Chapter 163: The Final Battle of Mortal Resolve — Two Minutes and Twenty-Six Seconds
When the declaration of invasion echoed through the airwaves, many subconciously assumed it was an April Fool's joke.
However, the mysterious voice identifying itself as Ichigo Kurosaki soon faded, and the broadcast cut back to the scene. A high-angle, bird's-eye lens locked onto the heart of Beika Town. In that instant, an uneasy realization dawned on the public.
Beika was a strictly controlled zone for Japanese news media; reporting was usually restricted and intentionally vague, even concerning supernatural events like monster attacks. But now, this unrestricted, sweeping shot broadcasted everything to the world. This was beyond human capability. Even the most daring Japanese reporters, known for risking their lives for a scoop, couldn't shove a camera directly into the face of a dozens-of-meters-tall Giant of Light.
To the average viewer, who was "broadcasting" didn't matter. What mattered was that the news was absolutely explosive!
The Giant of Light, wreathed in pitch-black spiritual energy, was delivering a brutally efficient beatdown to the monster using the city as its battlefield. Combat, in itself, is a form of communication. Spectators unanamiously understood this advanced "dialogue" through the giant's body language.
The reason was simple: every strike from that pitch-black Giant was like a predator hunting prey—a savage shark tearing through the surf. It was a cocktail of absolute brutality and ferocity, driven by a peerless, egoistic will that ravaged everything in the mortal realm.
Judging by the fighting style alone, it was clear: this Giant of Light was no hero!
Of course, this perception was merely a product of cultural differences. In the current World No. 0, the opponents Ichigo Kurosaki truly needed to strike were no longer ordinary living beings. They were the Sun and the Moon, the changing of the seasons—vast natural phenomena. Naturally, his combat style had trended toward this level of raw, overwhelming violence. Only this kind of power could truly cow natural phenomena that possessed their own formidable "Purity."
The cultural gap wasn't just in the combat style; the residents of Beika felt it even more acutely.
Simply by standing upon the earth, the Giant's pitch-black Reiatsu spread, covering almost the entirety of Beika. This phenomenon, unique to the Bleach world, was anything but friendly to the locals.
Ordinary residents felt as if an endless black rain were falling in their vision, turning into a boundless tide that swallowed them whole. They felt a sense of suffocating weight as their bodies lost all strength. Like wheat before a scythe, people collapsed, splayed out on the ground like fish out of water, gasping futilely for air as their thoughts were crushed.
As for those who were relatively stronger—the officers of the Beika Police or the criminals active throughout the city—it felt as if the sky itself had collapsed. An infinite weight ground them down: first, their knees buckled into a kneel; then, their spines gave way until they were prostrate; finally, their necks couldn't hold, and they bowed their heads completely!
It was as if the Heavens were rebuking all living souls.
Kneel. Prostrate. Bow. Offer supreme respect to the King who stands above all things!
Only a few powerhouses, like the leaders of various crime syndicates, managed to maintain a standing posture under this pressure. And the only ones truly unaffected in all of Beika were a speeding Porsche and the Saint of Slaughter sitting within it.
Though Gin remained composed, his eyes were grave. He had always known Beika was a capital of crime, but first a Magical Girl attacks the base, then a Tokusatsu monster appears, and now an Alien Giant descends for a brawl? It was absurd. He wondered if the Organization's devalued assets could even survive this wave.
The question wasn't just about assets anymore; it was about what Beika would vomit out next. A zombie biohazard? An invasion of subterranean people? Gin began to seriously consider if the Organization should liquidate its Beika holdings and evacuate entirely. Even a criminal organization didn't want to live in a place where monsters roamed and alien invaders loomed.
His contemplation ended quickly, however, as he remembered that Vodka and Conan were still in the city.
"Hmph. Every last one of them is a headache..."
With a cold snort, Gin spun the wheel, driving deeper into the heart of Beika.
Since the Battle of Genesis, Ichigo Kurosaki had rarely shown his full power. Moreover, since everyone in World No. 0 was "intense," no one truly knew how terrifying Ichigo's current existence was to the world.
Like Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto's Bankai, Zanka no Tachi, whose mere presence could affect the ecology of the Soul Society, the current Ichigo was manifold stronger than the old man. The power contained in just one of his arms—simply by naturally radiating—was an unendurable weight for the physical world.
Three minutes. That was the ultimate time limit.
Before those three minutes were up, everything could be salvaged. After three minutes, the entirety of Beika would become a dead zone.
Ichigo hadn't truly descended; he was only experiencing this through his "human host," Conan. He, too, sensed the limit. He couldn't help but shake his head at the fragility of the people in the Conan world. In World No. 0, ordinary humans were accustomed to the intense Black Sun and the cryptic Eerie Moon, as well as various powerful natural phenomena. Even when Ichigo occasionally unleashed his Reiatsu to discipline a Sun or Moon that didn't want to "go to work," those ordinary people could still manage to stand up and shout things like: "To feel the shockwaves of Lord Kurosaki beating the world... truly, it was worth dying for!"
Compared to that level of "Purity," the residents of Beika were lacking.
But Ichigo wasn't here to end the world. Having assessed the situation, he made his move. Three minutes was more than enough!
The Giant Light-Demon caught up to the monster that had been blasted away. He reached out and grabbed it by the neck—well, its body was an amorphous mass, so it was hard to tell where the neck ended and the torso began, but it didn't matter. He plunged his hand in, gripped tight, twisted his waist, and hoisted the monster high before slamming it into the ground.
A thunderous roar echoed through Beika. But that was only the start. The Giant continued to seize the monster, thrashing it violently from left to right! Skyscrapers were leveled, their debris driven into the earth, until the ground itself was pulverized into a crater dozens of meters deep.
After a thirty-hit combo to liven things up, the Giant tossed the monster into the sky and fell into a stance, charging his power. The fist technique learned from Yamamoto—"Ikkotsu" (Single Bone)—manifested in this alternate world.
For the audience, this was a terrifying sight. Pitch-black spiritual light collapsed inward, compressing endlessly into the Giant's right arm. Anyone could see that a "big one" was coming. Even through a television screen, viewers felt suffocated, as if the shadow of death were looming over them.
A punch was thrown. A pillar of black light tore through the monster. The momentum didn't stop there; it ripped a massive fissure across the landscape, eventually striking a mountain in the distance. In the next heartbeat, the entire mountain was obliterated.
The entire sequence took only seconds. The great monster now lay in a mangled heap on the ground.
As for the Criminal Mist symbolizing the "Case" on the monster's body? The moment the television signal was hijacked and the alien invasion declaration was made, a far more massive Criminal Mist erupted from the Giant. The rules of the Conan world had been applied to the Giant of Light. A "Global Alien Invasion Case" was tiers above a "Local Riot Case." Upon impact, the Giant's presence simply overwrote and pierced through the monster's protection.
Having finished the combo and reduced the monster to "low health," the Giant stood silently. He wasn't in a hurry to take the kill. He waited. After about ten seconds, a voice like thunder boomed from his mouth:
"Are you awake?"
The distorted, broken monster writhed on the ground, struggling to repair itself. During this process, the amorphous body began to trend back toward a human shape. A distinction appeared between head and torso. On the "head"—which was essentially a massive, round lump of pus—a pair of eyes emerged, followed by flickering facial features.
Though the form remained eldritch, those eyes held a glimmer of Reason.
"What an embarrassing nightmare..." a whisper that threatened the sanity of any listener escaped the monster's body.
When the old man had resolved to sacrifice his life and forcibly warp his existence with five Moriarty shards, his mind should have been permanently annihilated. It was nearly impossible to come back. But perhaps it was the old man's luck—or his misfortune—that his "impossible" met the peerless iron fist of an alien god who could do anything.
Ichigo's combat aesthetic did not include slaughtering a mindless beast. So, he had taken a moment to use the unparalled battle-will within his fist to "wake" the residual consciousness within the amorphous body.
For the old man, however, this wasn't necessarily a good thing. Had he passed away in a daze, success or failure would have been irrelevant. Now, he had to face reality with a clear mind.
His aged eyes looked around. Everything happening in Beika entered his vision. The Legion of 666 Beasts, despite their "Mark of the Beast," had failed to sweep the city as he had hoped. Their momentum had stalled. Members were being suppressed by the powerhouses of Beika's underworld and the police force.
It was a endgame that was infinitely close to failure.
It was only "infinitely close" because he, the strongest member of the Legion, was still alive. His mere existence supported the weight of the case and the final providence of the swarm. But an impossible enemy now stood before him.
No words were needed. Simply looking at the Giant of Light standing upon the earth told him that the "awakening" wasn't an act of kindness. The Giant wouldn't go easy on him now that he was lucid; if anything, the Giant seemed more excited and violent.
The army was routed; the remnants were at a dead end.
Strangely, the old man felt no sorrow or pain, only a faint sigh: "Ah... we stray dogs just didn't want to crawl on the ground anymore. We just wanted to stand up and be human again. But no matter what, we can't succeed? Is 'Fate' really this despairing...?"
He knew these feelings. He had lived them. He was used to it. The yakuza veteran who once commanded the streets had, in his old age and poverty, fallen to the bottom. The brothers he had once sworn blood oaths with became "realistic." They might help once or twice in an emergency, but no one wanted to support an old man's retirement. When he tried to pull himself up with what pride he had left, he found that society didn't just close its doors—it kicked him while he was down.
It wasn't just him. Everyone who became homeless, regardless of their past glory, shared the same destiny: an endless sinking until they lived as human trash in the darkest corners, waiting for the day they rot.
Then, Fate opened a window. A sliver of light fell. Under his call, the "trash" gathered, wagering their remaining fangs on one final bite for a result. But instead of hope, an alien Giant of Light arrived with the dawn.
Even though "Failure" was his old friend, the old man couldn't help but sigh.
The Giant of Light fell into a stance. His voice boomed like thunder:
"I don't know what you've been through, and I don't care to judge. I only know that if a man wants to conquer Fate, talk is useless. Fate may be cruel, but I am not. You have one last chance. In two minutes and twenty-six seconds, regardless of the result, I will stop. Until then, fight! Clench your fists with everything you have. Condense your life to its absolute limit. Then, driven by conviction and resolve, strike me with everything you are..."
That unparalleled level of "Purity"—which had reached and exceeded its peak—would not change regardless of the world or the enemy. Ichigo Kurosaki, a sixteen-year-old high schooler and King of Purity Combat, only feared that his enemies and the world wouldn't be violent enough.
"Heh... hoping again and again, tasting failure again and again. Cycle after cycle, a lifetime of losing, until arriving at this dead end. Do you think a few words can make me hope once more? Make me find the courage for a last stand? I'll tell you this... brat, I'm finally fired up! Let me show you how much backbone is left in the 'Vajra of the Underworld' who once ruled the streets!!!"
His voice spiked from flat despair to a high-pitched roar.
No more words were needed. The extreme Purity radiating from the Giant had ignited the old man's residual battle-will. For such a pure enemy, the only response was an equally pure intent to fight. In a sense, he had been "infected" by the alien Purity virus.
But it didn't matter. It was just like years ago, when he charged a rival syndicate's base alone to settle a grudge with a blood-stained blade. Life and death meant nothing; only the "Ren-Xia" (chivalrous) spirit remained. This was the final stand of an old yakuza in an increasingly cynical era.
The massive, amorphous body flipped up from the ground. It twisted and mutated into a vague Vajra form. It took a step, its tentacles transforming into rigid, powerful blades, and slashed at the Giant of Light.
The first ten seconds passed.
Dozens of blade-tentacles were broken by sheer force. A third of the monster's body was pulverized into dust by those iron fists.
At the eleventh second, realization dawned on the old man.
Even if the enemy was holding back—refusing to use that finishing move from earlier—he could not win. The gap was too vast for conviction or will to bridge.
This realization lasted only one second before the old man accepted and digested it. He was used to failing, after all.
In the twelfth second, he began to think.
His will was burning, but his logic became icy cold. He knew he couldn't survive these two minutes and twenty-six seconds. But this was not the time to give up! Not for himself, but for his "old buddies" who had followed his riot plan. His own death was trivial, but since he had gathered them and led them down this path, he had to do something at the edge of the abyss.
He thought furiously. Like every criminal in Beika, his brain went into overdrive, seeking a layout or a plan that could achieve his goal amidst the endless sparks of thought.
The Criminal Mist clinging to him moved in sync with his mind, pouring into his brain as a fire of rampaging thought. Under the pressure of the alien's extreme Purity, the fundamental rules and powers of this world were triggered.
Reason took control. Analyze. Formulate. Plot. Act. Turn the impossible into the possible.
At the thirteenth second, a plan—utilizing every external condition, structured with clear steps, flamboyant yet feasible—manifested in the old man's mind.
At the fourteenth second, the old man decided to put it into practice.
End of Chapter
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