Yhwach's Auswählen signified one thing:
There were only nine years left before the final war.
The ancient prophecy of the Quincy King was clear.
After his defeat a thousand years ago, it would take nine hundred years to regain his pulse, ninety years to recover his consciousness, and nine years to restore his power.
After that, the long-awaited war would begin.
According to the legends preserved among the Quincy, once his power was fully restored, Yhwach would reclaim the world in merely nine days.
Because of this, many people misunderstood the scale of the Thousand-Year Blood War.
In the manga, the arc spans numerous volumes and covers a vast amount of content, giving the impression that it unfolded over many years.
In reality, however, the conflict itself was astonishingly brief.
Most of the major events occurred within an extremely compressed period of time.
The war that shook the Three Worlds lasted only a matter of days.
Nine years might sound like a long time.
But for beings who measured their lives in centuries and millennia, nine years could pass in the blink of an eye.
Before anyone realized it, the storm would already be upon them.
For Gosuke Shigure, Yhwach remained the greatest threat in the future.
Yet before the Quincy King would emerge from the shadows, there was another enemy who would plunge the world into chaos.
Sōsuke Aizen.
In some respects, Aizen felt even more like the ultimate antagonist than Yhwach himself.
After all, even during the Thousand-Year Blood War, Aizen continued to play a crucial role.
Without his intervention during the final battle, whether Kurosaki Ichigo could have defeated Yhwach remained uncertain.
In Gosuke's estimation, however, Aizen's danger differed fundamentally from Yhwach's.
Yhwach sought to overturn the very structure of existence.
He intended to erase the boundary between life and death, destroy the balance maintained by the Soul King, and create a world free from fear of death according to his own ideals.
To accomplish that goal, he was willing to sacrifice countless lives.
Aizen, on the other hand, was driven by a different obsession.
From beginning to end, his objective had never been simple conquest.
He sought truth.
He despised standing beneath another being.
He rejected the existence of the Soul King as an untouchable ruler of creation.
Everything he did was motivated by his desire to transcend limits, ascend to a higher realm of existence, and witness a greater reality beyond the reach of ordinary beings.
His pursuit was evolution itself.
Nevertheless, regardless of his motives, Aizen remained one of the most troublesome individuals in the world.
The moment he began moving openly, disturbances would follow one after another.
For Gosuke Shigure, this meant that his peaceful retirement would not last forever.
The winds of change were already gathering.
When the coming storm arrived, even a retired Kenpachi would inevitably be dragged back into the center of events.
Time continued to pass.
Following Yhwach's activation of Auswählen, an unprecedented tragedy unfolded among the Quincy.
Across the world, numerous Gemischt Quincymixed-blood Quincy perished almost simultaneously.
Only a very small number survived.
Among them was Ishida Uryū, whose unique circumstances allowed him to escape the fate that claimed so many others.
For the already dwindling Quincy population, the event was nothing short of catastrophic.
Naturally, Soul Society noticed.
Ever since the destruction of the Quincy centuries earlier, the Gotei 13 had maintained varying degrees of surveillance over the remaining Quincy living in the Human World.
At first, Soul Society had not paid excessive attention to them.
Most surviving Quincy were weak and posed little threat.
However, everything changed after the discovery of the hidden Quincy empire concealed within the shadows of Soul Society itself.
The revelation of the Wandenreich had shaken the highest levels of the Gotei 13.
A powerful Quincy civilization had survived undetected for centuries beneath their very feet.
Worse still, despite subsequent investigations, Soul Society failed to uncover their location or intentions.
Since then, the remaining Quincy in the Human World had become subjects of increased observation.
Following Urahara Kisuke's exile from Soul Society, much of that responsibility eventually fell into the hands of Kurotsuchi Mayuri.
Mayuri's interest in the Quincy was far from academic.
As a scientist, he viewed them as valuable research materials.
Had circumstances been different, he would not have hesitated to conduct experiments on living Quincy subjects.
Fortunately, Captain-Commander Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni intervened.
With the Wandenreich still hidden somewhere beyond Soul Society's reach, exterminating or experimenting on the remaining Quincy in the Human World would only eliminate valuable sources of intelligence.
If the hidden Quincy ever attempted contact, Soul Society might be able to track them through those connections.
Destroying every known Quincy would achieve nothing.
Although Mayuri disliked the decision, he obeyed.
After all, even he had no desire to return to the Maggot's Nest.
As a result, individuals such as Ishida Sōkensurvived far longer than they had in the original timeline.
This was one of the many subtle changes created by Gosuke Shigure's actions and the early exposure of Quincy-related secrets.
For now, however, those matters were secondary.
The important issue was the present crisis.
Mixed-blood Quincy across the world had died almost simultaneously.
The Gotei 13 immediately recognized that something was wrong.
Normally, the deaths of Quincy would not inspire sympathy among many Shinigami.
The hatred between the two races stretched back generations.
Yet the circumstances surrounding these deaths were deeply unsettling.
Soul Society could state with certainty that they were not responsible.
Nor could any ordinary attack produce such an effect.
The victims had not been hunted down individually.
Instead, it was as if an invisible force had reached across vast distances and claimed them all at once.
The phenomenon resembled a curse.
Or perhaps something even more terrifying.
Inside the First Division headquarters, Captain-Commander Yamamoto carefully examined the report submitted by Mayuri.
The old man's expression grew increasingly grim.
The room remained silent for a long time.
Finally, a memory surfaced.
A familiar spiritual presence.
A power he had not felt for nearly a thousand years.
A name that had once shaken the world.
Yhwach.
Among all the beings Yamamoto had ever encountered, only one possessed the ability to manipulate Quincy souls on such a scale.
The progenitor of the Quincy.
The father of their entire race.
Every Quincy carried a fragment of his power within their blood.
During the ancient war a millennium ago, Yhwach had demonstrated similar abilities.
He could reclaim power from other Quincy.
He could absorb fragments of their souls.
He could strengthen himself through the lives of his descendants.
As Yamamoto connected the pieces together, an unsettling possibility emerged.
"Is this your doing… Yhwach?"
The Captain-Commander spoke quietly.
His voice echoed through the empty chamber.
Thousands of years ago, he had believed he had killed the Quincy King.
That battle had ended with Yhwach's defeat.
Yet now…
The evidence suggested otherwise.
"You survived."
For the first time in many years, Yamamoto felt a chill run through his heart.
Even as the wielder of Ryūjin Jakka, the oldest and most powerful fire-type Zanpakutō in Soul Society, he could not completely suppress the unease rising within him.
If Yhwach had truly survived…
Then the enemy that had once nearly destroyed Soul Society was preparing to return.
The implications were too serious to ignore.
Yet after a long period of contemplation, Yamamoto ultimately chose silence.
The evidence remained circumstantial.
Announcing Yhwach's possible return without certainty could create unnecessary panic throughout Soul Society.
For now, he would watch.
He would prepare.
And he would wait.
Because if the Quincy King had truly awakened, then a war a thousand years in the making was already drawing near.
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