At the top of the white tower.
Tateno Shinkotsu sat on the edge of the roof, gazing down below.
"Yhwach..." she said in a low voice. "I can't let you take this power..."
She stood up, her silver braided hair longer than her own height.
Tateno Shinkotsu leaped from the tower and landed beside Katori Sora.
The two 'Yhwachs' opposite them had already been bound by Sora and Kagehime's shadows, unable to move.
Their bodies were merely composed of the reishi transmitted by the giant eye; they were not strong.
"Tateno Shinkotsu?"
Sora looked at the withdrawn girl who had suddenly appeared, feeling a bit puzzled.
Tateno Shinkotsu's personality was very introverted, and she rarely interacted with him.
He had asked Kagehime, and even though they both resided in his inner world, Tateno Shinkotsu never initiated a conversation with her.
"Let me do it," a white blade appeared in Tateno Shinkotsu's hand. "If you destroy him like this, you will drive out Yhwach's will, but you will also send this Quincy power back to him."
"You can strip the Quincy power from his body?" Sora asked.
Tateno Shinkotsu's ability was to reduce the spiritual pressure within a spiritual body.
However, Sora rarely used it because the amount of spiritual pressure she reduced was fixed, and her blade had to physically enter the body to trigger the ability.
One cut could reduce an amount of spiritual pressure roughly equivalent to one-third of a seated officer's.
But most enemies Sora had faced in the past were on the brink of death after being cut by him, leaving no opportunity for her to be useful.
"Shinigami power, Quincy power... they are all the same to me. It's all just reishi," Tateno Shinkotsu slowly walked forward and plunged her white blade into 'Yhwach's' body.
She pulled out the blade, and reishi gushed out from the wound.
The other 'Yhwach' clone suffered the same fate. After being stabbed, reishi poured from its wound.
The bodies of the two 'Yhwachs' rapidly collapsed, turning into a sky full of reishi.
These particles were the Quincy power that 'Yhwach' had absorbed, and they were now being released.
After their forms collapsed, they quickly turned into two black substances the size of water droplets.
"The Quincy power remains here..."
Sora's expression relaxed. With this power remaining here, his own Quincy power could now hatch quickly.
Sora pinched the blade of his sword between two fingers.
Golden flames, flickering with arcs of lightning, instantly ignited the blade.
He released his fingers, and a stream of golden light instantly engulfed the two black droplets.
The reishi filling the sky converged onto the giant cocoon.
The blue threads of the cocoon were like dry wood meeting a blazing fire, and their glow became even brighter.
The cocoon's volume gradually began to increase again.
...
Meanwhile, deep within the Wandenreich.
Thump—
A sound like a drumbeat or a thunderclap came from the depths of the Wandenreich.
All the Quincy in the empire heard it.
They rushed towards the Quincy King's chambers but were stopped in the corridor by a man with long, golden hair.
A middle-aged man with short, ivory-colored hair and beard, wearing square glasses, asked:
"Haschwalth, you must have heard that just now, right? Was that His Majesty's heartbeat returning?!"
"It is not yet the day of His Majesty's prophecy. You need not worry. It will be some time before His Majesty awakens," Jugram Haschwalth shook his head.
He was also puzzled by the sound, but His Majesty could not be wrong.
His Majesty was accumulating power and needed to sleep for 900 years before his heartbeat would return.
There was still a long time until the day of his awakening.
"But we all heard it just now!"
"Yes, the sound came from the chambers!"
"It sounded exactly like a heartbeat! Just a little louder!"
The Quincy were not satisfied with Haschwalth's answer.
They had been in this sunless place for too long and were eager for His Majesty to lead them to a bright future.
"This is His Majesty's bedchamber. Do not be loud here."
Jugram Haschwalth looked calmly at the noisy crowd.
"But... we really did hear a sound just now..."
"Haschwalth, did you go in to check the situation?"
The Quincy were still unwilling to give up and wanted to go in to confirm Yhwach's condition.
"His Majesty's sleep must not be disturbed by anyone, including myself," Haschwalth shook his head, his gaze gradually turning cold, and his tone becoming commanding. "If His Majesty has truly awakened, he will come out on his own. Withdraw. Do not make a scene here."
After Yhwach fell asleep, the Wandenreich was managed by Jugram Haschwalth.
Forced by his authority, the Quincy, though reluctant, eventually left.
"Tch... didn't get anything out of him."
A red-haired young man standing in the distance only walked over after the crowd had dispersed.
He was Bazz-B, Haschwalth's childhood friend.
"Haschwalth, what the hell was that?" Bazz-B asked cockily. "Don't tell me it was a hallucination. Did that many people all have a hallucination at the same time?"
"Perhaps His Majesty's power is recovering," Haschwalth answered calmly.
"Heh... if you don't want to say, then fine," Bazz-B gave a deep look towards the back of the chambers and left the corridor.
After Bazz-B left, Haschwalth stood alone in the corridor for a while, lost in thought.
He had actually gone into the chambers just now.
As the current administrator of the Wandenreich and Yhwach's guard, he had rushed to his side the moment he heard the sound.
Yhwach had not yet awakened.
However, Haschwalth had heard His Majesty's voice, a voice that resounded in his mind.
"The one who has stolen His Majesty's power..."
Haschwalth whispered to himself.
.....
After Sora eliminated Yhwach's will, the information on his panel changed again.
The cocoon was absorbing the scattered Quincy power.
The percentage after 'Gestating' was increasing rapidly.
Gestating 6%... 12%... 21%... 90%... 99%...
Quincy Power (Gestating 100%)
After the cocoon absorbed all the scattered Quincy power, the progress directly reached one hundred percent!
Suddenly, the cocoon glowed with a brilliant blue light, then shattered like a broken eggshell.
Specks of blue light gathered into a human form.
The blue light soon faded. The cocoon was gone.
In its place was a young woman.
She had orange, wavy hair that reached her waist, and she was wearing a white dress. Long white gloves extended past her elbows, and her legs were covered by white boots that reached her knees.
"Even her clothes are the same as Tsukisaki Kurosaki's..." Sora couldn't help but say.
"Because in your impression, this is how I should look," the young woman said softly
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