"T-there's… another Shinigami!!!"
The Quincy bound by a golden chain of kido restraints stared wide-eyed in terror at Cole as he walked in.
"Y-you Shinigami… have you already launched a large-scale invasion into the Invisible Empire to destroy this place!?"
No matter how the Quincy struggled and questioned them, neither Cole nor Yoruichi showed the slightest intention of answering.
Yoruichi's gaze was heavy as she swept her surroundings.
"So this place is called the Invisible Empire, huh? It really does suit your environment."
A space hidden within Seireitei's shadow—unnoticed, untraceable.
An invisible empire indeed.
Coming back to herself, Yoruichi spoke in a low, stern voice to the Quincy.
"How long have you been hiding under Seireitei? Ever since the war a thousand years ago… have you been hiding in Seireitei all this time!?"
Sweat poured down the bound Quincy's forehead as he struggled desperately against the chains, refusing to say a single word.
He could tell these two were likely the Shinigami's vanguard. They still didn't fully understand the Invisible Empire.
I have to notify the Sternritter-sama…
With that thought, he struggled even harder.
Off to the side, Cole said lazily, "Give it up. Even if you Quincies have weird abilities, the gap in strength doesn't change."
At the end of the day, in this world, only one thing truly decided strength: how much spiritual power you had.
As long as your spiritual power was strong enough, any ability could be resisted and rendered ineffective.
Just like Aizen's Kyoka Suigetsu (Mirror Flower, Water Moon)—it looked invincible and unsolvable, but it was also tied to Aizen's spiritual pressure.
If Aizen's strength was lacking, then no matter how strong the ability was, it would still be useless.
After struggling for a while longer, the captured Quincy fell into despair as he realized Cole was right.
No matter how he fought it, the golden chains didn't budge.
He couldn't even summon his spirit bow.
Seeing that, Yoruichi let out a small breath, the stone in her heart easing a little.
Looks like these Quincies, even after hiding for a thousand years, still haven't completely cracked Shinigami abilities—at least for now.
The Quincy finally stopped struggling, then glared at Cole and Yoruichi with hatred and roared:
"You damned Shinigami! Kill me! I'll never submit to you filthy bastards! I won't say a single word!"
Yoruichi frowned.
"Back then it was you Quincies who invaded Soul Society first—so why are you acting like the victims!?"
She'd wanted to use his answers to confirm certain intel.
Like whether these Quincies really were the ones from a thousand years ago.
But the moment she asked that, the Quincy clamped his mouth shut, looking like he'd rather die than speak.
Yoruichi could only sigh helplessly as she walked over.
"Honestly, I don't really like interrogations. But I was the Captain of the Second Division, so I'm very familiar with this line of work."
As she spoke, white lightning flickered across her hand.
A dozen seconds later—
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!"
A heart-rending scream echoed inside the barrier.
The bound Quincy's eyes were bloodshot, bulging out as his body convulsed like a fish thrown onto land.
He struggled so violently that Cole could even hear bones snapping from the strain.
Cole sucked in a cold breath.
"Yoruichi… what did you do? Ordinary lightning shouldn't have that kind of effect, right!?"
Yoruichi looked at him, puzzled, and waved it off.
"What do you mean, what did I do? I just raised his body's sensitivity. Don't tell me you can't do that too!?"
Only then did Cole recall a certain kido effect.
It could raise a person's sensitivity, though its original purpose was for healing injuries.
He hadn't expected Yoruichi to use it for interrogation.
Right after that, Cole witnessed the "professional standards" of a former Second Division Captain—one interrogation method after another, endlessly varied.
Whips and branding irons were child's play.
As a Shinigami, Yoruichi displayed methods far more brutal than that.
Just watching made Cole's scalp prickle. He unconsciously backed up two steps and stared at Yoruichi like she was a monster.
"Miss Yoruichi… you're terrifying."
Only now did he remember: the Bleach world, at its core, was dark.
Don't be fooled by how righteous these Captains looked on the surface—behind the scenes, their methods were harsher and crueler than the next.
Yoruichi looked a little speechless.
"Aren't these just normal interrogation methods? I haven't even used anything truly cruel yet."
She'd come to the Invisible Empire naked—she hadn't brought a single specialized interrogation tool from the Second Division.
Otherwise, she wouldn't even need one minute to make him confess everything, right down to what happened when he was a baby.
As she spoke, Yoruichi increased the intensity again. The Quincy was tortured to the edge of madness.
He passed out from pain several times.
But each time, he wouldn't even be unconscious for a full second before the pain forced him awake again.
After about three minutes of this, the Quincy's face was deathly pale, his body trembling uncontrollably.
Every joint in his body had been dislocated.
The bones in the tips of all ten fingers had been crushed to powder.
There wasn't a single drop of blood on him, yet injuries covered his entire body.
Just as the Quincy thought he was about to die like this, Yoruichi casually extended her hand.
"Don't think you can die that easily."
A faint, pale-blue glow appeared in her palm, and the Quincy's injuries rapidly recovered.
Feeling it happen, the Quincy finally broke. His expression went insane—crying and laughing at the same time as he begged:
"I-I'll talk, I'll talk! Don't torture me anymore! Ask whatever you want, I'll say it! Please… please kill me…!"
Only then did he understand what "worse than death" truly meant.
In the hands of this woman who was like a demon, living was millions of times more painful than dying.
Every second felt like suffering in hell.
Yoruichi withdrew her hand and said indifferently, "You only lasted five minutes? If I'd known, I should've used interrogation methods right from the start."
Beside her, Cole's face looked a little pale as he said stiffly, "Honestly, I think lasting five minutes is already impressive. Looking at you right now… I feel like I'm staring at a demon."
Yoruichi's mood instantly lifted. She said smugly, "So are you still going to get fresh with me? If you dare offend me again, I'll make you suffer worse than him."
Cole's mouth twitched. He looked at her with a dark face.
"Believe it or not, if you threaten me again, I'll make you spend the rest of your life locked up by Soi fong, that rebellious brat."
Yoruichi shuddered and immediately put away her unrealistic ambitions.
She could easily torture this Quincy.
But Cole could just as easily torture her.
Their strength had long since stopped existing on the same plane.
With that small interlude, Yoruichi steadied herself and stared seriously at the Quincy.
"First question. Where did the Quincies here come from? Are you the ones from a thousand years ago—the group that invaded Soul Society!?"
The Quincy's eyes were empty as he answered slowly, "Yes… but not me. I'm only three hundred years old."
"So it really is the group from a thousand years ago…"
Yoruichi's face turned ugly.
"Back then, did Captain-Commander Yamamoto really fail to kill all the Quincies in that war!?"
"And what's with this lifespan? Aren't Quincies just humans!?"
"How could you live this long…"
Suppressing that for now, Yoruichi asked the more urgent question.
"Who created this space? In the war a thousand years ago, you Quincies shouldn't have had the chance to do something like this."
From the intel she had seen, a thousand years ago, the Quincies—led by the Quincy King—had forcibly invaded Soul Society.
But the moment the two sides met, a world-shaking war erupted.
The Quincies were suppressed almost the entire time, until the Quincy King died and the Quincies were driven back to the human world.
Hearing that, the Quincy answered dully, "His Majesty created it. In that war a thousand years ago, His Majesty used supreme power to leave us our last spark."
"His Majesty… Yhwach?"
Yoruichi's realization hit.
If it was the Quincy King who could fight Captain-Commander Yamamoto head-on, then doing something like this wasn't impossible.
"What a terrifying monster… but thankfully, he's already dead…"
It was an unthinking remark.
But the Quincy reacted as if stabbed. His eyes widened as he roared at Yoruichi:
"His Majesty isn't dead! How could you Shinigami possibly kill His Majesty? His Majesty is only sleeping! When His Majesty awakens, you Shinigami will all go to hell!"
Yoruichi froze for a beat—then her expression changed drastically.
"What do you mean!? Are you saying Yhwach is still alive? Didn't he die under Captain-Commander Yamamoto's blade!?"
Realizing he'd misspoken, the Quincy struggled and clamped his mouth shut again.
"I… I won't betray His Majesty…"
Yoruichi frowned, about to give him something even more severe.
Even now, he still wanted to hide it.
But at that moment, the Quincy's face suddenly warped. He opened his mouth in pain and began struggling wildly, like he'd been hit by some unknown attack.
"Cole…"
Yoruichi instinctively looked at Cole.
"Not me!"
Cole narrowed his eyes, looking toward a certain direction outside the barrier. He lifted his golden staff and lightly tapped it against the ground.
Bang!
A crisp sound rang out.
A heavier layer of suppression pressed down over the barrier.
Only then did the Quincy—who had nearly choked to death—finally manage to breathe again.
Lowering the golden staff, Cole smiled.
"In that instant just now, some strange power came in, trying to kill this Quincy."
Then he looked toward the source of that power, a trace of gravity showing in his eyes.
"Has Yhwach already awakened?"
The only person who could decide a Quincy's life and death at any moment was one man.
The Quincy King—Yhwach.
Unlike Shinigami, the origin of Quincy power was Yhwach himself. He was the key source of their strength.
If he wished, he could strip all Quincies of their power and even their lives.
Just like back then—
Ichigo's mother, Masaki.
She had been a Quincy, but when Yhwach activated Seibetsu (Holy Selection) and absorbed the power of all Quincies in the human world, she became weak.
That was how Masaki ended up being killed by an ordinary trash Hollow.
As Cole thought, the Quincy had already recovered a little. With terror written all over his face, he said hoarsely:
"His Majesty is of course not dead. His Majesty is sitting on the throne in the Palace of Water right now."
"They say that as long as His Majesty opens his eyes, we Quincies can invade Soul Society and reclaim everything that was ours."
"What you felt just now was His Majesty's power… the king of all Quincies…"
"Yhwach is still alive…"
Yoruichi felt like she couldn't breathe again. She clutched her chest unconsciously.
"How… how can this be?"
In countless years, Seireitei and Captain-Commander Yamamoto had faced many powerful enemies.
But no matter who they were, they always died by the Captain-Commander's hand—this was what established him as the strongest Shinigami of the millennium.
Yet the Quincy King who had supposedly died under the Captain-Commander's blade a thousand years ago… was still alive.
Then over these past thousand years—
How far had his strength grown?
Yoruichi didn't dare chase that thought. She turned to other matters instead.
"Tell me about your Sternritter. From what you're saying, Sternritter members can kill me!?"
"Sternritter…"
Even though the Quincy was mentally on the verge of collapse, he still showed reverence and devotion at that name.
"The Sternritter are His Majesty's personal guard. Every one of them has what you Shinigami call Captain-class combat power."
"And here, the number of Sternritter members is more than thirty."
"If you two get discovered by the Sternritter, you'll die without even leaving a corpse—no, you'll be completely erased by us."
(End of Chapter)
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