Hearing Yoruichi's hesitation, Cole couldn't help but laugh.
"Miss Yoruichi, you actually care about that?"
In his impression, Yoruichi spent more time not wearing clothes than wearing them. A full-blown exhibitionist.
Yoruichi glared at Cole viciously.
"Cut the crap. Believe it or not, I'll tear your nasty thing to pieces!?"
As she spoke, Yoruichi deliberately swung her claws toward Cole's lower abdomen to add a bit more intimidation.
Cole immediately felt a chill run through him. He had no intention of gambling his happiness for the rest of his life.
So Cole chuckled and pulled out the clothes he had swapped off earlier, handing them to Yoruichi as he smiled.
"These were made for me by Senjumaru. You'll have to give them back later."
Yoruichi rolled her eyes.
"You think I'm going to steal your clothes!?"
Even if clothes handmade by Senjumaru were precious, she was still a great noble. Getting a few outfits wasn't difficult for her.
As she spoke, Yoruichi didn't bother avoiding Cole at all. She slowly shifted from her cat form back into human form.
A stunning beauty with long, straight black hair appeared.
Healthy wheat-colored skin, elegant body lines—just looking at her made people instinctively swallow.
Cole stared openly. He really couldn't hold back and blurted out, "Miss Yoruichi, and you still say you're not an exhibitionist!?"
To be honest, he was already completely disillusioned with these long-lived Shinigami.
After endless time, these people basically all picked up plenty of bad habits, and yet they enjoyed them.
Maybe this was the unique kind of amusement they developed under time's erosion.
Cole grumbled about Shinigami fetishes in his heart.
Yoruichi, still putting on her clothes, smiled with narrowed eyes and teased Cole.
"So what if I'm an exhibitionist? Don't you like looking? If you don't like it, you can turn your head the other way, you know."
Cole hurriedly shook his head like a rattle drum.
"I love looking. If you could hand out a bit more 'benefits,' that'd be even better."
"Dream on!"
Yoruichi rolled her eyes again, and the black robe wrapped around her body.
Her wheat-colored skin was covered up, and Cole immediately felt a huge sense of loss. Then he remembered something and said dryly,
"Miss Yoruichi, it looks like you're not wearing underwear."
"Of course not. You want me to wear yours!?"
Yoruichi clicked her tongue, completely unconcerned about going commando, and directly grabbed the Quincy lying on the ground.
Cole quickly followed behind her, asking curiously, "Where are you taking him?"
Yoruichi's expression turned serious.
"Of course we're finding a quiet place to interrogate him. Do you think this place is suitable for interrogation!?"
Their earlier chatting had only been a small interlude. Right now, she felt immense pressure in her heart.
In the shadows of Seireitei, such a massive Quincy force was hidden—if this got out, all three realms would be shaken.
And just from the scale of the buildings here, it was obvious the Quincies hadn't been hiding here for merely decades.
It could be several hundred years.
Even more than a thousand years.
Linking it to the intel she had seen in the Daireisho Corridor…
The Quincies here were very likely the group from a thousand years ago—and that group was exceptionally strong.
With human bodies alone, they had forcibly invaded Soul Society.
It was said that if Yamamoto hadn't forcibly crushed the Quincy King back then, Seireitei would have been beaten into complete defeat.
And if it really was that wave of Quincies, the situation would be even worse.
After all, they had hidden for a thousand years—right in the shadow of Seireitei—and they must have obtained a tremendous amount of information about the Soul King.
And in battles, nearly seventy percent of a Shinigami's advantage came from information gaps.
If these Quincies had grasped data on Shinigami zanpakuto, their combat power would be several notches stronger than before.
What's more, they might even have developed tools even more suited to dealing with Shinigami.
After all…
A thousand years was simply too long.
With the enemy calculating while the Shinigami remained unaware, even Captain-Commander Yamamoto could meet with disaster.
The more she thought, the more uneasy Yoruichi became. Barefoot, she stomped the ground and flickered into motion, rushing toward a certain shadowed area.
Cole kept pace and laughed, "Miss Yoruichi, you can be pretty serious sometimes too!"
"..."
The two arrived at a remote area.
It looked like a prison zone—desolate and sparsely populated. Within several kilometers, there were only a few Quincy spiritual pressures.
But beyond that, the two sensed some very discordant spiritual pressures.
Yoruichi's face darkened.
"This spiritual pressure… it's Hollows. And it's definitely not just one or two."
Cole raised an eyebrow slightly. When it came to sensing Hollows, he was even sharper than Yoruichi.
"This way!"
With Cole leading, the two rapidly darted through the area near the prison. At their speed, they were like two streaks of light sweeping past.
Very quickly, they arrived at a place filled with densely packed prison cells.
It was obvious these numerous open-air cells were absolutely not for imprisoning Shinigami or Quincies.
The sizes didn't match.
The smallest cell was at least four meters tall, while the largest was hundreds of meters high.
Inside were countless Hollows—trash Hollows, Gillians, and even Adjuchas-class Menos.
Staring at the Hollows inside the cells, howling nonstop, cold sweat slid down Yoruichi's forehead as she said hoarsely,
"What are these Quincies trying to do? Why are they capturing so many Hollows? How did they invade Hueco Mundo?"
Before the previous questions could be answered, even more questions piled on.
Cole looked calmly at the Menos and said, "If they can create a space this huge right under your noses, do you think invading Hueco Mundo is difficult for them?"
Yoruichi fell silent.
If it was truly the Quincies from a thousand years ago, then invading other spaces really wouldn't be hard.
After all, back then they had already pushed into Soul Society with human bodies—let alone what they could do after hiding for a thousand years.
"As for what they want to do with these Hollows…"
Cole narrowed his eyes and pointed toward a gigantic cell in the middle of the prison complex, spanning several kilometers.
"I think that's the answer."
Yoruichi followed his gaze, and her heart tightened as an indescribable fear surged up.
"They… they've gone insane!?"
Inside that enormous cell, there were countless Hollows—packed so tightly they were practically stacked on top of each other, a dense, squirming mass.
Some had already turned into corpses.
Some were still alive…
Crazily tearing into their companions and slaughtering each other.
Cole squinted and said, "Hollows need to feed too. They put all the Hollows they captured into a 'colosseum' like this."
"If they don't provide food, these Hollows will quickly start killing each other until only the last one remains."
"And by my estimate, the energy this cell can provide—if we ignore purification failures—is just enough to produce an Adjuchas-class Menos."
As he spoke, Cole glanced at the other cells, where several Adjuchas-class Menos were covered in wounds and weak to the extreme.
"Looks like they're not only trying to cultivate Adjuchas-class Menos—they're also attempting to create Vasto Lorde-class Menos."
Yoruichi shook her head frantically.
"Crazy… crazy… they're completely insane. As Quincies, they're actually choosing to associate with Menos now. They're insane!"
Hollows were enemies of all life, but also part of the cycle of life.
So Shinigami slew Hollows, but they didn't truly erase them, and it couldn't really be called hatred.
But Quincies were different. Their doctrine was to completely eliminate Hollows.
Their race was like it was born to hate Hollows.
And now, the race that hated Menos the most was actively cultivating Menos.
What was driving them?
What made them abandon their pride?
The answer was obvious: hatred for Seireitei—no, hatred for Shinigami.
Resentment and unwillingness over their defeat a thousand years ago.
If such a force erupted, Yoruichi didn't even dare to imagine the consequences.
Swallowing hard, Yoruichi quickly dragged the Quincy she had in hand to a quiet place.
She had to interrogate this Quincy as soon as possible and get exact intelligence about this place.
Cole didn't particularly care either way. He didn't follow immediately, but silently watched those Menos for a long while.
After quite some time, Cole finally let out a breath, shook his head, and said,
"No wonder Hueco Mundo has been so weak."
These days, he had been wandering around Hueco Mundo and noticed that the number of Adjuchas-class Menos in the Forest of Menos was extremely small.
That was a very abnormal situation.
Because the Hollow population in Hueco Mundo was enormous. Even just based on the huge base number, many Menos should have been born.
Now that he thought about it, Hueco Mundo was probably close to being emptied out.
First, the Shinigami killed off a batch.
Then Aizen took a batch away.
And now even the Quincies were coming to capture Menos for experiments.
Shaking his head, Cole withdrew his gaze from the Menos, lifted his foot, and stepped into the barrier Yoruichi had created.
The moment he entered…
Cole heard a terrified voice.
"Y-you… you're a Shinigami!!!"
"How did you get into the Invisible Empire!?"
"You damned Shinigami! Won't you even leave us a single place to live!?"
(End of Chapter)
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