The Last Hope

King's Seal!!!

That light was undoubtedly all too familiar to the Thirteen Divisions.

Not long ago, a battle of tremendous scale had erupted in the Seireitei over the theft of the "King's Seal."

The origin of that battle had been the King's Seal's power reviving Sōjirō Kusaka and creating Soul King Kugo!

In an instant, seemingly due to the power of the King's Seal, NO.0's originally human-like body rapidly changed. Not only did the wound inflicted by Unohana Retsu heal completely, but endless quartz-like deadwood erupted from his body and spread in every direction.

Rumble!

The entire Seireitei trembled!

In just a few breaths, NO.0's position had been replaced by a gigantic dead tree, which madly expanded in all directions until it struck the Soul-Covering Membrane!

Boom!

At last, before the horrified eyes of countless Soul Reapers, the entire Soul-Covering Membrane... was forcibly burst apart, then shattered completely with a muffled crash.

At that moment, the beliefs of the Thirteen Divisions' Soul Reapers seemed to suffer a massive blow. The Seireitei, that sacred and solemn place they had regarded as a matter of course...

With the Soul-Covering Membrane shattered by a Hollow, it was as though the Seireitei itself had been utterly defiled as a sacred and solemn place.

This astonishing sight made NO.0, now transformed into a towering dead tree, the absolute center of the battlefield. Even the Arrancar and Captains who had been fiercely fighting outside the Soul-Covering Membrane instinctively stopped.

"My, my, that size is really something. Could that be NO.0's true body?" Stark said with a smack of his lips.

"Terrifying spiritual pressure," Ulquiorra said.

Only Barragan spoke with a hint of disdain. "Hmph. In ancient times, there were super-giant Menos Grande even larger than this. Size means nothing."

Stark and Ulquiorra had no interest in