Support me on patreon:
Patreon.com/IndifferentVillain
Early Access and + 60 chapter ahead of webnovel monthly, ur support keeps me motivated...thanks and enjoy reading
Chapter 15 is out on patreon
_______________
Whoosh—!
Several blurs of motion descended upon the dusty street. The woman leading the vanguard immediately knelt beside the fallen Soul Reapers, checking their vitals before softly shaking her head.
"The distress signal came from further ahead. There may still be survivors."
She wore a pristine white captain's haori over her black Shihakusho, the inner lining a soft, pale pink. She radiated an aura of absolute peace and maternal gentleness. Her long, dark hair was parted down the middle and woven into a thick braid that draped gracefully over her chest.
Standing up, she gazed down the desolate, winding roads of the district with a faint, nostalgic sigh.
"This place really is as chaotic as ever."
The young Soul Reapers of the Fourth Division standing behind her exchanged confused glances. Why does the Captain sound so intimately familiar with the absolute fringes of Rukongai? However, the woman offered no further explanation. With a silent gesture, she led her squad forward in a high-speed Shunpo.
As the medical and relief division of the Gotei 13, it was incredibly rare for Captain Unohana to venture out into the field. She usually remained within the division barracks, overseeing the critical care of severely injured officers sent back from the front lines. Today, she had merely been returning from a classified errand when her squad intercepted an emergency transmission from a Fifth Division patrol.
Leaping atop a dilapidated roof, Unohana finally brought her squad to a halt. As she looked down at the street below, a subtle, unreadable ripple crossed her gentle eyes.
The Fourth Division medics behind her gasped in shock. The distress signal had gone dead minutes ago; they had fully expected to arrive at a grisly scene and simply collect their comrades' bodies. Hunting down the rebel forces was a job for the combat specialists, like the Second or Eleventh Divisions.
But the scene below completely defied their expectations.
The rebel mob described in the distress call was already dead, their corpses lying in a massive pool of blood. Yet, the person standing amidst the slaughter wasn't a Fifth Division officer—it was a vagrant in tattered rags, casually holding a blood-stained Asauchi.
Down in the street, surrounded by ten dismembered corpses, Lu Li brought the cold steel of the blade up to his cheek. With a smooth, practiced motion, he used the razor-sharp edge of the Asauchi to carefully shave off the last patch of his overgrown beard.
What kind of lunatic stands in the middle of a slaughterhouse, casually shaving his beard with a dead man's sword?
Under the blistering sun, Lu Li sheathed the blade. Feeling much cleaner, the handsome, rugged young man looked up at the figures perched on the roof and flashed them what he considered a very friendly, welcoming smile.
In that instant, a collective shiver ran down the spines of the Fourth Division medics. The sheer surrealness of the blood-soaked scene paired with that bright smile was deeply unsettling.
Unohana stepped off the roof, her white haori fluttering like the wings of a butterfly. She landed on the blood-soaked dirt without making a single sound. Her eyes curved into welcoming crescents as she maintained her warm, maternal smile, locking her gaze entirely on Lu Li.
Under her stare, Lu Li's smile slowly vanished.
For the first time in a very, very long time, he felt the icy, suffocating grip of true death.
It wasn't the sterile threat of a gun barrel pressed against his temple. It was pure, unadulterated killing intent. It was the suffocating, crushing pressure of a transcendent apex predator bearing down on him with absolute, unfathomable power.
Yes. This is it. This was the transcendent power he had been searching for. This was the world he belonged in.
Slaughtering those rebels with their pathetic technique and nonexistent physical strength had barely counted as a warm-up. It hadn't sparked even a fraction of the bloodlust he craved. But the woman standing before him shattered any lingering disappointment he had about this universe.
He had just arrived in this world, and already, he was looking up at an impossibly high mountain. The Terminus Space had promised him unprecedented challenges. It had not lied.
"What is your name?"
The moment Unohana spoke, the crushing, abyssal killing intent vanished into thin air, entirely replaced by an aura of genuine warmth and kindness.
"Lu Li," he answered simply. He had no intention of adopting a localized alias to blend in.
Based on the terrifying, invisible pressure she exerted, her distinctive braid, and her captain's haori, he could easily deduce her identity: Retsu Unohana—formerly Yachiru Unohana, the First Kenpachi.
Her current status as the Captain of the Fourth Division also gave him a vital anchor for the timeline. If she had already laid down her sword to become the premier healer of the Seireitei, it meant the Quincy King, Yhwach, had already been defeated and sent into his millennial slumber. How far away they were from the actual start of the canon storyline, however, remained to be seen.
"Lu Li. Did you kill these men?" Unohana asked, her gaze sweeping over the mangled corpses.
"They killed the Soul Reapers. I was just defending myself," Lu Li replied honestly. He didn't want any unnecessary misunderstandings. He was thrilled at the prospect of fighting strong opponents, but he wasn't suicidal enough to pick a fight with a legendary monster right out of the gate. He had just gotten to this playground; he wanted to stay a while.
Unohana gave a slow, understanding nod. She didn't seem the least bit surprised that a supposedly starved vagrant had flawlessly butchered ten armed rebels who had overwhelmed official Gotei 13 officers.
"Would you like to join the Gotei 13?"
The medics behind Unohana exchanged stunned looks. It was incredibly rare for a Captain to personally scout a vagrant off the streets. But more surprisingly, she had invited him to join the Gotei 13 as a whole, rather than the Fourth Division. If she recognized his talent, why wasn't she trying to recruit him for her own squad?
"The Gotei 13?" Lu Li blinked. He hadn't expected the first phase of his Main Mission to practically complete itself. All he had to do was say yes.
"Only if you wish to, of course," Unohana said, her smile never wavering. "Naturally, proper protocol dictates that you must first enroll and study at the Shin'o Academy. Once you graduate, you will officially be enlisted."
Lu Li feigned a moment of careful consideration before nodding.
He finally understood the wildly fluctuating difficulty rating on his mission log. If the Terminus Space analyzed situations with an omniscient perspective, then this was the 'Easy' route.
During the brief skirmish, he realized his baseline stats were actually vastly superior to the rebels', to say nothing of his martial arts technique. He had butchered ten men without getting a single drop of blood on his clothes. The real danger of this mission wasn't combat—it was the journey. Hiking blindly through the lawless outer districts of Rukongai to reach the Seireitei gates would have been a gauntlet of chaos and attrition. Furthermore, as a nobody from District 80, the Shin'o Academy might have just rejected him at the door.
But with a Captain's direct recommendation? His enrollment was guaranteed.
"Then let us depart. We were just on our way back," Unohana said, glancing at the sword resting on Lu Li's hip. "You may hold onto that Asauchi."
The medics didn't find this irregular. An Asauchi was simply a blank slate—a Zanpakuto that had not yet imprinted on a Soul Reaper's soul. Until an owner communed with the blade, learned its true name, and unlocked its Shikai, an Asauchi was functionally just an incredibly sharp, durable katana.
When a Soul Reaper died, their Zanpakuto would typically revert to its base Asauchi form, essentially resetting to factory defaults. At that point, it could be reclaimed and bound to a new soul. Because of this, the Seireitei constantly recycled unassigned Asauchi, distributing them to new students at the Academy. As long as the blade remained within the Seireitei's military system, no one cared who held it. Letting Lu Li keep this one just meant the Academy wouldn't have to issue him another.
Securing the Asauchi firmly to his waist, Lu Li fell in step behind Unohana's squad. The cleanup of the massacre was no longer their concern; another division would be dispatched to handle the paperwork.
As he walked, a profound sense of anticipation burned in his chest. As a martial arts grandmaster from an era where human potential had stagnated, he was ravenous for this world's supernatural combat techniques.
The Terminus Space had promised him rewards upon completing his missions, but the true prize was the lethal knowledge he could pillage from this universe itself. And the blade resting against his hip—an object that could evolve and shape itself to his very soul—was, in his eyes, nothing short of a divine artifact.
_____
!!! Special Thanks to this month Supporters, Thank u guys:
• Durval Silva
• Lewey
• Kyle Kawahara
• P
Support me on patreon for only 5$ and get access to all the advanced chapters
Patreon.com/IndifferentVillain