Seeing Setsuna's second ultimate technique about to take shape, the Ota Clan's ancestor no longer dared to hesitate.
Its remnant misty body suddenly contracted, and then it let out a soul-piercing shriek filled with fear towards the deepest part of the castle.
"Awaken! All of you, awaken now!"
With its shriek, from deep within the Ota Clan's main castle, three other forbidden areas, similarly sealed and shrouded in mist, simultaneously erupted with earth-shattering, terrifying auras.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three misty figures, each a different color, but equally evil, ancient, and overwhelmingly powerful, burst through their seals and shot into the sky.
They stood side by side in the air with the Ota Clan's ancestor's bloody mist.
Except for the Shiba Clan's ancestor, all four ancestors had gathered.
Without time to communicate, they first looked towards the suddenly erupting 'singularity'.
"Stop him!"
The Ota Clan's ancestor shrieked, and the four ancestors each unleashed their power.
Under their combined efforts to share the burden, Setsuna's strike did not achieve its imagined effect.
However, seeing Setsuna again emerge completely unharmed from the center of the explosion, nirvanically reborn, the eyes of the Kuchiki and Shihoin Clan's ancestors showed unprecedented gravity.
The Ota Clan's ancestor immediately used soul waves to urgently explain the cause and effect to the other three Clan's ancestors.
However, the Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor, positioned in the center, seemed uninterested in the Ota Clan's ancestor's report.
Its blurred face, composed of gray-white mist, constantly focused on Setsuna. Subtle and excited fluctuations emitted from within its mist.
"Divinity... such pure, so high-level, yet so alien divine essence!"
"Deep within your soul, I perceive something similar to the Soul King, yet completely different!"
Setsuna's gaze also became extremely grave.
From within the other party's body, he perceived a certain realm he had been seeking.
"Are you a Hollowfied Shinigami? Or an Arrancar of a Vasto Lorde?" Setsuna asked in a deep voice.
Upon hearing this, the Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor laughed: "Truly astonishing insight. Could it be that in the million years since we left Soul Society and lurked in Hell..."
"The Seireitei has finally been unable to resist and opened that forbidden door?"
Setsuna shook his head slightly: "Only I have had people attempt to research it."
The Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor laughed: "Very well. For the sake of that precious 'divine essence' within you, let me tell you the truth of this world."
Its voice suddenly became distant and grand, as if narrating an epic spanning endless time:
"You have surely seen many 'Hollows' in the Living World and Hueco Mundo, have you not? Those pathetic monsters born from the hollows, obsessions, and fears of humans."
"They are merely clumsy imitations, secondary derivatives produced by the leakage of a 'concept'."
"But I..." The Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor's gray-white mist slightly lifted, emitting a majesty transcending all things.
"Am the one and only Great Hollow born from the world itself, in that original era of deathly stillness, emptiness, and all things returning to nothingness!"
"I am the incarnation of nothingness, the manifestation of ending, the living symbol of the universe's very rules!"
Setsuna's pupils contracted sharply. He couldn't help asking: "Are you that [Primordial Hollow] from ancient mythology, said to have been slain by the Soul King, who allegedly tried to devour the world? You didn't die?"
"Slain? Mythology?" The Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor let out a deep and pleased laugh. "Actually, I made up that story."
"How about it? As the victor and savior, how great and radiant the Soul King is portrayed in the myth? And as the loser, the world-destroying demon, how pathetically weak am I?"
"Yet the irony of this myth lies in the fact that the victor, the Soul King, was mutilated… his limbs severed, his heart torn out, and made into a 'wedge' to maintain the balance of the world."
"While I, the loser, secretly control everything, tamper with history, distort rules, turning his followers into my slaves, and his world into my testing ground."
"What?"
"Tsunayashiro-Aniki, what are you saying?"
At these words, not only Setsuna was shocked, but even the other three ancestors nearby let out incredulous soul-piercing shrieks.
They had always regarded the Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor as their 'leader'.
They always thought they were following a far-sighted and courageous leader of the original nobles, together plotting to replace the weak Soul King.
They never imagined that this leader himself was the primordial evil from mythology that should have been destroyed.
Setsuna took a deep breath and pressed further: "Then, what is the true history?"
The Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor seemed to enjoy the thrill of revealing the truth. It smiled and said:
"In the distant beginning, when even the concept of time was vague, there existed two mutually independent worlds, yet destined to collide due to some supreme rule."
"One was filled with light, order, life, and creation. Let us for now call it [Heaven]. The other was eternal darkness, chaos, death, and ending. That was the original [Hell]."
"These two worlds, like destined twin stars, inevitably collided, annihilated, and merged."
"The force of the collision destroyed almost all living beings in both worlds."
"Only the masters of the two worlds, the Soul King, representing Heaven, and I, representing Hell, relied on our power to control the world's origin, survived."
"In a new ruin formed from the mixture of the two worlds' remnants, with chaotic rules, we waged the final battle to determine who would become the sole ruler of the new world."
"In the end, he won. He defeated me, but he could not completely annihilate me, the incarnation of the very concept of Hell."
"So, he did something 'merciful' and 'foolish'. He used his own supreme power to sort out the chaotic rules and shaped the framework of a new world… the prototype of what would later become the three worlds."
"He hoped to use this as a foundation to create a new world with balanced light and darkness, and orderly life and death."
As the Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor spoke, its voice took on the malice of a scheme succeeding:
"And I... while he was creating the new world, with his power dispersed and the rules not yet stable, I reincarnated a thread of my core essence into the world he had created."
"He was too confident. After all, he was omniscient and omnipotent. But this kind of omniscience was limited to within his own world. And I was an outsider."
"I disguised myself as one of his earliest, most loyal followers and gained his trust."
"Then, I advised him not to be a dictator. In a vibrant world, power should be checked. He actually believed me and divided his power among us."
"After obtaining that power, the first thing we did was imprison and dismember him. We made the remaining part of his body into the 'wedge' that maintains the balance of the three worlds."
"The most laughable thing is that even at that point, mutilated, the Soul King still possessed the power to fight back, even to destroy us all together."
"But because he cherished this world he had personally created, even though we had tampered with it beyond recognition, because he did not want innocent lives to be buried with him, he chose not to resist."
The Tsunayashiro Clan's ancestor's voice was full of satisfaction: "How great, how... foolish!"