Arturo captured Uryū. Uryū, faced with Arturo's question, quickly processed the situation in his mind. It was clear this powerful figure had witnessed the power of the Quincy and mistook him for a descendant of one of them. Could he be an ancestor of the Quincy? If so, he must be his ancestor.
"I don't know. Perhaps I'm a descendant of that Son of Heaven," Uryū said, calming himself down. "The lifespan of a living person is very short. The Son of Heaven you mentioned might be an ancestor from dozens or even hundreds of generations ago."
"What!? Is that so?" Arturo was somewhat bewildered. "You no longer know about the Son of Heaven's affairs?"
Uryū shook his head, "I don't know."
Chun didn't interfere too much, letting Uryū do as he pleased. Actually, this response was quite good, because it's currently unknown what kind of relationship Arturo has with this Son of Heaven. It seems the Son of Heaven has some kind of contractual relationship with him, requiring the Son of Heaven's descendants to come to him with the contract, or something like that.
However, the details of this contract are currently unknown. Therefore, it can already be proven that Uryū is related to the Son of Heaven and is a descendant. Since the contract is unknown anyway, whether he is a son or a descendant from dozens of generations ago makes no difference.
"Don't you know? This won't do, this won't do!"
Chun then stepped forward and said, "Arturo, let me tell you something first, and we can discuss the rest after you've assessed the situation."
Arturo had a decent impression of Chun, and nodded, "Go ahead and say it."
"First of all, there's the unit of time, a year, which is 365 days. A day is from one sunrise to the next. So, I'd like to ask you, do you know how many years you've lived?"
"How many years? Before I came here, I had already lived through dozens of hundred-day periods."
"Over a thousand years?"
What is a thousand?
Chun discovered there were some communication problems with this person; he didn't know many words, although he could speak Japanese. Chun tested some vocabulary, such as computer, notes, and the arts (music, chess, calligraphy, painting), and found that he knew absolutely nothing about them.
So Chun began a process of teaching and exchanging ideas simultaneously, and finally understood why this person did it this way.
Arturo is an Arrancar from a very ancient era, whose language was not modern Japanese. He survived a massive war and was then ordered by the Son of Heaven to guard a certain place. The place he is currently in is the only small world that leads to that place.
During his indefinite time as a guard, he maintained constant contact with the Hollows outside. Many Hollows would accidentally wander into his territory. Ordinary Hollows were unaffected, but over time, some exceptionally talented Adjuchas and Vasto Lorde had come by.
He learned Japanese from these Adjuchas and Vasto Lorde. Since they were only half-baked at it, he could manage some everyday conversations, but once they uttered words he didn't understand or hadn't learned, the conversation would break down.
During this exchange, Chun also learned something: this miasma, the thing that drove Xu Du mad, only appeared in the last hundred years, and only gradually expanded to this extent in the last few decades. It had never existed before.
As for what the place he was guarding was, this Arrancar boss was extremely tight-lipped, avoiding all attempts to probe him indirectly. This shows that he was also very clever.
But none of that was the most important thing. What Chun cared about most was that great battle. Through their conversations, Chun gained a very clear understanding of that battle.
Before an unknown era, Hueco Mundo was actually the afterlife, where the dead and Hollows lived together. Because the dead had little power, they were often devoured by the Hollows, who were generally much stronger than the dead.
However, while this is the general rule, there are bound to be exceptions. Among the dead, some are known as sages or leaders. These dead possess immense power, a power that is unique and wondrous, far surpassing that of the undead. They protect various tribes of the dead.
However, compared to the number of dead, there are still far more Hollows. Moreover, after a living person dies, they will appear in various parts of Hueco Mundo, and unless they randomly end up in a tribe, they will still become food for the Hollows.
The power of the sages and leaders was indeed formidable, but since the Hollows didn't provoke them, they couldn't do anything about it. Gradually, the Hollows evolved, giving rise to Adjuchas, Vasto Lordes Adjuchas, and eventually, the Arrancar.
After the Arrancar appeared, these Arrancar, like the Dead, created tribes. Wars broke out between these tribes from time to time, and gradually, the Dead gave the Arrancar various names.
Black Princess, Beast of Misfortune, Sea King, Silver Demons, Heavenly Demon, Roaring Demon, Winged Demon, etc.
Human leaders and sages also have names, such as Wise King, Heavenly Emperor, Thunder God, Fire King, and so on.
Anyway, both sides have a bunch of ridiculously over-the-top names, and the battles between them mostly result in the deaths of lower-ranking members and Hollows. There aren't any major problems between these leaders, and it's rare for any leader to die.
However, this situation changed with the appearance of a living person, namely the Son of Heaven.
The Son of Heaven was a living person, but he could freely travel between the world of the living and the world of the dead—an ability no one else possessed. Upon Son of Heaven arrival, because he was alive, he naturally sided with the leaders of the dead.
He urged the leaders of the dead to unite and create an independent world, a world where the dead could live freely. Some of the leaders were willing, but most remained indifferent.
These leaders, willing to secure a resting place for the dead, united with the Son of Heaven as they searched for a territory in the afterlife, naturally leading to conflicts with other forces in the process.
These things were all very complicated, so I won't go into detail. In short, they eventually carved out a territory for themselves, and more and more forces of the dead joined them. Furthermore, the Son of Heaven invented a method to bring the dead directly to their territory.
The dead went directly to the realm of the dead and would no longer appear outside. This greatly displeased many Hollow Leaders, also known as Arrancar. When the Arrancar attacked the World of the Dead, the numerous Hollow Leaders there naturally wouldn't let Arrancar get away with it.
The Arrancar Ones discovered that going it alone wouldn't yield good results, so they united. As a result, the war was no longer the tribal conflict of long ago, but a true war between two nations.
There are many Arrancar, but few Undead Leaders. Furthermore, ordinary Hollows are far more powerful than ordinary Undead. Therefore, at the Son of Heaven's request and through the research of some visionary leaders, the Undead can acquire some of the leaders' powers through study.
At this point, the combat strength of the subordinates tended to be balanced. However, during the battles, both the undead leaders and the hollow leaders found that the leaders' combat strength was too powerful, often killing all the surrounding subordinates in the process.
Thus, the war among the leaders began to devolve into one-on-one duels, and after the leaders had killed some of the enemy leaders, what remained were mostly near-invincible monsters. Both sides were...
But at this point in the war, stopping was absolutely impossible, so the war continued, and with the escalation and increasing frequency of these near-invincible leaders' wars...
These leaders also made further advancements; however, the leaders of the undead side progressed much faster and at a much higher rate than those of the Arrancar. If the Arrancar's vitality weren't so incredibly strong that they weren't human, they simply wouldn't have been able to withstand this group of evolved undead leaders.
However, as these leaders of the dead evolved, other thoughts emerged among the dead. Arturo wasn't clear on the specifics, but then the Black Princess and the Beast of Misfortune also underwent new evolutions, and Arturo understood some things.
These evolved monsters, indeed monsters, have lost their humanity; they represent a kind of purity, and apart from the purity they represent, they possess no emotions whatsoever.
They became complete reactors, capable of killing anything that offended them, purely as an enemy—not necessarily a ghost or a dead person standing against them, but possibly one of their own.
Finally, the undead leaders and Arrancar, who had not yet evolved, came together. The Son of Heaven was among them. Son of Heaven demonstrated a special ability: he could construct a world completely devoid of Spiritual Power, making it impossible for them to escape, no matter how powerful they were.
So the two sides conspired and started working together. They created a fake battlefield to lure the monsters there. Then, the Son of Heaven used his absolute power to completely erase the Reishi. He erased the Reishi of an entire world, and even the spatial nodes between it and other worlds.
But in the end, he realized there was no way to erase everything. After all, this was a world that could not be completely wiped away. So the Son of Heaven left behind one last spatial node.
To ensure these monsters couldn't leave, the leader of the dead and the Arrancar used their power to completely seal off this world, sacrificing the lives of several leaders in the process.
At this point, it was all over. The surviving Arrancar chose to leave; they were weary of war and strife, and Arturo was one of them.
But after an unknown period of time, the Son of Heaven found him. The Son of Heaven told Arturo that he had created an ability that would directly imprison those dead and void beings capable of becoming monsters into that Kongbu world, leaving only those who could not become monsters outside. However, he didn't know if this place could trap all the monsters, but he believed that even if those monsters broke through the seal, their remaining power would not be too great. At that time, someone would be needed to kill them.
Arturo is such a figure; he has been stationed here for countless years.
"That's Hell, isn't it?" Chun asked softly.
Arturo remained silent, but Chun already had a plan in mind. "The place you're guarding is called Hell. That special city is the Gates of Hell. The Gates of Hell weren't opened because of any sin, nor because of any other nonsense, but simply because those souls were too powerful; they had the potential to evolve into those monsters."
"We've already seen that kind of monster, Ichigo Kurosaki. Your Final Getsuga Tenshō is in that state. If you could maintain that state for a long time, you would be pulled into the Gates of Hell. Be thankful, you're not that strong."
Everyone was stunned; their already shattered worldviews were finally shattered completely.