Chapter 168: That Day, All Beika Residents Became Magical Girls of Light
To call it a "surprise" was an understatement, for Ichigo Kurosaki was fighting such an enemy for the very first time!
The combat system of the Bleach world had its own distinct flavor, emphasizing endless variation. Your physical skills might be peerless, but if I pull out a Zanpakutō ability that reflects all damage back onto you, how will you respond? Even as the Bleach world evolved toward a "War-God" paradigm, this heritage remained. Under the influence of Purity, Zanpakutō had largely exited the historical stage—save for a few nostalgic souls—as powerhouses followed Ichigo's lead, conquering the world with peerless fists.
Though the swords were gone, the soul-root abilities remained, integrated by Purity into Absolute Domain powers. Every expert derived their own unique signature move: Genryūsai's Nether-Sun Residual Fire Force, Rukia's Hellish Eternal Freeze Calamity, Aizen's Five-Dragon Kido Fist, Hinamori's Phoenix Undying Battle-Body, and so on. In the heat of combat, driven by the "Complete Realm" that Purity provided, new techniques were improvised with kaleidoscopic fluidity.
But the "Magical Girl" before him—the one with seven eyes and fourteen arms, brandishing a chaotic arsenal—was different!
Her weapons were distinct, each carrying unique power and technique, yet their core was singular: Slaughter.
Take the "brick-thick" law book, for example. (In the eyes of the Giant of Light, a "brick" was the size of a house.) That slender, elegant arm swung the massive book with a ferocity that generated gales, yet used it with terrifying precision. No matter the angle or posture, it always slammed the hardest corner of the book into the Giant's most vulnerable, least-defended spots.
As a professional martial artist, Ichigo could tell that this specific arm lacked deep formal combat training. However, the motion of swinging the book was too practiced. The angle, the power delivery, the follow-through—all were mathematically optimal. It possessed a strange, intense elegance.
With his peerless combat intuition, Ichigo subconsciously hallucinated an image: a charming older sister in a business suit and gold-rimmed glasses, walking over gracefully, swinging a law book gracefully, shattering an enemy's skull gracefully, and repeating the motion until the foe was reduced to a uniform meat paste.
Elegant. Truly, too elegant!
That arm moved as if it had used that book to smash ten thousand foreheads and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Incalculable experience had been compressed into this art of slaughter—refined, flawless, and having reached the level of a "Dao."
And calling it a "Dao" wasn't just praise; it had supernatural weight. Every time the law book flipped through the air, the pages rustled open, and a cryptic, crushing sense of Fatigue seeped into the Giant's body.
Day after day, year after year of overtime. Endless, soul-crushing labor until the end of eternity! No matter how much you improved your efficiency, no matter how fast you processed a lawsuit—even if you evolved to execute the criminal on the spot in the courtroom—the backlog only grew. It multiplied until it was a mountain of horror.
Fatigue to the point of collapse, yet collapse was not the end. Invisible threads pulled the soul back. Close your eyes, open them: you're either in an office buried in files or in a courtroom facing a living-dead judge and the same monotonous, mad criminals!
This endless stretch of time had tempered incredible skill, but it had also distilled a fatigue that could drive anyone insane. Even Ichigo was momentarily caught off guard by the mental shock, taking several direct hits in a daze.
Truth be told, faced with this "Skill-based Dao" of slaughter, Ichigo was genuinely impressed. To better savor this novel aesthetic, he intentionally left an opening, letting the law book dance its elegant tap-dance on his skull.
It was the right choice. As the book performed its macabre dance, Ichigo felt the deep flavor of this alternate world.
Extreme Fatigue. It seeped into his skin, flesh, bone, nerves, and every single cell!
Too tired... just die.
A self-destructive will to die tried to infect every cell in the Giant's body. For anyone else, the physical damage of the "brick" would be secondary to the terror of their own cells choosing suicide. In gaming terms, every strike from that book carried a high-intensity Instant Death proc.
But against the Giant of Light, the pure cells of Ichigo Kurosaki simply curled their lips in disdain. "Mere death thinks it can defeat me? Purity too low," they whispered, ignoring the infection entirely.
Ichigo marveled at the experience, wondering if the experts of this world were all "Kings of Killing" who forged their techniques in oceans of blood and eons of death.
His perception came from the seven-eyed, fourteen-armed Magical Girl. It wasn't just the arm with the law book; the arms holding the knife, the wrench, and the whip all displayed similarly flawless, practiced skill. Some were weaker—the knife arm was purely technical—while others carried metaphysical "Negative Intents" or death-related powers.
Then there was the Pistol.
Since the start of the fight, the pistol had not fired a single shot. But Ichigo didn't dare lower his guard; the deterrence it radiated was massive. When it moved, it would surely shake the heavens.
But the strongest was undoubtedly the Invisible Blade of Slaughter.
Held by Ran's main hand, this non-existent blade had already carved several tearing gashes into the Giant's arms! That killing intent, honed across infinite time, had broken the boundary between reality and illusion. If Ran drew it, it functioned as reality.
Yet the "Martial Arts" Ran displayed were the greatest surprise. They were plain, simple, and lacked flowery special effects, yet they touched the level of the "Strongest." Though the level fluctuated wildly for unknown reasons, it was unmistakable. It reminded Ichigo of his first duel with Genryūsai.
In that fight, Yamamoto had used thousands of years of experience to school him. Without needing to think, the old man countered every possible reaction Ichigo could have had before the thought even formed.
Accumulated eons. Experience stacked upon wisdom, forming a monument of power that blocked every challenger. For this, Ichigo owed a debt of gratitude to Kenpachi Zaraki. During their duel, Ichigo's Purity had allowed him to copy and absorb Kenpachi's centuries of combat experience, which served as the foundation for his challenge against Yamamoto. Without those centuries of "muscle memory," that duel wouldn't have been so easy.
What he felt from Ran was identical. The weight of time, the exhaustion of all effort, the tempering of a soul.
Ichigo hadn't expected his first fight in a new world to be against such an exquisite opponent. But alongside the surprise was a heavy disappointment.
First: he could only enjoy this fight for two minutes. Not nearly enough. Second: these experts were too "negative." Their power was birthed from despair and intended only for slaughter.
Nothing but killing and death.
It was ultimate purity, but also ultimate emptiness. If it were one person, it would be a path; but for everyone to be like this suggested a systemic sickness. In the eyes of the King of Purity, who used his fists to share his heart with friends, power filled with such negativity could never bring a smile to an opponent.
A passionate brawl and a premeditated murder might both result in death, but their essences are worlds apart!
Ichigo could have easily extended the time limit. He could have suppressed his Reiatsu further to stop crushing the Beika residents. But doing so would crash the "fun" value of the fight. If he compressed his Reiatsu to the point of being undetectable, he'd end up like the world-bubble version of Aizen—released from a purgatory of silence by a Soul King's pardon.
For the first time since reaching the "Miracle Realm" where he could do anything, Ichigo faced a dilemma. If he let his Reiatsu leak, the locals died; if he locked it down, the fight sucked.
Luckily, Ichigo had a brilliant mind. Just as he was about to rip his right hand into separate pieces and seal them—using only one "finger" worth of power to "play" with the fourteen-armed girl—Conan's will reached out to him.
"Ichigo Kurosaki, thank you for stalling. My criminal plan is nearly ready. But before the endgame, there's one last battle. The enemy might be manifold stronger than this Magical Girl. You might actually face a risk to your life!"
Outside the world barrier, Ichigo's face of pure power broke into a magnificent, high-purity grin.
"No problem, no problem! My main goal was to see the strong of this world. If someone can actually kill me, I'll be delighted!"
Conan was speechless. Since his reason returned, he'd wanted to complain. Why did a "Great Treasure" from Moriarty summon an alien? Why does this alien look so... unscientific and obsessed with bare-knuckle brawling? But he kept it in. Now was not the time.
"Good. My plan is launching. Get ready!"
Conan gave the command. Instantly, the Criminal Mist shrouding Beika collapsed inward. The "Beika Riot Case" entered a brand-new phase of eruption.
In the Giant's eyes, Beika split in two. The physical city was a ruin of smoke and fire. But in the shadows cast by that fire, on the reverse side of reality, another Beika emerged.
The Criminal Mist became the skeleton; darkness birthed twisted, deformed buildings; shadows moved like living creatures, decorating everything in absurdity. A global calamity was locked inside a single city, birthing a Criminal Domain.
This Nightmare Beika was the opening act. The rioting Legion members felt a call and fled reality, vanishing into dark alleys and reappearing in the Nightmare city. Their clothes became rags, their flesh withered, their skin turned grey—and they didn't care.
They heard the King's whisper. This City of Darkness was the "Promised Land" granted to them by the King's sinful power. The eternal home for the homeless. No more wandering, no more fear, no more need to "be human."
In their ecstasy, they sang and danced. Nightmare Beika responded; twisted plants grew, bearing deformed fruit that shrieked in the wind. The Legion ate the fruit; rotting pustules and bloodstains erupted on their skin, but they laughed. Exhausted, they lay on benches and roadsides, and the living shadows wrapped around them like blankets, merging with their wounds like a resident's permit.
"Little Detective... isn't your 'Criminal Plan' a bit extreme?" Ichigo asked. Even as an alien, his eyes as a powerhouse saw the truth: this "Promised Land" was a prison that would eventually assimilate everyone into itself.
"I did what I could. No time for details. The 'Big One' is coming. Before that, suppress the Magical Girl to set the stage..."
Ichigo complied. He struck with a heavy hand—an Ikkotsu triple-hit that blasted the Magical Girl back!
The Magical Girl was strong, but Ran's performance was unstable, and her hyper-focus on slaughter left her vulnerable to raw, physical power. The "Skill-based" slaughter had no concept of defense.
Suddenly, Ichigo sensed an anomaly. Throughout the physical Beika, the Moriarty shards began to resonate violently, erupting with pitch-black light. Even the fallen Magical Girl was engulfed in this light!
The old homeless man hadn't turned into a "Super-Man" under Moriarty's tutelage, but his occult knowledge had grown. The "Beika Riot Case" was a perfect ritual. Fire to ignite the city; sacrifice to distill evil; and in the deepest dark, a light to guide the "Extreme Evil Shinichi Kudo" into the world.
Conan, as the Second King, couldn't stop the underlying architecture of the case. The ritual had started the moment the old man offered his own life. The result was inevitable. Conan could only try to turn the active into the passive and twist the outcome!
"Ran, Uncle Mouri, Eri, Sonoko, Professor... please forgive me for using you in this criminal plan. But for Beika... lend me your strength!" Conan whispered.
The television audience was on a blood-pressure roller coaster. They didn't know who the Magical Girl was, but as long as she fought the "Alien Invader," she was an ally. And visually, a giant female knight was much more vote-worthy than an amorphous monster.
The fight was brief but intense—not the slow-motion combat of TV shows, but exchanges measured in milliseconds, hundreds of outputs per second. The multi-armed Magical Girl had the advantage, leaving the "Invincible" Giant wounded.
The audience was inspired. But then, the Giant's triple-punch blasted her away. Just as hope began to fade, the "Big Shift" happened.
Black light erupted from the city and the girl. Even through the screens, the viewers felt a pull—a desire to be swallowed, to become part of that darkness. It should have been terrifying, but their collective subconscious felt a "willing joy."
They knew, deep down, that merging was their destiny. In that destiny, humanity would reach its end, but it would also unleash its ultimate power: a force that could roar at Fate and grapple with Gods.
The First Loop residue—the resolve of an entire species that wagered everything—crossed over. It was engraved in the Heavenly Killing Intent, and now, it was being poked.
The audience supported the Magical Girl unconditionally!
She stood up, letting out a piercing roar. The armor began to dissolve into a slurry of flesh that spread in all directions, sweeping up everyone in Beika. It was a horror scene, yet people cheered and jumped into the meat-solution. Every Moriarty shard merged into it!
The armor mutated and restructured, growing larger and more savage.
A nameless horror rose from the earth. Ten thousand eyes to witness majesty in distortion! Ten thousand arms to gather holiness in corruption! A billion hearts, a billion bodies, fused into one to define Power.
"I really am a criminal genius," Conan felt a surge of excitement. "The summoning ritual for the Evil God was successfully hijacked and twisted!"
The Extreme Evil Shinichi Kudo (Moriarty) had failed to descend. The ritual had been diverted to a "Wrong Target."
Instead of the Absolute Evil, a different terror was born. Guided by the ritual, possessing the form of a God but the nature of a Beast—the shadow-echo of a deity.
The Ultimate Evolution of the Magical Girl: The Ten-Thousand-Armed Divine-Abomination Giant.
Conan felt it was worth it. Only he knew how dangerous Moriarty was. Better a "Godly Abomination" than a world-ending case mastermind.
"Now, the final step: defeat this abomination born of the ritual, and close this case forever!"
End of Chapter
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