Silbern, Throne Room.
"What happened to His Majesty?" — Haschwalth asked coldly, his eyes fixed on Ren, who sat lazily on Yhwach's throne.
"..." — Ren didn't answer. He simply stared back at Haschwalth with indifference, as if watching a mere insect trying to bare its fangs at a human.
Swish!
In an instant, Haschwalth vanished from his spot and appeared above Ren, slashing downward mercilessly.
Boom!
A concentrated beam of Reishi erupted from his blade, aiming to kill Ren in one strike.
The powerful explosion shook the entire throne room. The throne was gone — all that remained was a massive crater with smoke rising from its depths.
"Did I… do it?" — Haschwalth muttered, tension gripping his voice. He stared into the crater, his heart pounding in fear. The man who had sat upon that throne terrified him beyond reason — his strike had not been driven by anger, but by pure, instinctive terror.
"Your attack is… interesting," — a lazy, detached voice echoed from behind him. Ren stood there, leaning casually against the wall. — "It's similar to Getsuga Tenshō, though it lacks the power."
"That white-silver hair… those eyes like galaxies… and that overwhelming power… you are—" — Haschwalth's pupils shrank in realization — "Kurosaki Ren..."
"Bingo! And since you recognized me, you'll get a prize." — For the first time, Ren's expression shifted into an amused smile. He drew the familiar black sword from his side. — "Subete no sōzō o tachikire… Mikazuki!"
With a low, resonant hum, the black kodachi-like blade transformed into a red shirasaya — its scarlet edge deeper than sunset, more vivid than blood.
Boom!
At that very moment, waves of Reiatsu — calm yet endless, gentle yet terrifying — began to swallow Haschwalth's entire being.
Pang!
Haschwalth dropped to his knees, his breathing ragged, sweat soaking his body as though he had just stepped out of a bath.
"My Shikai's ability is simple and straightforward — it cuts through everything in existence…" — Ren spoke quietly, gazing down at the kneeling Quincy. — "And I mean everything: not only flesh and Reishi, but space-time… and even concepts themselves."
The air around Haschwalth trembled violently, as if reality itself shivered in fear of the crimson blade Ren held. The crushing pressure of his Reiatsu was enough to make Haschwalth's bones crack — not from any strike, but from existence itself rejecting him.
He tried to lift his head, but his blood froze the moment he met those eyes… eyes that spoke of infinite galaxies, of destinies crumbling beneath a single glance.
"I-it's impossible… such a power… cannot be allowed to exist," — he gasped, his words breaking as his body began to collapse.
"You don't need to allow it. I don't need permission to be what I am," — Ren replied with a calmness colder than a dying star — "Only a fool would think he could use me… kill me… or even comprehend me."
Ren lifted his sword lightly, without the faintest killing intent — yet space itself fractured around Mikazuki's blade, as if reality could no longer bear its presence.
"The moment you chose to raise your weapon against me… your fate was sealed. You are erased — from existence itself, Balancer of Fate."
— Slash! —
There was no scream. No metallic sound. Only emptiness.
Haschwalth vanished — no body, no remains, no echo. His memory, existence, and every trace of him were gone, as if he had never been.
"Too bad. You're not the first fool to raise his sword against me, only to vanish so thoroughly that no one remembers he ever existed — except me," — Ren murmured indifferently as his Zanpakutō returned to its sealed state.
Swish!
Using Shunpo, he vanished from Silbern — intent on capturing a few Quincy to make them serve as his maids.
—
The Shadow Realm was engulfed in chaos and destruction. The Captains were surrounded on all sides by Quincy, fighting desperately for survival.
"They seem to be having fun," — Ren whistled softly, standing high in the sky, observing the various battlefields. He had previously restrained his Reiatsu within Silbern, which allowed the fighting to continue unhindered.
But…
If he had let it leak outside, everyone in the Shadow Realm would have been rendered unable to fight — many reduced to nothing but bloody mist.
< Why don't you try using your Bankai? This is a good opportunity, since you haven't used it since attaining it. >
A melodic, feminine voice rang in his mind — Mikazuki's voice.
"Don't you think using Bankai is a bit much?" — Ren asked, puzzled. He knew that unleashing it at full power would annihilate not only the Shadow Realm but the Soul Society itself.
< I'm not telling you to use all of it. Even 10% will do. You might need it soon — better get used to it now. >
"I suppose you're right…" — After a moment's thought, Ren agreed with Mikazuki.
"Subete no sōzō o shihai seyo!... Bankai!... Tenma Mikazuki!"
Buzz!
A terrifying surge of Reiatsu exploded from Ren's body as his Bankai activated. His Zanpakutō vanished entirely — even its hilt gone.
But in return, Ren's form transformed drastically. His white-silver hair grew longer, cascading to his ankles. His crystalline eyes became radiant voids — galaxies swirling silently within. His skin gleamed like polished moonlight, while black spiritual ribbons flowed from his shoulders, coiling like serpents around his limbs.
From his back unfurled six wings — composed of shards of time and concepts — their edges fracturing with black and crimson light, twisting the very fabric of reality around them.
In that instant… pressure dropped. Movement ceased. Existence froze.
Within a single heartbeat, every Quincy in the Shadow Realm who was about to attack… stopped. Their senses failed, their bodies locked, their souls drowned in a void — a darkness where even sound and meaning perished.
They realized, without truly understanding, that they were mere grains of sand within an infinite ocean — weightless, meaningless.
"Everything in this world — from spirit to flesh, from time to possibility — exists under my will within my Bankai," — his soft voice resonated directly in every mind, friend and foe alike.
"Aaaaah!" — screams erupted across the Shadow Realm as ninety percent of the Quincy vanished, one after another, erased from existence itself — their being wiped clean from the records of time.
While his Shikai allowed him to cut through all existence, his Bankai allowed him to control all existence — including the concepts themselves.
To sever concepts and to dominate them were entirely different. Severing meant ending them — domination meant making them obey.
The laws of reality stopped functioning as they should. The flow of time, causality, and boundaries ceased to matter. Everything that was real now awaited Ren's command to take form.
The dark sky above the Shadow Realm began to crack like a mirror under pressure, and from the fractures poured strange colors — hues unseen by mortal eyes — flickering like the flames of another reality.
At the center of it all stood Ren, unmoving. His wings of shards trembled quietly, and every motion of his fingers rewrote existence itself.
"Here… there is no meaning to space, nor to time," — he said calmly, as the ground beneath him shattered and reformed endlessly — "What you see is nothing but a reflection of my will."
At that moment, a few of the higher-ranked Quincy — those who managed to resist erasure for a brief instant — gathered for one final assault. Reishi pillars rose around them as they shouted their last cry:
"Für His Majesty!"
But Ren didn't raise a hand.
He only looked.
And that single gaze froze their attack midair — then the light itself folded inward and vanished, as though the universe had decided that event never took place.
Silence followed. Absolute. No wind, no echo, no screams.
Then, softly, Ren spoke:
"I bet you can now see the difference… between one who cuts existence — and one who rules it."
His wings burst apart into fragments of black light, expanding over the entire Shadow Realm. It wasn't an explosion — it was a complete rewrite. The ground turned to silver ash, the sky to a sea of light, and every remaining Quincy became thin white threads dissolving into the void.
Only a few Captains and select Quincy remained — spared solely because Ren did not consider them "enemies."
But it had all happened in an instant — everything ended in a single moment.
The wings behind Ren vanished, his appearance returned to normal, and his Zanpakutō reformed at his side.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
The sky fractured like glass — and the Shadow Realm collapsed into nothingness.
In the next instant, everyone found themselves back in the Seireitei.
...
To get more chapters please visit my p@treon :
[email protected]/Akasaki_Ryujin
For support :
https://ko-fi.com/akasaki_ryujin