Above the Seireitei, Yhwach, having awakened the Almighty, floated among clouds shredded by his Reiatsu.
The upper half of his face was shrouded in layer upon layer of pitch-black veils, upon which countless multiple-pupiled eyes were embedded... each eye rotating at its own independent frequency, looking in different directions, at different timelines, at different possibilities.
This was the truth of the Almighty: he wasn't 'predicting' the future, but simultaneously observing all futures, then selecting the most favorable one and replacing reality with it.
In theory, as long as there existed a possibility among millions of futures where he could avoid an attack, he could make that possibility the sole reality.
And Nayuta, standing opposite him, couldn't even be bothered to fly.
Eleven bisected astronauts floated around her. Their upper halves made praying gestures while their lower halves were embedded upside-down in nothingness. The entire scene was as eerie as some cult ritual transplanted into the Seireitei's sky.
Yhwach attacked first.
He didn't use Heilig Pfeil, nor did he draw his Quincy Cross Blade.
In his Almighty state, his attacks were no longer limited to any fixed form.
He simply raised his right hand. Countless Reishi began to spin at ultra-high speed in his palm, instantly condensing into a giant Reishi Sphere over several thousand meters in diameter.
By forcibly compressing Reishi in their most unstable structure, hitting the target would trigger a chain collapse reaction, capable of disintegrating the entire Seireitei at the molecular level.
The light sphere roared toward Nayuta. Wherever it passed, even space itself was torn into fine cracks by the chain collapse.
Nayuta didn't even lift her eyelids. She just moved her lips: "Darkness Incarnation."
Her entire body transformed into a pool of pure darkness, perfectly merging with the darkness domain beneath her.
The Reishi Sphere pierced through that pool of darkness and struck the ground behind her, triggering a massive explosion. The shockwave leveled several nearby buildings.
But when the explosion's smoke cleared, that pool of darkness reconstituted into Nayuta's body.
Darkness is darkness. As long as humanity's fear of darkness existed, she could never be truly destroyed.
Nayuta raised her right hand and snapped her fingers crisply.
The bisected astronauts in the Darkness Domain simultaneously whispered an incantation... Cosmic Whispers.
"Ribbit~"
The eerie frog croak echoed again.
Yhwach's limbs snapped apart in that same instant.
But Yhwach didn't even flinch. The Almighty's eyes had already foreseen this future. He had already, an instant before the attack took effect, overwritten reality with a more favorable future.
His limbs reattached in less than a heartbeat, as if the previous moment had been nothing but a brief illusion.
"I... grant myself wholeness."
His voice was deep and imposing. The power of his words rippled through the air in visible rings.
Nayuta raised an eyebrow slightly.
She had to admit, this old bastard's ability was indeed somewhat interesting.
Her attacks weren't being blocked or nullified, but rather 'never happened'.
But that was fine. She had plenty of patience. This was the final battle anyway.
She merged into the darkness again. The next time she appeared, she was standing less than two meters behind Yhwach, the bell-adorned black blade in her hand ringing with a crisp, eerie chime.
Where the blade passed, even the futures observed by the Almighty were forcibly obscured by the darkness.
Yhwach turned and blocked at the last moment, his Quincy Cross Blade swinging back to meet the bell-adorned black blade.
The moment the two blades clashed, the shockwave from darkness and Reishi tore a several-hundred-meter-wide void in the clouds.
The two continued to exchange blows in mid-air.
Yhwach, relying on the Almighty, escaped Nayuta's fatal attacks time and again.
Nayuta, relying on her Darkness Incarnation and the Control Devil's immortality, remained unharmed no matter how many light-attribute Heilig Pfeil Yhwach unleashed.
Having visited so many different worlds, she had countless scapegoats at her disposal.
Wherever their battle passed, the ground cracked, buildings collapsed, and the sky was torn into space fissures that took a long time to heal.
The entire battlefield became a scorching zone where the Darkness Domain and the Almighty repeatedly wrestled for dominance. Neither could find a breakthrough against the other.
"Is that all you've got?"
Nayuta tilted her head at Yhwach after one blade clash, her tone laced with undisguised mockery.
"Ignorant brat."
The corner of Yhwach's mouth lifted slightly, but hidden within that curve was a stiffness even he hadn't noticed.
Even after bringing out The Almighty, he still couldn't find this girl's weakness.
Just as the two reached a stalemate where neither could overcome the other, a Garganta tore open without warning at the edge of the battlefield.
Makoto walked out of the chaotic darkness at an unhurried pace, one hand still holding Orihime.
Orihime hadn't fully recovered from the 'battle' in the Living World just moments ago. Two patches of blush still lingered on her cheeks.
Seeing the devastated battlefield and the flying Reishi motes, she instinctively shrank half a step behind Makoto.
Makoto surveyed the Seireitei, blazing with battle, then smiled and waved toward Nayuta and Yhwach's direction. "Yo, holding up?"
Instantly, the expressions of the surviving Sternritter's members changed dramatically.
Haschwalth's fingers gripping his sword hilt tightened involuntarily.
Their king, Yhwach, had awakened The Almighty and still couldn't take down that little girl. Now with the legitimate Soul King added to the mix, how could they possibly fight this?
The Shinigami, Arrancars, and the girls under Makoto all showed expressions of joy.
They knew it was over.
Nayuta withdrew the Darkness Domain, rolled her eyes at Makoto, glanced at Orihime beside him, and teased in a bratty tone: "Had your fun?"
Orihime's face instantly turned as red as a ripe apple. She wanted to hide in Makoto's embrace.
Makoto walked over and, copying Itachi, extended his index finger to poke Nayuta's forehead.
Nayuta covered her forehead and clicked her tongue.
Then Makoto turned and looked up at the Quincy King in the air, whose face was covered in countless eerie eyes.
Although the upper half of Yhwach's face was obscured by those layered eyes, the tense line of his jaw showed he was now in a state of extreme alert.
However, the nearly invincible Almighty still gave him a final shred of confidence. His voice was low and full of pressure: "I'm not afraid of you."
Makoto just stared quietly at Yhwach for a while, like examining a defective product that had failed quality control. "Just die."
Back when facing Aizen, Makoto had enjoyed the back-and-forth.
Aizen was a smart man, and sparring with him was itself a pleasure. But against Yhwach, he had no such interest.
In Makoto's view, Yhwach, as a final boss, only deserved to sit at the same table as that idiot woman Otsutsuki Kaguya. Even Madara would have been a better final boss for the Naruto World.
The common trait of these two was having immense power but an utterly terrible sense of scale and personality.
Otsutsuki Kaguya had sky-defying Chakra but zero battle intelligence. In the original work, she performed like Black Zetsu's Pokémon.
And Yhwach was the same. Though his ability was sky-defying, his personality was even more so... specializing in killing his own people.
Yet at the same time, he loved recruiting all kinds of subordinates: the Arrancars in the original, Ichigo, Ishida Uryu... he wanted to claim all of them.
But whenever he was displeased, he would activate Auswählen and treat his subordinates as disposable resources.
This kind of left-brain-right-brain wrestling idiot was someone Makoto wouldn't waste more than a sentence on.