Chapter 85: Genesis of the Strong
The wailing of Hell lasted for a long time. Perhaps due to the chaotic flow of time within its depths, while the fall of the Three Worlds was visible in the sky, the descent was erratic—alternating between rapid bursts and slow glides, refusing to make impact for a while.
But this was no blessing. Faced with an unstoppable catastrophe, waiting only prolonged the time one had to wear a "mask of pain," turning the anticipation into a supreme torture. This held true for both Hell itself and its residents.
However, the battle between Rukia and Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto did not cease. Rukia, in the midst of evolution, required constant combat to stimulate her growth, while Yamamoto, having glimpsed Rukia's application of Hell's power, was in no hurry to stop.
Nevertheless, the monumental event of the falling worlds distracted them both. They turned their gazes toward the sky. As martial arts powerhouses, they could see familiar landscapes within the burning, plummeting realms.
Yamamoto's expression flickered—sighs, helplessness, pain, and finally, a sense of relief surfaced in his blood-red pupils. In the falling Soul Society, the Seireitei was gone, replaced by a leveled ruin. Upon that earth, which was splintering under the force of the fall, Yamamoto saw the diverse faces of sentient life.
The Great White Wolf Ancestor, who had locked his clan away thinking he could dodge this transition as he had many before, was now a "Beaten Dog Ancestor." He snarled and bared his teeth, using every trick he knew, but could only fall along with the world, doing his best just to shield a few kin.
Shunsui Kyoraku, Jushiro Ukitake, and the other Captains and Lieutenants who had escaped the fall of the Seireitei to hide in a secret corner of the Soul Society, now looked up with expressions of utter despair.
While the Seireitei and the Rukongai were the core, the Soul Society was vast. Many secret noble cities and strange factions existed in the outskirts, and now, all those people could do was scream in a mix of bewilderment and madness.
Among these faces, many had originally dismissed the Soul King's apocalypse declaration, thinking that if they stayed indoors, the flood outside wouldn't touch them. But when the flood truly arrived, no one could flee. Standing up to face it was the only way out.
This complex web of emotions finally manifested through power. Yamamoto's fists grew hotter and heavier. Even with his iron resolve, at this moment, he wanted to vent with reckless abandon.
Rukia wasn't focused on the Soul Society, but on the World of the Living. She saw Yhwach's shadow stretching to its limit, trying to protect Karakura Town. She also saw a pillar of light—stretching from heaven to earth—flickering like a miracle as it launched an attack against the majestic figure dominating the universe.
The battle wasn't over yet! But it was already meaningless, for the final outcome was manifest.
Sosuke Aizen looked at the sky, gazing at Hueco Mundo with a mocking smile. He had always harbored a doubt: the Hueco Mundo he conquered felt unworthy of its "reputation." As a faction that had been hunted by Reapers and Quincies for a million years yet remained vibrant, it seemed to consist of only a few "shriveled melons" by the time Aizen arrived. The only impressive one was the Skeleton Emperor Baraggan, who was at best an elite Captain level—and even lower in actual combat due to his stupidity.
This was the Hueco Mundo that countered the Soul Society for eons?
That doubt was finally answered. As Hueco Mundo fell, countless Hollows with unfathomable auras and ancient rhythms crawled out from deep underground. They bared their fangs in a frantic, bewildered rage, drumming up every ounce of power to resist the absolute force hammering their world down.
In this moment, Hueco Mundo revealed its million-year accumulation of fangs and heritage!
But it was all for naught. Falling to Hell was the set conclusion. This was the final destiny granted to the Three Worlds by their creator, the Soul King!
The fall proceeded step by step. Before the worlds even hit the ground, the earth of Hell began to crack. The Sea of Boiling Oil dried up, and the Mountain Range of Blades collapsed. All this made Hell's wail even more intense. This wail echoed through the assimilated "Soul-Lost Corpses" as an unending scream.
In the original timeline, Hell's consumption of the worlds would have taken eons—enough time for Bleach 2 and Bleach 3 to play out. But with this "Express Delivery" directly to the stomach, the situation was different. To Hell, the Three Worlds had shifted from a delicious meal into a Bomb!
And the explosion had already begun.
Rukia, having assimilated with Hell, felt this most deeply. She withdrew her gaze from the sky and listened to the agony piercing the realm. Hell, which had inflicted eternal pain on all things, was now being tortured itself. Its screams were neither holy nor noble—they were tragic and grating.
This agony flowed through the link of fusion into Rukia's heart! But to her, the pain was manageable; in fact, it further fueled her evolution with the Hogyoku.
If a normal Absolute Realm is Purity driven by a fighter's will and conviction, then the Dark Absolute Realm is driven by pure malice, erupting with the catastrophic destruction of a natural disaster. The two overlapped in foundation, but differed in nuance. Rukia's conviction as a fighter wasn't inherently supreme; she relied on the Hogyoku's Purity for power. But in the Dark Absolute Realm, the malice born from her inner void and desire for destruction was enough to make the power savage. The world's wails taught her the meaning of Ultimate Darkness.
Facing Yamamoto's increasingly tyrannical fists, Rukia's form continued to mutate. As her synchronization with the Hogyoku reached 30%, Phase Two ended, and she naturally climbed to Phase Three.
Ice-blue bone crystals grew from her forehead, weaving into a crown. Blood-red ice crystals spread over her skin and her pure white robes, transforming into heroic crimson armor. A frost-flame of pale blue and vivid red wove into a battle-skirt that trailed across the ground.
Where her skirt touched, blood-colored crystal flowers bloomed!
The ice butterfly wings on her back grew massive, radiating a brilliant glow. As they fluttered, light fell and transformed into smaller ice-blue butterflies, dancing gracefully. The Hogyoku had listened to Rukia's deepest desire: the evolution process leaned toward "Aesthetic Beauty," adding extra special effects even at the cost of some practicality.
The direction was a success. Unlike the "deformed monster" look of Aizen's third stage, Rukia appeared increasingly cold, heroic, and magnificent. She possessed a sense of holy solemnity, like a Valkyrie of the Underworld. Ice-blue Hell-butterflies cleared her path, and blood-red Lycoris flowers bloomed where she stepped, guiding souls to the end of death.
Only her power reflected a malice and horror completely at odds with her beautiful exterior.
Yamamoto felt it most. Within the range of her ice-red frost, his fists became "sluggish." Both the power and the will within them seemed to lose vitality, gradually being frozen solid! All existing things would be petrified in this chill that symbolized Hell's calamity, falling into a void that was both eternal sinking and final release.
Rukia manically pushed her Dark Absolute Realm, using her assimilated side to reverse-infect her power and will back into Hell. The screams and agony of Hell began to fade and vanish in the zone centered around her.
The ultimate frost acted as an anesthetic, "freezing" the pain and allowing Hell to temporarily escape its suffering. This wasn't a kind gesture, but a malicious exploitation of a gap—an invisible temptation. Since pain was born continuously, the frost's anesthetic effect needed to be constant.
Without much hesitation, Hell swallowed the temptation. Its support for Rukia deepened. High-concentration miasma flowed into her, making her stronger and allowing her to "freeze" Hell's pain over a wider area for a longer duration.
Rukia now understood that the "King of Hell" status shouldn't exist because Hell only cared about torment. But with effort, there was a way. She identified Hell's "Need." Hell's torments had a limit; it couldn't break powerhouses with iron wills easily. It needed a "Specialist" to accelerate the grinding process.
Rukia became that specialist—the humanoid natural disaster of Hell. But the second step was to make this disaster indispensable, and then use that leverage to influence and reshape Hell!
She had thought this would take eons, but the fall of the Three Worlds provided the perfect shortcut. The extreme frost not only froze Hell's pain but also acted as a blizzard upon its residents, burying them in a frozen kingdom and granting them a path to "Death."
In a Hell cursed with immortality, Death was salvation. This was the authority she claimed: the Goddess of the Frozen Death.
Hell originally wouldn't permit such authority, but it was currently desperate to stop the pain of the falling worlds. In its inherent "Yin and Negative" tendency, Hell made a choice that might lead to its own ruin!
Vaguely, Rukia heard Hell let out a frantic, low laugh as the pain receded.
[In the great cataclysm, thou hast used the curse of freezing pain to forge a crown of frost, stepping upon the stairs to the throne. But forget not—this crown is soaked in the curse Hell gives thee. Do not let the crown fall, or else...]
The laugh faded before the "or else" was finished, but Rukia knew: as long as she used her frost to freeze Hell's pain, her authority was unshakeable. But the moment she tried to change that, the accumulated agony of eons would pour into her. It was a silent contract—a curse linking her to Hell.
Rukia didn't care. Getting into the corporate office of Hell and kicking the door down just to put her own desk inside had used up all her brain cells. Future problems were for her future self.
Regardless, in the undying Hell, the Goddess of the Frozen Death was born! Her unique Ultimate Dark Force sprouted.
"Ultimate Dark Force 1% — ETERNAL TRIBULATION FROST!"
If her previous power was a natural disaster, this was a World-Ending Catastrophe. One hit, and all things die!
Yamamoto witnessed the entire metamorphosis. Sensing the ballooning dark force, his eyes flickered. He pushed his Absolute Realm to its 90% peak and began to sublimate toward the Ultimate realm.
Aizen thought that without the Three Worlds, Ultimacy was a source-less power. But Yamamoto disagreed! The Three Worlds were gone, and the Seireitei had vanished. But HE, Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto, the King of Soul Reapers, still existed! He still gripped the fists that carried two thousand years of history.
The majestic man remains; who dares say all is lost?
In that instant, countless flaming skeletal shadows flashed behind him. The strongest Ghost King of the Soul Society used the karma of a hundred demons to charge toward Ultimacy once more! The Crimson Sun bloomed with unprecedented brilliance.
"Ultimacy 1% — THE RISING SUN!!!"
Aizen, watching the two exchange ultimate sublimated strikes, rubbed his chin and whispered: "Rukia found a path in Hell, and the old man found a way to reclaim Ultimacy. It seems for a Martial Artist, combat is indeed the best cultivation. Perhaps I should find an opponent to practice with too."
But looking at the sky, Aizen temporarily abandoned the idea.
No wait can last forever. The Three Worlds finally hit the ground.
No words can describe the scene. Sound vanished, replaced by a shockwave that destroyed everything, followed by a boundless eruption of light and heat. Hell experienced its first "Perfect Sunny Day," with rays of immeasurable intensity shining equally upon every resident.
When it ended, "devastated" was too light a word. The geography of Hell had been rewritten.
At the very center of Hell sat the ruins of Karakura Town. Despite Yhwach's protection, it was a wasteland. The majestic figure of the Soul King stood in the center, and opposite Him, Ichigo Kurosaki stood silently.
"You won. This long million-year karma... can finally have its period."
Mo Yu's voice was calm. There was no denying the result. The Soul King's vessel was slowly disintegrating—the result of Ichigo's full-power strike combined with Yhwach's coordination.
"Spectator... do you consider this a victory?" Ichigo's tone was heavy.
Mo Yu laughed. "Of course. Not just a victory, but a hearty triumph. You might not understand now, but the facts will speak. For instance... all the old friends I personally blasted to dust are now reunited at this moment."
"To be called an 'old friend' by the Soul King is truly an honor," Aizen said, appearing in a corner of Karakura and greeting Mo Yu and Ichigo leisurely. "And my dear friend, it is a pleasure to see you in Hell."
In the Chaos World, a catastrophe of this scale would have meant the end. But in Hell... there is no death!
Not just Aizen—Yamamoto, Rukia, Uryu, Chad, and Orihime appeared. Even the Captains of the Gotei 13 were converging on this spot, arriving one by one.
Mo Yu looked around and smiled.
"This is an unprecedentedly 'bad' ending. The Three Worlds are destroyed. We are all dead. Every single one of us has fallen into Hell. However... this is not a catastrophe. It is the beginning. The refining of the Three Worlds Ark has started. The path to the glorious future rests in your fists. As long as you..."
Mo Yu stopped. The Soul King's body had disintegrated too much to support his speech. He vanished mid-sentence.
The sudden disappearance left Ichigo feeling incredibly annoyed. "Hey! Spectator! Finish your sentence before you die!"
Just as Ichigo wondered if he should punch Time itself to rewind it a few seconds so Mo Yu could finish, an anomaly occurred. The boundless power of Hell collapsed toward the center of Karakura Town!
Hands wreathed in black-red radiance emerged from the void. Then, the "Soul King" was reborn. But compared to before, this version was dripping with disaster and ominous energy.
Mo Yu's voice rang out again, now with a hint of gloom:
"Don't be in such a hurry. I told you, there is no death in Hell. I just went to 're-class' and change into my Hell-Soul King special effect skin. Now, back to the topic: your next task is simple. Hell has swallowed the old worlds. You can view Hell as a Chaos Egg pregnant with a new world. Now... use your high-purity fists to beat Hell senseless. Beat the 'amniotic fluid' out of this Chaos Egg! Pummel Hell until it can't take it anymore and vomits out the New World! Simple, isn't it?"
The reaction was unanimous. This "Creation by Pummeling" method sounded simple in theory, but the how was a different story.
Mo Yu anticipated their reaction. He spread his arms and clenched his fists, laughing heartily:
"If I say that as the Hell-Soul King, I am essentially Hell itself... do you know what to do now?"
In that instant, every face in the ruins wore a look of "I get it."
"Then, I declare: The King of Fighters Finals, and the live launch of Heaven Media's Corporate Bible, Part One: Genesis of the Strong, officially begins! My old and new friends... let us write the myth!"
With those words, Mo Yu struck first.
He walked upon the ruins of the fallen world, treading the boiling surface of the Great Cauldron of Hell. His spirit resided in His fists! With a matchless fist-intent, he spoke without words:
"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
In an instant, sky-blotting shockwaves of light erupted from His fists, screaming toward them all!
End of Chapter
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