bound Ichigo in the original story—but the power was on a completely different level.
Under the effect of those sigils, the rampaging lightning and scorching flames were compressed, the space they occupied shrinking smaller and smaller.
Only after doing all this did Ichibe finally let out a slow breath and turn a cold gaze toward Cole.
"Human, you were the one who shattered the barrier, weren't you?"
Cole showed no fear. He smiled, eyes narrowing in amusement, and nodded. "Yeah. I wanted you to deal with Aizen. Aren't you amazing? You've already sealed him, haven't you?"
Ichibe's attitude was far less amiable than in the original story. His eyes grew colder as he swung his brush.
"Do you have any idea what the Soul King Palace represents? How dare you do something like this?"
Cole raised an eyebrow and pointed toward Seireitei outside the Soul King Palace. "But if you didn't make a move, Seireitei would be in danger. It might even be destroyed."
The shinigami of Seireitei couldn't help nodding. They truly had no confidence that they could defeat Aizen.
But hearing this, Ichibe's expression did not improve at all. His voice remained icy.
"So what? As long as the Soul King Palace is unharmed, it doesn't matter if Seireitei is destroyed. It can be rebuilt."
In the endless span of his existence, the thousand years since Seireitei's creation were nothing but a passing flicker.
You could say that, in his eyes, the entirety of Seireitei was not even as important as a single hair on the Soul King's head.
Everyone present among the shinigami wore an exceptionally ugly expression.
They understood the Soul King's importance, of course—but hearing themselves belittled so brutally still made their hearts twist with discomfort.
As he spoke, Ichibe raised his brush again, his voice sinking low.
"Human, you invaded the Soul King Palace and damaged its structures. According to the laws of the Soul King Palace, I will now execute you..."
Cole still showed no fear. He only glanced at the compressed mass of fire and lightning and chuckled.
"Ichibe, don't tell me you honestly think you've sealed Aizen with just those few tricks."
Ichibe frowned, clearly unwilling to entertain Cole's words. He continued to swing his brush, speaking in a cold voice.
"Human, trying to change the subject is pointless. Pay the price for what you've done."
The character he wrote this time was "Jū (Weight)."
As the final stroke fell, Cole felt as if more than a dozen mountains had been piled onto his body, trying to crush him to his knees.
Yet he did not fall. He only wobbled slightly before steadying himself, smiling as he spoke.
"What's wrong, Ichibe? Is that all you've got? Too weak. I'm really not afraid of this kind of brute-force shinigami."
As he spoke, Cole stepped forward, swinging his staff down toward Ichibe.
Ichibe swung his massive brush without hesitation.
The instant staff and brush collided, a savage wave of cold surged out in all directions from the point of impact. Even Rukia almost lost her footing.
As for the likes of Nanao, who were weaker than Rukia, their bodies were nearly blown away.
Even someone as powerful as Ichibe couldn't help but take a step back under that strike. His gaze fell on the golden staff in Cole's hand, a trace of shock appearing in his eyes.
"What's with that zanpakuto? Why can't I see its name?"
He was the leader of the royal special task force, the Zero Division. Millions of years ago, the Soul King had granted him the name "Monk of the Eye," meaning the one who calls forth true names—later written as "Monk Who Calls the True Name."
And he was the first namer of all things in Soul Society.
"Zanpakuto," "shikai," "bankai"—those three terms had all been coined by him.
From the moment an asauchi was handed into a shinigami's hands, he would know the blade's name.
Take Rukia's Sode no Shirayuki as an example.
When Sode no Shirayuki had still been in its asauchi form and was delivered into Rukia's hands, even then Ichibe had already known the blade's abilities—even its bankai.
It was like a weakened version of true omniscience.
After recalling this, Ichibe pointed his right hand at Cole, his tone grave.
"Why can't I see the true name of your zanpakuto?"
(End of Chapter)
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