Maki obtained too much information from the Great Spirit Book Gallery; he couldn't possibly read it all.
Even if only one major event is recorded each year, this archive spanning ten thousand years will still record the course of tens of thousands of events; however, there must have been many eventful periods over ten thousand years, with no shortage of events, both big and small.
Zero and the Espada only looked at the history of the Soul King Palace and how to enter. After they dispersed, Zero handed the data over to his intelligence team to review in order to obtain more information about the Soul Society in the near future.
Clearly, even those Spirit Worm that invaded parts of Soul Reaper's body couldn't know everything.
A dozen days later, Espada except Szayelaporro had recovered from their injuries. Zero, who was researching the Ōken's creation Reishi Arts, obtained some new information.
Maki rushed to Zero, reporting with slight excitement, "Breaking news: Kisuke Urahara has also created the Hōgyoku. The Hōgyoku he created was exposed when he was arrested and imprisoned, and was listed as 'Hollowfication material' by the arrogant Central 46."
"Afterwards, Yoruichi Shihōin assisted Kisuke Urahara in his escape. In addition to a group of Hollowfication Captains, a Gigai and some materials were stolen, including this 'Hollowfication material'..."
"If you, brother, possess two Hōgyoku and successfully fuse them, would that increase its completion rate?" Maki excitedly offered his conjecture at the end.
The attack on the Soul King Palace was intended to satisfy the Hōgyoku and give it greater power to Zero. Obviously, this plan is dangerous, as the strength of the Zero Division leader alone is Unfathomable, and the other members are clearly not weak either.
In comparison, Kisuke Urahara is clearly an easy target, with only two Captain-level by his side, and at most a group of Captains and Vice-Captains who have been healed from their Hollowfication.
Of the four worlds or spaces— Hueco Mundo, the Shadow World, Soul Society, and the World of the Living —the World of the Living is undoubtedly the weakest.
"Fusion is impossible. Given the characteristics of the Hōgyoku, they will probably devour each other... But if that happens, it's actually possible to obtain a Complete Hōgyoku."
Zero's eyes flickered. If he could obtain the Complete Hōgyoku, even the two old bald men from Soul Society might not be his match if they attacked together.
The plan to attack the Soul King Palace was still under study, but it was put on hold. Another order was given to the monitoring team to set up surveillance in the World of the Living Spirit-Dense Area of Naruki City in order to find the hiding place of Kisuke Urahara and his group.
The surveillance setup made Zero realize how much Soul Society valued Naruki City, and they assigned Captains Sajin Komamura and Isshin Shiba to guard it.
Accompanying them were their two Vice-Captains and several former Seated Officers, as well as the Vice-Captain, Fourth Seat, and Fifth Seat of the 11th Division, who were all sent to assist them.
Because Zero didn't conceal his purpose at the time, revealing his intention to potentially attack the Soul King Palace, the higher-ups of the Gotei 13 naturally knew that Ōken was needed to reach the Soul King Palace.
They knew perfectly well how to create the Ōken, which is why they deployed a group of experts to guard it and were always ready to rescue these guards...
Hueco Mundo was divided into regions by Zero, modeled after Soul Society. Centered on Las Noches, it was divided into four directions: east, south, west, and north, with one hundred districts extending outwards in each direction, all the way to the edge where Reishi were scarce.
Six months have passed since the invasion of Soul Society's garrison has undergone several rotations, but there has been no movement from Hueco Mundo.
Recently, Zero has been using the Hōgyoku to mass-produce Arrancars, with Adjuchas and the conscious Gillian becoming the main force, converting fifty Menos Grande into Arrancars in each batch.
Among these Menos Grande are also exceptionally talented individuals who awakened various abilities after becoming Arrancars, becoming elites within the Arrancar Army.
Where there are elite troops, there are also Grunts; most of the Grunts were assigned to guard the newly designated four hundred districts.
At that moment, a report of self-destruction came from distant West 83 District; the guards there had been killed...
Following closely behind, West Districts 82 and 81 also collapsed, resulting in the deaths of six Arrancar. The Arrancar responsible for border control quickly reported the situation...
The Espada were assembled once more. In the empty corridor, a bewildered Starrk was the first to ask, "Is this gathering to launch an attack on the World of the Living?"
Nel Kaido, "I heard that a guard in a remote area was killed, and it was a targeted assassination."
"Huh? What's so fun about hunting a bunch of trash? Hunting the Espada is much more interesting." Nnoitra looked slightly disappointed.
"The fact that they managed to kill three groups of guards and escape pursuit shows they came prepared; underestimating the enemy is a major mistake."
"The tenth one, if you're scared, just say so..."
Dordoni warned them to be careful, but Nnoitra mocked him, even using numbers to ridicule him. Amidst the noise, the Espada sat down at the long table.
After Zero sat down, Maki turned on the Reishi projector, which displayed a portion of the battle footage: two figures in black cloaks fighting a Vegetable-level Arrancar.
The battle was almost entirely one-sided; one Arrancar, who wasn't even Vegetable-level, was easily defeated. In the subsequent surveillance footage, the exact number of people was captured, and finally, someone's face was revealed...
Maki explained, "As you can see, this group consists of eight people. Based on the comparison, we can conclude that they were the Captain-level who were used as experimental subjects by Aizen."
"They were likely rescued by Kisuke Urahara, the first head of the Research and Development Institute, who also provided them with Gigai capable of extremely controlling Reiatsu, making it impossible for us to search their Reiatsu..."
Grimmjow suddenly raised his hand to interrupt Maki's explanation. He looked at Zero, who remained silent in the main seat, and said directly, "Stop talking nonsense. I'm interested in this cat-and-mouse game. Just tell me their location."
"Hehe, haha, this is a fun game! I want to play too!"
"Hehe, count me in too."
Picaro and Nnoitra also expressed their intention to deal with the enemy. Dordoni was about to join in when Zero spoke up, "Then the three of you, plus Ulquiorra, come with me!"
Zero stood up and walked outside. The other Espada simply agreed and did not dare to object to Zero's decision. At that moment, four of the nine Espada immediately followed Zero.
Szayelaporro, however, has not yet been fully cured.
Several years ago, Hirako and the other eight had already been healed by Urahara, and they had been adapting to fighting in their Hollowfication forms ever since.
However, merely competing with one's companions will never lead to true strength, so on Urahara's suggestion, they were sent to Hueco Mundo for training.
Of course, the shopkeeper also asked them to help him find out some information about Hueco Mundo, such as sending him a few Arrancar corpses for research...
It was another beautiful day. In her Hollowfication form, Hiyori Sarugaki had just killed a Gillian in the Menos Grande Forest.
She said smugly, "Tch, there are Gillian everywhere, where are the Adjuchas?"
Hirako scoffed, "Are you stupid? Nangong Ling has been aggressively recruiting Adjuchas; basically, all the non- Arrancar have been gathered together..."
Snap!
Before he could finish speaking, he was slapped hard across the face, Hiyori screamed, "Who are you calling an idiot?"
"You're an idiot."
Hirako wasn't going to back down and continued to respond, so the two started fighting, rolling on the ground pulling each other's hair, sticking their noses in each other's noses, and even spitting on each other.
"Stop making noise, it's so quiet here. If we attract the Hollows, it'll be troublesome."
Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi couldn't stand it any longer and finally spoke up to stop them. After all, this wasn't the World of the Living. The Hollows in the Menos Grande Forest were almost endless, and they had experienced it firsthand.
"Kensei, what's wrong?"
The two didn't stop their playful fighting, but Love Aikawa noticed that Kensei Muguruma seemed a bit off, his mind was too tense.
Kensei said, "Didn't Rose just say it was too quiet?"
Upon hearing this, Love also sensed something was wrong; this was an intuition honed over many years as Captain-level.