Chapter 408

2-in-1 chapter:  

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First Division, study room.

Aizen sat behind the desk, wearing his glasses, his calm gaze passing through the lenses and landing on the squad affairs that needed handling.

These tasks weren’t something only he could do.

The reason he handled them personally was partly to stay informed on all aspects of Seireitei, and partly as a way to relax his mind.

Yes—for Kaelith, squad paperwork was torture enough to twist the soul, but for him, it was simply a leisurely pastime.

Suddenly, Kaelith, who had been lying comfortably in a rocking chair nearby with a book covering his face, shot upright.

“Hahaha! He fell for it! He took the bait!”

Aizen paused his pen and glanced over in mild confusion.

On the other side, Yamamoto, also dozing with a book over his face, removed it with a still-drowsy look of puzzlement.

Under their gaze, Kaelith grinned and recounted how Yhwach had absorbed the power of the Quincy from the World of the Living—how he had secretly added his own “special ingredient” into that.

Aizen already knew all this; Kaelith was mainly telling Yamamoto.

Then Kaelith chuckled:

“Just now, I sensed that Yhwach has absorbed all the gifts I prepared for him!”

“Now, his entire body is filled with my power… even if he wants to purge it all, it’ll take him at least a few months. And in those months, he’ll suffer unimaginable agony—wishing for death but unable to die!”

Hearing this, Yamamoto’s expression turned to surprise.

Good grief—this wicked disciple of his was quietly pulling off stunts like this again.

Imagining Yhwach writhing and screaming in agony, he couldn’t help but crack a sinister, villainous smile.

But then, as if something occurred to him, his brows furrowed.

Aizen too showed no joy, appearing deep in thought.

Seeing their reactions, Kaelith became displeased.

“What’s going on? No praise for me? No one impressed by my achievement? Aren’t you happy for your brother here?”

Yamamoto: “?”

Brother, is it? Fine—later, I’ll arrange ten times the training for this “brother.”

Aizen slowly spoke:

“Yhwach has begun absorbing the power gathered at Karakura Town.”

“This means his complete resurrection is imminent.”

“Our preparations for the Quincy invasion need to increase in frequency and intensity.”

“You as well, Kaelith—from today on, no more messing around. Be ready at any moment to respond to the Quincy’s all-out assault.”

“Once the war begins, your presence will be the key to the course of the battle!”

At Aizen’s words, Kaelith laughed heartily.

“Relax! I, Kaelith, would never drop the ball at such a critical moment!”

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Kaelith vanished.

Upon receiving this report from a subordinate, the pen in Aizen’s hand snapped cleanly in two.

Taking a deep breath, he steadied his skyrocketing blood pressure.

Then he stood up and headed toward the laboratory.

Halfway there, two figures blocked his path.

Aizen stopped and looked at them.

“Vice-Captain Aizen, greetings.”

Seeing these two, Aizen paused.

“People from the Sarunomiya family… did something happen with Hell?”

Then, before they could answer, he guessed:

“Kaelith is handling a problem in Hell?”

One of the Shinigami showed a slightly emotional expression.

He bowed his head slightly to Aizen.

“Yes, Vice-Captain Aizen.”

“Lord Kaelith is currently in Hell.”

“Lord Kaelith said… he intends to completely resolve the problem of Hell’s will and the damned.”

At these words, a vein twitched at the corner of Aizen’s eye.

Led by the two Sarunomiya clan members, he arrived at their compound.

From a distance, he could already sense the restless atmosphere of Hell.

A giant Gate of Hell floated in the sky.

Many Shinigami of the Sarunomiya family, along with members of the Kidō Corps, were surrounding the gate, performing special Kidō to stabilize its existence.

Unlike the Kuchiki clan and some members of the Shihōin and Kuchiki families, these people felt nothing about the fall of the noble houses or the founding of the new council.

When Kaelith asked them to sign away most of their authority unrelated to Hell, the Sarunomiya simply handed it over without a care.

But when Kaelith proposed fixing Hell’s chronic problems, these otherwise indifferent people suddenly became extremely enthusiastic.

At this point, nearly the entire Sarunomiya family was mobilized to support Kaelith’s operations.

Even so, after two days of ceremony, a small problem arose.

Following Kaelith’s instructions, the Sarunomiya urgently summoned Aizen.

After learning the situation, Aizen, suppressing his desire to strangle Kaelith on the spot, left a set of orders:

If something happened in Seireitei while he was in Hell, they were to carry out his instructions as planned.

Once finished, he ordered them to open the Gate of Hell—and stepped inside.

The moment he entered, Aizen raised his arm to block in front of him.

A terrifying storm of spiritual pressure roared past.

Lowering his arm, he narrowed his eyes and looked into the distance.

There, several kilometers away, he could see countless dark shadows gathering together.

With his vision, he could easily discern what they were: a massive swarm of the damned, resembling a horde of carnivorous ants from a certain pirate manga, frantically surging toward the sky.

Above them, a figure stood, swinging two long chains and laughing loudly.

“Jie jie jie!! Come! Watch as I scatter you all! Scatter you all!!”

Blue flames burned along the chains.

Driven by his swings, the chains formed massive blue fire tornadoes, reducing all nearby damned to ashes.

At a glance, Kaelith looked like a god of slaughter, rampaging in the sea of damned souls.

But Aizen understood well that this rampage was meaningless.

Compared to the scale of Hell, Kaelith’s output here was utterly insignificant.

Even so, since Kaelith had called him here, he must have a plan.

Watching that soaring figure, Aizen curled a slight smile and flew toward him…

“Yo, Sōsuke!”

Seeing Aizen flying toward him, Kaelith, still in the midst of mowing down the damned, grinned and greeted him.

“What’s the situation?”

Faced with this incorrigible man, Aizen didn’t waste words—he went straight to the point.

Even he wouldn’t claim to understand Hell deeply.

Every second spent here increased the risk.

Plenty of time remained to deal with Kaelith after returning to Seireitei; no need to waste it now.

While brandishing Rixiang Jimie to burn large swathes of the damned to ashes, Kaelith spoke:

“I’m preparing to reconstruct Hell.”

“?”

Though Aizen had seen Kaelith accomplish many miracles before, this statement still made him pause in disbelief.

Hell, unlike the three realms, had existed since the age of chaos.

Even the Soul King had no authority to interfere with Hell.

Kaelith wasn’t the Soul King yet—at most, he was a “youthful edition” of the Soul King. Where did he get the audacity to claim he would reconstruct Hell?

Sensing Aizen’s thoughts, Kaelith explained:

“Not a complete rebuild—just some adjustments based on its existing structure.”

Under Aizen’s gaze, he roughly described his idea.

After hearing Kaelith’s explanation, Aizen showed a thoughtful expression.

Simply put, Kaelith’s goal was just one thing:

To transform Hell—which had long relied on human oversight—into a fully automated system.

Previously, Hell’s stability required supervisors—the will of Hell itself.

Without these supervisors, souls cast into Hell would suffer far less torment.

Some strong ones could even exploit loopholes and avoid Hell’s punishment entirely.

This would drastically reduce the speed at which the damned fell into despair.

Unable to despair, they would linger indefinitely in Hell, occupying space and resources, and potentially damaging Hell itself over time.

Groups like the Kokutō faction from the “Hell Verse” arc fell into this category.

Apart from the will of Hell, they feared nothing—treating Hell like a vacation resort.

This was why Hell insisted on retaining its supervisor system, and why it had sought to eliminate Kaelith after learning he could perform funerary rites for the supervisors.

Once Kaelith understood this, he conceived a new idea.

Since Hell itself couldn’t manage these supervisors properly—why not help Hell accomplish it?

While Kaelith was explaining, below his feet, the damned were trampling and climbing over each other, forming a towering, hundred-meter-high mountain of bodies.

Like something out of a zombie film.

These damned howled with eerie cries, raising their arms to claw at the figure in the sky.

Seeing them, Aizen raised his hand and clenched it in the air.

With that gesture, a massive Kurohitsugi rose from the ground, enveloping the “mountain of bodies.”

Before long, the colossal black coffin dissolved away.

The damned inside had all vanished.

Of course, they hadn’t been erased entirely—they would be consumed by Hellfire and reborn deeper within Hell.

After wiping out several thousand damned in one blow, Aizen looked around.

Endless waves of damned still surged from all directions toward them.

Just as Kaelith said: without an automated process, Hell’s demand for supervisors would only grow.

He turned to Kaelith.

“What needs to be done?”

Kaelith pointed to his chest:

“By using the power of the Hōgyoku.”

“Previously, I tried adding new functions to Hell by directly modifying reishi…”

“But… the reishi of Hell is a bit different from the reishi of our Three Realms.”

“For small-scale modification, there’s no problem, but for large-scale transformation, as the quantity increases, the power consumption grows exponentially.”

“However, if I could use the Hōgyoku’s wish-granting ability to filter the reishi of Hell and convert it into normal reishi, it would make things much simpler for me!”

Hearing Kaelith’s plan, Aizen glanced at him with some surprise.

It wasn’t that the plan itself had any problems—it was just that he didn’t expect the word “exponential” to come out of Kaelith’s mouth.

A little out-of-character, to be honest.

Under Kaelith’s gaze, Aizen closed his eyes.

From the eye he always kept hidden, light radiated outward.

At the same time, the Hōgyoku embedded in his chest also began to shine brilliantly.

After activating the Hōgyoku, Aizen’s aura quickly began to shift.

Within a few seconds, the surrounding reishi began to stir.

Although ordinary people couldn’t perceive it, at Kaelith’s level it was easy to notice that the very reishi composing the surroundings had fundamentally transformed.

Under the power of the Hōgyoku and Aizen, the “programming language” of this reishi had been rewritten—from the Hell version into the Three Realms version.

Kaelith’s expression brightened with delight.

Although he had full confidence that Aizen could achieve this, actually seeing it happen still brought him a sense of joyful surprise.

He also closed his eyes and began following Aizen’s lead.

Aizen and the Hōgyoku were responsible for decoding.

Kaelith was responsible for rewriting.

The two transcendent beings who had broken through all limits began a large-scale reconstruction of Hell.

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The Shinigami patrol squad in Seireitei suddenly stopped in surprise.

Everyone raised their heads to look at the sky.

At some point, a faint image had appeared, projected into the heavens.

In the image, Kaelith and Aizen stood above Hell itself!

“Is that… the acting Captain-Commander, and Vice-Captain Aizen?”

“What are they doing there?”

“Is this a new training exercise?”

In Squad 1, Yamamoto leaned on his staff, gazing seriously at the sky.

Hell…

That damned brat—what was he doing down in Hell?

As he pondered, he suddenly saw with shock that the structures surrounding Kaelith and Aizen in the projection were beginning to dissolve into particles of light, floating upward and dispersing into the air.

Then, those light particles slowly gathered together, transforming into a new form…

Seeing this incomprehensible sight, Yamamoto couldn’t help but widen his eyes.

In the Sarunomiya clan estate.

Every Shinigami of the Sarunomiya family—including those maintaining the Gates of Hell—wore expressions of disbelief.

“Captain Kaelith… is reconstructing Hell?”

“How could that be? How could anyone accomplish such a thing?”

“This is… a true divine miracle!”

In Squad 8’s barracks.

Kyōraku and Ukitake both stared wide-eyed at the scene in the sky.

“Aiya… that junior of ours is getting better and better at shocking people,” Kyōraku said, adjusting his straw hat with a sigh.

Ukitake clearly agreed.

Kisuke Urahara stood on a street in Seireitei, quietly watching the sky.

The more Kaelith grew, the more Kisuke felt fortunate.

Looking back, being coerced into joining Kaelith’s faction back then—what a lucky break that was…

……

…

No one knew how much time had passed, but when Kaelith finally opened his eyes again, Hell had completely transformed.

The most obvious change was that the entire first layer of Hell had been flattened.

At the very center of that layer, a giant vortex thousands of meters tall rotated slowly, like a galaxy spinning in the depths of space.

This vortex was the centerpiece of Kaelith’s reconstruction project.

Within it lay his Shadow Beyond the World.

The Shadow Beyond the World was an existence fundamentally opposed to everything inside the world.

Therefore, through Kaelith’s adjustments, this slowly rotating vortex possessed an incredibly terrifying pull.

Even captain-class combatants would have no choice but to be sucked in.

Once pulled into the vortex, the condemned would arrive at the second layer.

Here was the new core layer of Hell, rebuilt by Kaelith.

After being swept through the great vortex on the first layer, the condemned souls would have essentially lost all capacity for resistance.

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