"Goddamn…"
"Captain, I feel completely numb…"
"Is this really still the kind of 'basic slash' we thought we knew?!"
Inside Squad One's barracks,
Ikkaku Madarame, who had followed Kenpachi Zaraki over to Squad One earlier, stared at the screen with pupils quaking, utterly dumbfounded.
Holy crap.
Have the past few hundred years of his life just been wasted?
His idea of a basic slash was: the blade breaks through the guard, pierces flesh, makes the enemy bleed.
But what Monk Ichibe was showing them as a "basic slash" was:
Cutting the name instead of the flesh!
As long as the tip of that brush touched you even once, half your ability disappeared—both hands crippled, no strength left to even pick up a weapon!
"..."
Thinking about this,
Ikkaku Madarame was completely speechless.
After all, his idol had always been Kenpachi Zaraki.
And as Kenpachi's underling, under his influence, the battle creed Ikkaku followed was also "just swing the blade."
He never even deigned to use kidō or any other extra techniques.
But only at this very moment
did Ikkaku finally realize just how wildly wrong he'd been!!!
That Monk Ichibe's Zanpakutō, Ichimonji—
that's what a real basic slash looked like!!!
Whereas his own Zanpakutō, Hōzukimaru, and the slashes it delivered…
By comparison they were nothing but a joke, cheap circus tricks—flat-out garbage!!!
"Tch…"
"A basic slash that comes with rule-breaking abilities, huh?" Kenpachi Zaraki grinned savagely, excitement and feral joy flickering in his smile.
Honestly,
he had to admit it too.
Monk Ichibe's earlier explanation in his own words, plus Yhwach's reaction afterward—his arm immediately going limp and dropping—
that sequence of events
really did shatter common sense, even for Kenpachi. It had genuinely shocked him and made his eyes light up!
He had to admit…
Compared to his own wild, unstructured sword-swings,
every stroke of Ichimonji—especially when it swept out that black ink—really was stronger than the slashes from his Nozarashi, from his "Three-Eight-Zero" form and the rest.
On that point, even Kenpachi had no choice but to concede!!!
——
Elsewhere,
inside Las Noches.
Aizen's trio reacted in much the same way.
"Ya rei ya rei…"
"So you're saying, the moment you get touched by that brush, the Monk's opponent immediately becomes a cripple?"
"This ability is way too outrageous!!!"
Even though Gin Ichimaru was trying hard to keep a calm expression,
deep down his heart was roiling like a storm.
Especially because
he had been the star of several earlier rounds of this countdown.
Back then, once Zanpakutō Shinso's Bankai ability—the cellular toxin—was revealed,
it had shocked the world.
People had branded it in their minds as a "one-hit kill" power: touch it and you die, that kind of deep impression.
But now…
Monk Ichibe's Ichimonji was clearly even more impossible to deal with!
It wasn't just a physical-level attack—
it directly ruled over souls, launching "rule attacks" against spiritual bodies!
If your head got dyed black by that brush…
wouldn't that mean losing half your brain and turning into a half-witted idiot?
"Tch…"
With that thought,
Gin sucked in a sharp breath, feeling the ability was even more hopeless to counter.
"Gin…"
"You're right."
"Cutting the name instead of the flesh… a power like that really is practically unsolvable."
"Once both arms lose their strength, Yhwach can't even hold a sword to resist. His whole body becomes unstable and starts staggering…"
"Going by how this looks, his entire body will soon be dyed black in turn!"
Eyes flashing with insight as he stared at the screen, Aizen spoke in a calm, sure tone.
Clearly,
barring any surprises,
once half of Yhwach's power was cut away,
his level would be knocked back down below the realm of transcendence, to the point he couldn't even match what Aizen himself was now—the very peak of a Shinigami!
That was the result Aizen was already foreseeing—
something like an eight- or nine-tenths certainty about what was about to happen to the Quincy King!!!
——
And sure enough,
Aizen got it right yet again!
Shuua—!!!
Facing the camera,
and Yhwach's panicked, disbelieving gaze,
Monk Ichibe bared his teeth in a grin,
then pushed his brush forward again. The tip of the brush
poured out another black waterfall of ink, crashing heavily across Yhwach's body!
Boom!!!
Yhwach's body
was blown away in a blast of white shockwaves,
making the image tremble violently once more.
Moments later, he came crashing down out of the sky in a sorry tumble.
And,
what made everyone's skin crawl was that
the spot where he landed… was precisely the point where Monk Ichibe had drawn that first black boundary line at the start!!!
"Hey… see?"
"That's the half-strength 'Yhwach' for you."
"After losing half of his Quincy power, how does it feel to be beaten to a pulp by the enemy you hate most—the Shinigami chief himself?"
Grinning,
Monk Ichibe clacked down in his wooden clogs, one hand resting on the upright brush as he landed steadily on the Omotesandō.
Yhwach, on the other hand,
after another brutal beatdown and the loss of half the power in his body,
collapsed weakly onto the ground.
At this point, even the special environment of the Royal Palace—the dense, condensed reishi of that place—
had turned into a burden for him,
constantly crushing down on Yhwach's body.
No… more accurately, crushing down on the Yhwach whose name had been cut in half!!!
With this scene exposed on the screen,
and Monk Ichibe's total domination of the situation, the battle hit a temporary pause.
Once again, it set off a colossal uproar, shocking audiences across the world!!!
"This is insane…"
"The pure-blood Quincy King has been struggling for so long—stacking himself with rule-type powers, using Quincy abilities to fight back…"
"But in the end… it was all for nothing! He couldn't even take a step past that first black line?"
In Karakura Town,
on the rooftop of the main teaching building at the high school,
Ichigo Kurosaki and his friends glanced at one another.
Every single one of them was stunned speechless.
From the perspective of ordinary people, they were shaken to their core!
At this point,
with their level of thinking,
they could no longer see through this god-tier clash where both sides were fighting with rule-type abilities!!!
"Tatsuki…"
Ichigo Kurosaki forced himself to swallow his shock.
When he finally came back to his senses, he opened his hands and gave a wry smile. "See… you joked before that my Zanpakutō might make it into the top ten too."
"After this? After that clip just now… I think we can safely say the odds are zero, right?"
He shook his head,
laughing helplessly at himself.
How could that be possible…
With a Zanpakutō like the Monk's—so absurdly broken—
a plain 'basic attack' that comes with rule damage, turning the opponent into a cripple in minutes…
And then there was his own—
a thin, slim Zanpakutō whose true name he still didn't even know.
How on earth
could he possibly claim it had the qualifications to stand above Ichimonji?
Ichigo Kurosaki just couldn't think of any reason that would convince even himself.
"Unless I somehow became the protagonist of the story or something…" Ichigo gave a bitter little laugh and twisted his lips. "But based on how things look, after so many rounds of this countdown, I don't even count as a supporting character."
Just going by how many times he'd appeared on screen,
Ichigo felt like he could count them on his toes.
If that kind of screentime could be called "protagonist,"
then the show was just being downright comedic!!!
However,
what the viewers didn't expect was that
just when they thought the victor had been decided and the dust had settled—
that the pure-blood Quincy King, whose full name had been stripped away, was about to be swept out by Ichimonji,
rolling pathetically out of the Royal Palace as a loser—
suddenly…
the plot took yet another turn, and the situation once again grew murky and unpredictable!!!
"Heh heh heh…"
With a chilling laugh,
Yhwach's body rose up from the pool of black ink on the ground. He grinned,
and there was even a hint of excitement on his face.
"Your Majesty…"
"Has he gone insane?"
"Did losing his power drive him completely mad?"
Inside the Ice Crystal Palace,
Lille Barro narrowed his eyes, deep worry etched between his brows.
Damn it.
If Yhwach was being tortured to this extent,
what did that make him—this man who had proudly called himself "Your Majesty's finest work"?
Hadn't he just been indirectly reduced to a piece of trash?
"..."
Lille Barro had no words.
Once, he'd stood high above everyone else, his arrogance practically unrestrained.
But now,
the longer he watched,
the more he felt like he himself was worthless.
Especially…
the terrifying power Monk Ichibe was displaying!
Every time that ink sprayed across the screen, it felt like his ability to breathe was being stripped away.
And that suffocating sense of dread
had been spreading across Silbern ever since this round of the countdown began.
That was what really made Lille Barro more and more anxious.
Compared to the previous round,
when Yhwach fought the Head Captain—
back then, pure-blood Quincies had also been awed and terrified by Ryūjin Jakka.
But…
they could still think of countermeasures.
For example, using the medallions to steal Bankai and so on—ways they could employ in the future to deal with Ryūjin Jakka.
Now, though…
facing the unsolvable Ichimonji,
the only "strategy" Lille Barro could think of in his head was…
suicide.
Yes,
you heard that right—
only by killing yourself in front of that demon of a monk
could you avoid being trampled, grabbed by the throat and painted black and all the rest…
It was just too humiliating!!!
But soon after,
just when the pure-blood Quincies were driven to the brink of despair,
the words that came from Yhwach in the video immediately lifted their spirits—
"Monk Ichibe…"
"If you think about it from the opposite direction, isn't it precisely because you fear my power… that you tried to shave away half of it from the very start?"
His black hair loose around him, Yhwach let out a low chuckle.
He spread his arms wide, his eerie smile deepening as he mocked the monk to his face:
"Unfortunately for you…"
"Sound isn't the only thing."
"Even that half of my lost power—I can just grant it back to myself!!"
By the time he finished,
Yhwach's laughter had grown utterly deranged.
It shattered the clouds all around,
and at the same time, his body and power seemed to abruptly recover!
"I grant myself half of my power!"
"!!!"
In the blink of an eye,
before the audience could even manage a proper blink,
they were stunned to discover that, as those words fell,
Yhwach's state
had snapped back to its factory settings—the way he'd been when he first walked onto the Omotesandō, blood-red cloak whipping in the wind,
his entire being brimming with ambition and that arrogant posture of a man confident he'd seize the Soul King!!!
This obvious change
immediately drew a chorus of gasps:
"You've gotta be kidding me."
"He can even do that? Oh my god!"
"Is there anything left that can't be taken from Yhwach? Don't tell me that includes his life too?"
Inside Squad One,
a furious shout rang out.
This time, it was the Shinigami captains' turn to be utterly shaken.
Voice, injuries, power—
he could restore almost anything back to full health at will, in any category!
What kind of broken ability was this?
It practically stood above rules themselves, trespassing into the realm of the gods!!!
"Captain Unohana…"
"Your three thousand years of accumulated medical skill and healing arts… still can't compare to just one sentence from Yhwach's mouth, huh…"
Shunsui Kyōraku's jaw went slack, his expression speechless.
Seeing this, he was now even more certain that in the earlier battle with the Head Captain,
the final outcome had not been Yhwach's death.
Whether it was granting life to himself,
or some other method—maybe even conjuring up another body out of nothing—
either way,
the real result had been the Head Captain's loss!
After going through a reversal like the one they were seeing now,
in the end… the Head Captain must have been cruelly defeated by Yhwach!!!
"Sigh…"
"Whatever the case…"
"In that future, the old man really did give it everything he had…"
"To deal with an evil pure-blood Quincy King like that, we'll ultimately need someone even more terrifying—the Monk—to discipline him."
Shunsui Kyōraku lifted his head, gaze shifting to Yamamoto's side.
His eyes paused on the old man leaning on his cane,
and a trace of heartache flashed deep in his pupils.
It wasn't that the old man—or Ryūjin Jakka—wasn't strong enough.
They simply couldn't beat the power of rules.
From the very beginning, the two sides had already been separated by a difference in tier!!!
"Another damn reversal?"
"This plot's making my head hurt." Kenpachi Zaraki grumbled unhappily, his expression turning impatient again.
For hell's sake!
How long was this going to go on?
Even if there were back-and-forth reversals, there ought to be a limit!!!
What annoyed him most was that
even when his Zanpakutō Nozarashi was released,
it really only had one ability: cutting, chopping—just swing harder.
He personally had no complaints about that.
But when you compared it to Monk Ichibe and Yhwach…
it felt downright shabby.
Calling it a blank skill tree with no perks at all wouldn't be an exaggeration.
At that moment,
Mayuri Kurotsuchi finally spoke up again from the side, a cold smile on his face as he offered his opinion. "Don't get worked up. If you ask me, there won't be any more reversals after this."
"What do you mean?"
"Captain Kurotsuchi, you're saying… the Monk is about to lose?"
"No!!!"
Behind his visor, Mayuri shook his head slightly. "It's the exact opposite. Haven't you noticed? His face is no longer playful—he's actually angry now."
"Yhwach's repeated struggles have thoroughly ignited the fury of the Zero Division's leader…"
Sure enough—
even as his words fell,
in the video,
the enraged Monk Ichibe didn't waste another breath and unleashed a brand-new technique:
"Star Hadō, Third Path—Rending Gale Kill!!!"
Reiryoku gathered,
compressing the air itself.
As the transparent monitor and the footage on it
shuddered violently, the air and reishi within the Royal Palace were once again devoured and sucked dry.
At the same time…
a colossal dragon's head that filled the entire screen
roared in fury!
Like a tangible hurricane, the dragon's breath—
before everyone's eyes,
blasted out an attack on par with the "fully-released" Ryūjin Jakka,
and outright shattered the transparent monitor!!!
Once again, it set off a global sensation!!!
(End of Chapter)
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