NOVPUB
Chapter 258 - Overwhelming Power
Following the spectacle of Ravel's and Robin's joint attack, Kenpachi, covered in wounds and bereft of his Reiatsu-limiting eyepatch, gazed up at the sky where the remnants of the flaming tornado were still in the process of dispersing.
"Looks like we're not the only ones having fun..." remarked Kenpachi, the fervency he had shown at the beginning of the battle replaced by a weary grimace. He had lost so much blood that his limbs and abdomen felt cold, but rather than feeling concerned about his condition, he was annoyed that he wouldn't be able to test the edge of his Zanpakuto against Vahn's scales...
"Crazy bastard...what about this is fun...?" groaned Issei, holding his right hand to a large gash across his chest, courtesy of Kenpachi. He wasn't at risk of bleeding out, but due to the intent infused within the mad Captain's attacks, the wound throbbed and refused to close.
"Everything..." responded Kenpachi, his expression uncharacteristically serious as he revealed, "From the moment I first understood I was alive, fighting is all I've ever known. No...it's fighting that made me feel alive in the first place. Nothing else even comes close..."
"You're delusional," retorted Issei, snorting disdainfully before conceding, "Don't get me wrong, I understand the desire to grow stronger and battle powerful opponents, but there's more to life than fighting. Have you never groped or buried your face into a pair of pillowy breasts? Because that's a hell of a lot more enjoyable than being sliced to the bone and having your organs ruptured..."
"Mmn...it is pretty nice..." affirmed Sairaorg, nodding approvingly with his arms crossed. Despite being the one to endure the majority of Kenpachi's attacks, he had no serious injuries thanks to his exceptional strength and durability—further honed by enduring the intense gravity and pressure of the 31st Floor. At that level, gravity was more than 200x the standard, but the real difficulty was that the air was so dense with Aetherion that it felt like breathing in an aerated liquid and traversing the sea floor a thousand meters deep.
"Heh...is that so...?" asked Kenpachi, regaining a toothy grin, his usually grey eyes gaining a golden luminance and similarly golden Reiatsu rising from his body as he appended, "But we're not here to share our feelings and prattle like women. Let's finish this!"
Holding his right hand in front of Issei's as the former stepped forward, Sairaorg, holding Kenpachi's gaze, confidently stated, "I'll handle things from here. You'll go and check on the others..." before stepping forward with his usual blue-tinted Touki gaining a golden hue.
Though his first instinct was to ask Sairaorg if he was certain he could handle Kenpachi alone, Issei only needed one glance at the older Devil's serious countenance to understand he shouldn't get in the lion-like man's way. Thus, after a quick "Kick his ass..." he took to the sky and flew like a rocket to where Yamato was currently engaging the much faster Byakuya in a game of cat and mouse...
"Haaa? Have you finally decided to get serious...?" asked Kenpachi, his naturally vicious grin broadening. He was aware that Sairaorg had been holding back, but since both sides had restrictions imposed on them, like prohibiting the use of Bankai and something called a Balance Breaker, he could only guess what the man had been keeping up his sleeve.
"Out of respect for a fellow warrior, I've decided to finish you with one of my trump cards..." started Sairaorg, leaving Kenpachi staring at him with a mix of confusion and expectation as he abruptly unequipped his top using the Equip function, exposing his extraordinarily well-developed physique and, though it wasn't visible from the front, the burning visage of a golden lion tattooed on his back.
With Kenpachi observing rather than attacking him, Sairaorg revealed, "When an Ascendee reaches the 30th Floor of the Tower, the foe they must overcome to climb further is an idealized reflection of their current self—possessing all the same powers, abilities, and even duplicates of the items in your inventory. It took me ninety-three attempts to defeat myself, but once I had, the reward I received was the materialization of what has kept me going since I was a child...my pride and the desire to prove myself—not to others, but to myself..."
"Is this going somewhere...?" asked Kenpachi, beginning to get annoyed as he was ready for his and Sairaorg's final clash but didn't want to cut the man down before he could complete his presumed power up. Where was the fun in that?
"Forgive me, Kenpachi-taichou...I did not mean to keep you waiting..." responded Sairaorg, closing his eyes and smiling as he punched his fists together before opening them to bellow, "I am Sairaorg Aurelius the First, son of Misla, Golden Lion, and future King of Aurelia!"
In response to his shout, Sairaorg's Touki erupted like a colossal golden bonfire more than ten meters in diameter and sixty tall as his body and muscles swelled and his hair and eyes turned golden, the former taking the form of a long, fiery mane. At the same time, his forearms and calves swelled, becoming covered in golden fur as claws replaced his previously ordinary nails—followed by a long, fur-covered, flame-tipped tail unfurling from his lower back.
"Good for you...!" exclaimed Kenpachi, sensing Sairaorg's skyrocketing power and grinning from ear to ear as he charged forward, his jagged-edged Zanpakuto leaving a visible shimmer in its wake as it sliced through the air and Sairaorg's golden Touki as if there were solid objects. His only desire at that moment was to slice Sairaorg in two, but the fiery-eyed man intercepted his blade with his left forearm.
Though Kenpachi's blade managed to cut him to the bone, Sairaorg didn't so much as bat an eye as he moved it aside and reciprocated with a swift, imperceptible punch to the smiling Captain's gut. From the perspective of those spectating the Rating Game, it didn't appear that he had thrown one at all, but the deep golden imprint in Kenpachi's stomach and the glowing, fist-shaped bulge in his back, visible through his tattered Captain's haori, told a different story. Then, as if time had stopped and abruptly restarted, Kenpachi's back exploded, his insides disintegrating into fiery motes of gold light, culminating in a cauterized hole more than twenty centimeters across through his abdomen and a glowing, golden, cone-shaped channel more than a hundred wide and nearly a kilometer in length forming behind him as if a large section of the terrain had simply vanished within the span of a blink...
"Heh...that was one hell of a punch, Lion King..." remarked Kenpachi, maintaining his grin even as the light faded from his eyes. His spine and abdominal muscles had been obliterated, but in the time it took for him to be ejected from the battlefield, he remained standing, refusing to fall even in defeat.
"What a guy..." sighed Sairaorg, closing his eyes and shaking his head with his hands on his hips. Immediately after, his skin tore across his arms and the left side of his neck, the result of his power being too great for his body to contain within the relatively low-pressure environment of the Soul Society...
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"So the Trial of the 30th Floor is a fight against oneself..." muttered Vahn, his tone hushed and expression thoughtful as he wondered what it would be like facing a version of himself that used his powers and abilities better than him. His combat style revolved around adapting to and counteracting his opponents' abilities, and since he could regenerate from any injury and even recreate himself if he were destroyed, he imagined his doppelganger would be particularly troublesome to deal with...
"Oh? Are you thinking of climbing the Tower...?" asked Serafall, her violet eyes sparkling as she had previously invited Vahn to join her Party, but he refused, wanting to prioritize exploring the Corridor.
"Truth be told, I think about it often..." admitted Vahn, caressing Serafall's inner right thigh as he appended, "It's just closer to the bottom on my list of personal priorities..."
"Awwwww...and here I was hoping we could team up for the 10th Floor's tournament..." hummed Serafall, her usually high-pitched voice becoming low and husky as she narrowed her eyes provocatively.
"My inclusion wouldn't be fair to those who are working hard to acquire a Lesser Grail..." responded Vahn, lowering his own voice as Serafall leaned into him, her sweet and flowery fragrance tickling his nose and her right breast squishing against his chest as she raised her chin, obligating him to cease talking and kiss her. His decision not to compete in prize-awarding events like the 10th Floor's tournament wouldn't change, as his inability to be defeated wasn't fair to other competitors, but he would never pass on the implicit invitation to make out...
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"Even without Bankai, to think the disparity between our forces would be this extreme..." muttered Kyoraku, unable to peruse the battlefield using light-formed displays like Vahn but able to sense the Reiatsu of his fellow Captains disappearing one after the other. The worst part was that barely twenty minutes had passed since the Rating Game's commencement, yet they were on the cusp of being reduced to three effective combatants. In essence, if the Dragon's Pavilion chose to invade them, they may not even last a full hour before their defenses crumpled...
"Does it bother you?" asked Unohana, leaving Kyoraku at a loss for words as she calmly appended, "I think this is a good thing," before sipping from her tea cup.
"Hoooo? How do you figure...?" asked Kyoraku, having little to do besides humor the former First Kenpachi.
"Former Captain Aizen's betrayal aside, he wasn't wrong in his evaluation that the Soul Society has become stagnant..." stated Unohana, her deep blue eyes narrowed, focused on the contents of her cup as she reasoned, "If not for the appearance of the Dragn's Pavilion, there's a possibility we would have collapsed from the inside in the next fifty to a hundred years. The fall of founding families like the Shiba and the gradual weakening of the Shihoin should have rang like alarm bells within the ears of the Gotei, but for the past century, presumably as a result of former Captain Aizen's influence over our perception, we've done little but mind the affairs of our respective Divisions..."
"Hmmmnn...now that you mention it, it did feel like the flow of time had stopped for a while there..." conceded Kyoraku, caressing his chin as he outwardly mused, "Even the innovations coming out of the 12th Division were surprisingly irregular. Captain Kurotsuchi seemed more interested in experimenting on himself than advancing our technology...which is even more peculiar when you consider how much humans have advanced this past century alone..."
"Precisely..." muttered Unohana, adopting a narrow-eyed smile that sent a shiver down Kyoraku's spine as she glanced at him from the corner of her eye and appended, "Now, not only has time begun to move forward within the Soul Society, we've become a small part of something grander. There will doubtlessly be those who oppose or attempt to seize the reins of this new era, but my intuition tells me such individuals will be playing right into the hands of Ryukami-sama and the Dragon's Pavilion..."
"Right...they do give the impression of being uncannily well-informed, don't they? No doubt the result of their ability to peer into and enter our world at their leisure..." muttered Kyoraku, his words trailing and a slight frown marring his face as Komamura's Reiatsu vanished after weakening over several minutes. With Iba's imminent defeat, he and Unohana would be able to mobilize. However, since Yamamoto wanted to avoid their side being routed completely, he held Unohana's intimidating gaze for several seconds until she looked away from him with closed eyes—signifying her consent.
"Alright, that settles it..." sighed Kyoraku, raising his right hand and gazing up at the ceiling of the fortress throne room he and Unohana were seated in, calling out, "Hey, Referee-chan. I give up~" in his lazy, highly practiced monotone. With that, Vahn's or, more accurately, Venelana's plan to have Serafall end the Rating Game by obliterating the battlefield with a single attack, reinforcing the Dragon's Pavilion's status as an unopposable force, went up in smoke...
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