The light flickering from the Hogyoku grew increasingly unstable, as if it were faintly responding to Aizen Sōsuke.
At the instant Yhwach died and the Soul King's shell was absorbed by the Hogyoku, Hyōsube Ichibē seemed to sense something. His pale eyes abruptly turned as he looked deep into the Soul King's Inner Palace.
"What happened? Why did Yhwach die?! And what absorbed the Soul King?!"
Hyōsube Ichibē stared at Chiba Makoto with an increasingly crazed expression, questioning him with uncharacteristic loss of composure for the first time.
"I told you, Hyōsube Ichibē. How do you know I didn't have other arrangements to stop Yhwach?"
As Chiba Makoto fended off Hyōsube Ichibē's suddenly frenzied counterattack, he sneered and asked in return.
"Impossible. The Zero Division led by Ōetsu Nimaiya, along with the Asauchi, could never have allowed the Thirteen Divisions to take even a single step beyond their bounds," Hyōsube Ichibē said with certainty.
Chiba Makoto lowered his gaze slightly, sensing the massive melee within the Soul King Palace...
Indeed, leaving aside how the astonishing strength and numbers of the Asauchi had steadily suppressed the Thirteen Divisions, even the three remaining members of the Zero Division displayed terrifying combat power.
The entire Zero Division's previous defeat at the hands of the Divine Punishment Guard had been more like a feigned death.
Now, even Yamamoto Genryusai Shigekuni, Unohana Retsu, and Kurotsuchi Mayuri, who controlled several Sternritter puppets, were locked in fierce battles with the Zero Division members, with no victor likely to emerge anytime soon.
Wait... three people?
That thought abruptly flashed through Chiba Makoto's mind, as though he had caught hold of something important.
According to the information Chiba Makoto knew, there should have been four Zero Division members beneath Hyōsube Ichibē. Why were there only three now?
As Chiba