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"Again…"
"Another reversal?!"
Staring blankly upward at the blood raining down from the heavens, Ikkaku Madarame, standing at the edge of the battlefield, panicked and touched his bare head.
Blood.
Mixed with chunks of raw flesh.
The stench was so strong it made his stomach churn.
Unfortunately, Ikkaku did not even have time to throw up.
Because—
"Hah! Hahahahahaha…"
After bursting free and being reborn once more, the Soul King's left arm spoke again, its human speech now disturbingly fluent.
"Mayuri, does this laugh sound familiar? I copied it from you!"
Its sheer size made it seem like it had its own built-in loudspeaker. That eerie laughter rolled outward, echoing across hundreds of meters.
It completely dominated the ruined battlefield.
"…"
Mayuri's expression darkened, but he said nothing.
Yet there was no panic in his eyes.
Instead—
a clear flash of disdain.
"What's that look supposed to mean?" the Soul King's left arm snapped, instantly catching his gaze. "Are you looking down on me?!"
"Why ask when you already know the answer?"
Mayuri raised his head and met its gaze calmly, his voice cold with mockery.
"Did you really think I forgot that you're a 'pure-blood Quincy'? Of course not."
"I just never expected this…"
"The Soul King's left arm, willingly debasing itself, shamelessly becoming an ordinary Quincy."
"Your identity. Your choice. How utterly low-class."
His tone was flat, almost casual.
But every word cut deep.
Each sentence was like a blade, stabbing straight into the core of Pernida Parnkgjas.
And naturally, it enraged it.
"Shut up!"
"I'm sick of it! Sick of you looking down on pure-blood Quincies over and over again!"
"So… die!"
…
This time, there was no reversal.
With nothing left to stop it, Mayuri was no longer as lucky as before.
Under the wide-area bombardment of holy arrows, his figure was completely swallowed by the blinding explosion.
And there, the battle footage ended.
This round of the ranking was officially over.
Inside Silbern.
"Hmph. I said it from the beginning," Valkyrie laughed heartily, utterly satisfied. "In the face of absolute power, all those tricks and schemes mean nothing."
His eyes gleamed with anticipation.
After all, setting aside Askin Nakk Le Vaar, who had only been promoted later, both he and the Soul King's left arm were members of the Schutzstaffel.
Valkyrie was certain that if those two had made the list, then his own ranking, as the true Soul King's heart, would only be higher.
"Too bad I didn't get to see that mad scientist torn to pieces," Bazz-B muttered, raising a finger that glowed red-hot. "But I'll remember the name 'Mayuri' for good."
"If I ever get the chance, I'll be the first one to kill him."
A dangerous glint flashed in his eyes.
As one of the more aggressive members of the Sternritter, Bazz-B had been in a foul mood ever since he failed to appear on the list.
He never believed he was inferior to the Schutzstaffel, let alone Haschwalth.
He just hadn't had the right chance to show his full power.
So if he could take down someone like Mayuri, someone who drew endless hatred, that would be a perfect opportunity to prove himself.
Elsewhere.
Inside the Twelfth Division barracks.
As the screen faded to black, the atmosphere in the Research and Development Institute grew heavy once more.
Everyone wisely played dead, not daring to provoke Mayuri at a time like this.
Only Akon gathered enough courage to speak up.
"Captain… are you alright?"
"Heh heh…"
Mayuri's response was a dismissive chuckle.
"Akon, you worry too much. I'm not that fragile."
His tone was calm and unforced.
In truth, the outcome of the battle had not affected Mayuri's mood at all.
On the contrary—
the information revealed through that fight only strengthened his resolve and clarified his goals.
In the past, when working on biological modification and forbidden technology, he had occasionally experienced brief moments of doubt.
But from now on, that would never happen again.
This battle made one thing perfectly clear to him.
Once he chose a path, he would follow it to the very end, no matter how dark it became.
"As long as you're fine, Captain. I was worried you might… you know, take it badly," Akon said, finally letting out a sigh of relief.
"Heh. Instead of worrying about my feelings," Mayuri replied coolly, "you'd be better off thinking about who'll appear in the next ranking."
Sentimentality never worked on him.
So he simply jumped straight to the next topic.
Akon frowned and thought for a moment before shaking his head.
"Hard to say. There hasn't really been any obvious pattern so far. It's impossible to predict."
"Still…" he added after a pause, "the last round had two pure-blood Quincies tied at eighth place. There's no way the next one will be another pure-blood Quincy, right?"
He muttered it offhandedly.
But in the very next second—
the new text appearing on the screen slapped him right in the face.
[NO.7]
[Pierces All Things, Infinite Sniping]
[God's Scale, Miracle Rebirth]
…
The sudden appearance of the text instantly drew everyone's attention.
"Heh…"
"Akon, you jinxed it. You really did," Mayuri said with an annoyed frown.
After the previous round, one glance at the description was enough for him to know.
This one was related to the Quincies again.
"…"
Ajin was speechless.
His heart gave a violent jolt.
No way.Are there really monsters in the Sternritter even stronger than the two freaks from the last round?
That was terrifying.
"Captain Mayuri…"
"Could it be that giant guard who showed up before, and that so-called god's messenger who got solo-killed by Kyōraku Shunsui during the earlier tally?"
One of the seated officers suddenly remembered something and blurted it out.
"Hm? Those two?"After a brief pause, Mayuri Kurotsuchi nodded slowly. "Very possible. After all, their opponents already made the list."
"But…"
"What you just said actually reminded me of something."
The corners of Mayuri's mouth curled upward in an intrigued grin. "In the clips we saw earlier, those two were each clearly killed once. So why did they still make it into the top ten?"
"Which means… what we saw before was only part of the fight. The final outcome obviously wasn't shown."
"Captain Mayuri, you mean…" Ajin's eyes widened.
"Heh. Forgive my bluntness, but the real ending was probably the opposite of what we saw."
"In the end, it was likely Kyōraku Shunsui and Zaraki Kenpachi who were killed."
In front of all his subordinates, Mayuri calmly stated a conclusion that was almost impossible to accept.
Meanwhile.
As the subtitles slowly faded, the scene shifted once more back to the Royal Palace.
"Yo…"
"One, two, three, four…"
"Just one more head and that makes five. How about you cut off your own head, hmm? Quincy King, Yhwach."
The moment the scene opened, Oetsu Nimaiya's familiar voice rang out.
And his words instantly caused an uproar.
"King of the Quincies?!""So the true ruler behind the Wandenreich is finally coming into the open?"
Inside the small shop, Kurosaki Isshin stared in shock. He hadn't expected this round of the ranking to connect back to Oetsu's earlier battle.
And more importantly…
The legendary Quincy King was finally about to show himself.
Sure enough, as the camera moved, following Oetsu's line of sight—
A ferocious figure appeared where he was looking.
Beneath long black hair were sharp, deeply set features and a brutal expression.Those crimson eyes looked as if they could see through both past and future.
Yes.
The man Oetsu pointed his blade at was none other than Yhwach, who had led the Schutzstaffel in their first assault on the Royal Palace.
"So his name is Yhwach…"Urahara Kisuke narrowed his eyes slightly, his gaze constantly sweeping over him.
An overwhelming presence. Authority without needing to show anger.
The blood-red cloak draped over him did give off a more savage air than that of other pure-blood Quincies.
Still—
Judging purely by presence alone, Yhwach didn't seem as imposing as Oetsu, who had just scored four instant kills.
"Is he deliberately suppressing his aura?""Or is the Quincy King simply so cold that even the deaths of his own guards don't move him at all?"
Questions piled up rapidly in Urahara's mind.
Meanwhile, the conversation in the Royal Palace continued.
"Oetsu Nimaiya…"
"You said you needed five complete heads, didn't you?"
Yhwach spread his hands outward. His black hair fluttered as holy light surged into his palms, as if he were performing some kind of ritual.
"What, got some last words before you die?"Even though Oetsu sensed something was off, he had no intention of stopping him.
After all, he had just annihilated four elite guards in an instant. He was confident he could take Yhwach down on his own.
However—
"You're mistaken."
The blood-red cloak billowed without any wind.
A massive pillar of sacred light erupted from Yhwach's body, expanding outward until it enveloped the four fallen members of the Schutzstaffel.
"Companions. We are companions."
"Awaken. Advance. Reach the Soul King's chamber. This is a fate that cannot be stopped."
That deep, abyssal voice sounded like the final declaration of the ritual.
And when Yhwach finished his last word, something utterly unbelievable happened.
The four guards who should have been dead began to rise slowly from the pools of blood, as if life itself had been restored to them.
That eerie sight meant only one thing.
They had been fully revived.
"..."
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