"Rest now, Quincy brat."
Shigyō Nobutsuna's cold voice rang across the battlefield.
The sky trembled.
Then a colossal black-and-white balance, nearly a hundred meters tall, materialized overhead like a tower stretching between heaven and earth.
On the left pan lay the burning ruins of the cities Bazz-B had destroyed, smoke and flame still rising from the wreckage.
On the right appeared the trembling figure of a blue-haired boy from the orphanage in Silbern.
A sharp crack split the air.
The pan marked Karma crushed the pan marked Recompense.
Bazz-B's legs immediately began to blacken.
Carbonization spread upward at terrifying speed, and both legs crumbled into ash before his eyes.
Nobutsuna calmly sheathed his Zanpakutō and turned away. As far as he was concerned, the judgment had already been delivered.
Bazz-B stared down at his vanishing body in horror.
Karmic fire poured from the wounds where his legs had disappeared, crawling upward through his body like venomous snakes and burning directly into his soul.
His damaged Vollständig desperately tried to carry him backward, but every use of Hirenkyaku left a dark Sin Mark in the air behind him.
The marks deepened with every step. It was as though the space itself had become part of the execution.
"No…" Bazz-B's voice shook. "This can't be happening…"
He couldn't accept it.
He was Sternritter "H" — The Heat.
And yet he was dying here, helplessly, beneath the judgment of a Shinigami he had never even heard of before today.
Above the Seireitei, blue-gray ash began drifting down like snow.
Every fragment carried the last remnants of Bazz-B's existence.
Nobutsuna bent down and picked up a broken fragment of the Quincy cross left behind on the ground.
It glinted faintly beneath the sunlight.
The first battle belonged to Soul Society!
...
"Your Majesty! We've detected Shigyō Nobutsuna's reiatsu, and there's more—"
Haschwalth's voice trembled.
The moment Nobutsuna entered the battlefield, the man who normally maintained perfect composure had gone pale, cold sweat running down his forehead.
Shigyō Nobutsuna had died a thousand years ago.
The Quincy had made sure of that.
Yet now he was alive again — not merely alive, but stronger.
Far stronger.
Had the Shinigami somehow discovered a way to resurrect the dead? Even Haschwalth found the idea absurd.
Crack.
Everyone turned.
The armrest of Yhwach's throne had been crushed into powder beneath his hand.
He didn't need Haschwalth to explain what had happened.
Yhwach had already sensed those familiar reiatsu signatures.
The original captains.
All of them.
Only now did he realize that he'd walked straight into a trap. But their resurrection wasn't even the most disturbing part.
Their strength was.
As Yhwach carefully assessed their reiatsu, he discovered something almost impossible to believe.
Each of the resurrected original captains now possessed power comparable to his own current state.
That made no sense.
Coming back from the dead was outrageous enough — how had every one of them become this powerful?
Nothing in the incomplete futures available to him through The Almighty had shown him this outcome.
Had his vision of the future somehow been distorted?
Before Yhwach or the Sternritter could fully process it, Bazz-B's reiatsu suddenly surged.
For a moment, it erupted violently — then collapsed.
And vanished completely.
"Bazz-B…"
Haschwalth stared ahead blankly. His fists clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms. Blood appeared where he bit through his lower lip.
He knew exactly what the disappearance of that reiatsu meant.
Bazz-B was dead.
The entire fight had lasted only minutes.
His childhood friend had been killed almost immediately after entering battle.
Haschwalth struggled to accept it.
"Your Majesty."
Pernida Parnkgjas turned anxiously toward Yhwach.
"What are your orders?"
The situation had deteriorated far too quickly. Every moment of hesitation now risked complete destruction.
Yhwach's expression became terrifyingly dark.
Veins stood out across his forehead as fury burned in his eyes.
Finally, he spoke through clenched teeth.
"Send the order. All Sternritter are to break out independently and retreat to Hueco Mundo."
"The Schutzstaffel will remain with me. We'll cover their retreat."
Several Sternritter stiffened.
Scattering meant abandoning the advantage of fighting as a unified force, but there was no better option left.
And Yhwach himself staying behind with the Schutzstaffel made the severity of their position unmistakable.
Inside, Yhwach was seething.
He was the son of the Soul King.
The progenitor of the Quincy.
When had he ever been forced into such a humiliating retreat? Worse, he still couldn't understand how the original Gotei 13 had returned from the dead — or how they'd become so overwhelmingly powerful.
For the first time in a very long while, uncertainty gnawed at him.
Was some unseen force manipulating events from beyond his perception?
Whatever the answer, there was only one sensible course left.
He needed to recover The Almighty completely.
Only then could he reassess the board.
Yhwach rose from his throne, his expression cold with hatred.
"Shinigami… I'll remember this."
...
"Royd. You stay behind."
Royd Lloyd immediately stopped and turned back toward Yhwach.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
Yhwach fixed him with a steady gaze.
"I need you to use your Schrift and assume my power before entering the battlefield. Do you understand?"
Before retreating, Yhwach wanted to determine just how powerful the resurrected original captains had become.
"I understand completely, Your Majesty. Leave it to me."
Royd dropped to one knee without hesitation.
His muscles began writhing beneath his skin as though countless snakes were crawling through his flesh.
The grotesque transformation lasted only an instant before his entire appearance changed.
When it ended, another Yhwach stood in his place — face, build, presence, even his reiatsu virtually identical.
Royd had no fear of dying.
If sacrificing his life could give Yhwach information and buy the Wandenreich a better chance of escaping, he would gladly pay that price.
"Good." Yhwach nodded. "Go. Kill as many as you can and buy the others enough time to withdraw safely."
"At once."
Royd rose and raced toward the battlefield.
Once he was gone, Yhwach turned toward the four members of the Schutzstaffel standing nearby: Pernida Parnkgjas, Askin Nakk Le Vaar, Gerard Valkyrie, and Lille Barro.
"Prepare yourselves." His voice hardened. "You'll move out with me shortly."
Yhwach rose from his throne and swept one hand forward, issuing his final orders.
...
The moment Royd emerged from the shadows, his composure nearly shattered.
'What the hell?'
He was surrounded.
Completely.
His gaze swept across the battlefield and counted no fewer than twenty-four figures wearing captain's haori.
Worse, several other Shinigami wore ordinary shihakushō yet clearly possessed captain-class reiatsu.
Royd's stomach dropped.
'Don't panic. Absolutely do not panic.'
He was supposed to be Yhwach right now.
If he showed even the slightest fear, these people would immediately realize something was wrong.
Royd took a slow breath, straightened his posture, and forced himself to imitate the overwhelming majesty of the Quincy King.
A woman stepped out from among the captains. Her white haori shifted softly behind her, and despite her graceful appearance, the cold pressure surrounding her was unmistakable.
Unohana Retsu.
She regarded him without warmth.
"Yhwach. I expected you to keep hiding like a frightened turtle." Her eyes narrowed. "I'm surprised you actually had the courage to show yourself. Tired of living?"
Royd forced himself not to react.
"Hmph. Unohana." He adopted Yhwach's cold tone. "A thousand years have passed, and you remain just as arrogant."
His gaze hardened.
"Failing to kill you back then was unfortunate. I'll correct that mistake today."
He stamped one foot down.
"Sankt Zwinger."
A massive wall of light erupted from the ground around him, forming a brilliant defensive sanctuary.
Unohana had no interest in wasting more words.
Her Zanpakutō came free of its sheath.
Before she could attack, however, another figure flashed between them.
Katori Batsu'unsai.
"Retsu." She grinned. "Let me have this one."
Batsu'unsai hadn't enjoyed a proper battle in nearly a thousand years.
More importantly, she'd never forgotten what happened during the first Quincy war — her own carelessness back then had contributed to Kazuma falling into a centuries-long slumber.
Now she finally had the chance to settle that debt herself.
Unohana rolled her eyes.
"Oh, spare me."
She knew her best friend far too well.
"Don't dress this up as some touching attempt to avenge your husband. You're just itching for a fight."
The excuse itself was perfectly respectable.
How much of it Batsu'unsai actually meant was another question entirely.
Still, Unohana stepped aside without complaint.
She'd already enjoyed herself during the extermination of the Tsunayashiro Clan. It was only fair to let someone else have a turn.
"Hahaha! That's why you're my favorite, Retsu!"
Batsu'unsai laughed happily.
Then, despite the supposed Yhwach standing directly across from them, she and Unohana casually started chatting as if they were catching up over drinks.
Royd's temple twitched.
They were ignoring him completely.
"ENOUGH!" He finally snapped. "You two insolent fools will both die here!"
Royd swept out one hand.
Countless Heilig Pfeil materialized at once.
The golden arrows poured across the battlefield like a vast glowing flood, weaving together into a dense storm of light.
It wasn't aimed solely at Unohana or Batsu'unsai — every captain in the area had been included in the attack.
The Heilig Pfeil were no ordinary projectiles.
They carried both purification and annihilation properties, making them particularly lethal against spiritual beings such as Hollows and Shinigami.
Even high-level defensive Kidō offered little guarantee of safety against their penetrative power.
Golden beams erupted across the battlefield, streaking into the heavens and bathing everything beneath them in brilliant light.
From a distance, the entire area seemed to have transformed into sacred ground.
And standing at the center of that golden radiance, wearing the face of the Quincy King and unleashing an overwhelming barrage from every direction, Royd looked every bit like the son of the Soul King descending in divine judgment.
For the moment, at least, his entrance looked absolutely magnificent.