'Throughout all my life, I seek perfection.'
To be the ultimate life form that had no flaw and stood above all things, including death, and thus spent my entire life to achieve just that.'
Yet over time, I realized that perfection was not what I truly wanted...but rather to forever be challenged in battle, where I use all my power and wits to defeat foes that rivaled me, that surpassed me. If I were genuinely perfect...then such challenges would be impossible.'
And more than that...to see someone I trained and engineered to one day surpass me.
Unfortunately, to achieve such desires, one must be willing to place one's life on the line to make it happen...
And for me...my line has finally been severed.
Those were the last thoughts that Cein had as Lille's trumpet completely overpowered his ultimate attack, even with his negation defense. The Shockwave of light still reduced the Alchemist's body slowly but steadily to dust.
But he didn't scream or cry in joy; instead, he smiled, accepting that he lived his life to the fullest and achieved everything he wanted.
And with that, he bid his life farewell until he could reincarnate in the next one...better yet, make another one in hell.
When Lille saw that Cein was disintegrated entirely by his Tromput, he let out a deep breath of relief as his divine form ended. He returned to his base form before immediately using the flying step to return to Royd.
But by then, it was too late.
The Brunette Sternritter who fought bravely beside Lille and carried him throughout the entire fight now lay still, weathered and dead.
For Barro, he thought that by some miracle, the man would be able to survive and take him back to his brother Lloyd...but no.
Having one's fluids and chemicals drain from the inside out would be fatal even for a Sternritter. Royd was still lucky enough to be conscious after that...before eventually expiring.
'...You have my eternal gratitude, Royd Lloyd of the Yourself' Lille praised as he looked at his fallen comrade. 'Had you not shared me your Schrift with my own, I likely, even in my divine form, wouldn't be powerful enough to take on such a powerful enemy'
He then knelled himself to the body. 'And I assure you that when we return to the soul society...your funeral will be worthy of the gods themselves.'
The imperial guard then took out a capsule and uttered grants zu, and then, the pill enlarged and encased Royd's body in a silver coffin before shrinking into a pendant, which Lille then picked up and stored into his vest.
'But until then...' he said while sensing nearby battles. 'We have a mission to complete.'
Meanwhile, within the Courtyard
Soundtrack of Choice: Sword Art Online Confront Battle
Gremmy narrowed his eyes as he dodged another one of Arturo's punches while slicing through the left side of his ribs and causing blood to spill. Yet despite the nasty injury, the General quickly returned to normal, much to his annoyance.
'Hahahaha!' Plateado laughed. 'Is this all you can do, the mind of the Reio!?' He taunted. 'Evading and pinching me with that toothpick of yours, because if it is, then it's not much of an improvement when I once hunted you down as my prey.'
Arturo then lunged at Gremmy. 'And beating you down to a bloody pulp when I caught you,' He declared in a dark, devious voice before thrusting his left fist with all of his might, hoping to either crush Quincy or shatter his pathetic excuse of a weapon.
Yet when the Visionary blocked Arturo's fist with his spear of Mars, it neither shattered nor even cracked like last time, much to his shock and confusion, and in that moment of weakness. Gremmy sliced through Arturo's chest with his spear, which was far more profound than any wound he had inflicted before.
Arturo then stepped back nervously before quickly regaining his composure and smirking again.
'So I see you can use your imagination to reinforce that toothpick so it won't break so easily. How typical that a brat like you would try to think of something to win a futile battle.'
Gremmy then narrowed his eyes in annoyance. 'It's basic focus spiritual pressure,' he explained flatly. 'Which is something that any spiritual entity, even you, can do.'
Arturo then chucked. 'So the mind of the reio can do basic spiritual combat. Am I supposed to be impressed?'
Gremmy then raised a questioning eyebrow. 'More of wondering why it is so surprising to you that I can do such a thing.'
The General then sneered. 'Mainly because I didn't expect prey like you to learn anything by the time I spared you, not that it would even matter.'
The Visionary then looked at Arturo for a moment, and for once, he was the one who laughed. 'Really, because from what I remembered, a centered imperial guard poisoned and left you for dead while coming to my rescue.' His eyes then grew stern. 'But given how much you looked down upon me...you truly believe I hadn't grown beyond the child you wanted to devour, do you?'
Arturo then huffed in contempt. 'And why should I? ' He challenged condescendingly. 'For all the hundreds of years since we last meant. I continued to grow in strength. While you still use cheap tricks to fight and evade me, and by sending that Ichigo away, you just sealed your doom!'
Gremmy stared at Arturo briefly, sighed dejectedly, and looked out to the distance.
'Geez...' the young man muttered. 'And to think I was afraid to face you again...' He then let go of his spear of Mars, which glowed a grayish color.
Solistic Teir One...Sandals of Mercury' The glowing weapon formed beneath Gremmy's feet and transformed into a pair of iron-winged sandals, much to Arturo's amusement.
'So you brought another toy to play with me, Mind of the Reio?' The General teased. 'I do wonder how you're going to'
SLASH!
To Arturo's astonishment, Gremmy suddenly cut him across the face faster than he could react and right when he was about to make a counter. The Visionary suddenly launched dozens of other cuts across the General's body, much to his continued bafflement.
'He's...' Arturo muttered. 'Almost as fast as Vega with those boots of his...and not only that.' He then eyed his steady closing wounds, some looking burnt while others were frostbitten. 'Those wings on his boots act as blades. With one of them burning hot and the other icy cold.'
The General Then readied his stance. 'But If I focus, I can react and counter him-!?'
Then, to Arturo's confusion, Gremmy conjured another clone next to himself and uttered.
'Teir one subset: Mercury's Caduceus' and the clone transforms into a metal rod with a pair of wings and twin snakes encircling its shaft until their two heads face each other.
'What is that?' Arturo muttered to himself at the strange object. But before he pondered any further, Gremmy once more rushed at him with the odd rode.
Reacting fast, The General raised his armored hand to block it, but to his bafflement, as soon as the rod stuck his arm, he suddenly began to lose his strength and become drowsy.
'W-What's happing to me!?' Arturo questioned alarmingly in his head and stared menacingly at his opponent. 'You...are you trying to drain me of my strength!?'
Gremmy then has his Enemy sly smirk. 'Let's just say my Soloristic tiers are not limited to just the property of the planets but also the Roman gods themselves.' he then began to twirl around his Cadueus. 'And you are about to experience the full brunt of it!'
Then, with a flash of Speed, the Visionary dashed around Arturo and struck him with his rode many more which roared up to the billions, and while The General, with great effort, was able to deflect most of the blows, the ones that struck and him woozier and woozier. Until he could barely make himself stand.
Seeing his opportunity, he delivers a fatal blow by readying his Wing Sandals to cut off the General's head. But his Foe saw through the move and quickly fired a bala in front of Gremmy, forcing him to stop when the Visionary could locate Arturo and spot a rock formation from the top and who had gotten over his doziness.
'So him absorbing reshi in the air fully revives from anything, not just injury,' Gremmy pondered in thought. 'Guess I have to keep that in mind then.'
Arturo then growled at Quincy. 'Well, it would seem that your little bag of tricks is more troublesome than I anticipated.' He then held it in his belly. 'But let's see how well you can handle mine!'
Soundtrack of Choice: Owari No Seraph: Battle Theme
'Ejército de la gula! (Army of Gluttony) He shouted out, and then, with a loud bellow, Arturo spewed from his mouth hundreds of thousands of white golem-like hollows that resemble his own Resurrección form, each being as powerful as Adjuchas class Arrancar. At the same time, all of them rushed towards Gremmy.
But the imperial guard looked utterly unimpressed.
'So your bag of tricks involved sending a bunch of fodder to wear me down before tearing me apart?' Gremmy mockingly questions before placing his rode in the sand and then conjuring another clone of himself.
'Soltisric Tier Six: Saturn's Scythe' His clone then transformed into a scythe with a pale black snath and blade made of solid yellow crystals.
'Let me show you why that just won't...slice it,' Gremmy said out the lame pun and then swung the scyth at the approaching army of hollows, and from the edge of the blade, a massive half-mile ring made of rock and ice was launched from it and sliced through the entire army all at once before heading straight at Arturo himself much to his shock.
Preparing himself, the General caught the spinning disk, yet the force behind it was so great that it pushed him several feet across the around. Finally, he used his full strength to shatter the disk into pieces, letting out a mighty roar. But the moment he did, Gremmy was right below him, his scyth already in motion to strike. With little time to react, Arturo used both of his arms to block it immediately, and to his frustration, the blade of the crystal weapon managed to slice through the armored hide of his arms.
'Well...' Gremmy began to say as he looked over at the bleeding arms of Arturo. 'This is surely disappointing,' said dispassionately at the General, who growled in the offense.
'Disappointed!?' Arturo shouted angrily, as his arms immediately healed. 'Don't think that just because you overcame my army doesn't mean you won!' He then gripped both of his hands into fists. 'For this battle is far from over!'
Gremmy then yawns at his Enemy's boasts. 'Yes, and I am sure you still have an ace up your hole and all...but it shouldn't be this easy for me to dispose of such an army now, wouldn't it?
The General then narrowed his bewilderment. 'What did you say?'
The Visionary then shrugged up his shoulders. 'You have gotten much stronger since last we met.' He then raised his Scyth at Arturo. 'But unlike the last time, I could barely slow you down regardless of what I imagine against you. Now you're just a challenge to me, not the unstoppable monster I feared.'
Arturo then glared menacingly at Gremmy. 'Oh, I will make you fear me again, the mind of the Reio...' he spoke lowly in a voice filled with venom and spite and then began to charge a black cero from the orange orbs on his head. 'By crushing you with my superior power!
Then, by mixing the blood from his wounds, Arturo began to charge a Grand Ray cero within the hollow hole in his chest, and when it was fired, it looked large and powerful to wipe out Las Noches itself off the face of the map.
Yet the Visionary expressed pure boredom before casually slicing the doom blast in half with a twirl from his scyth.
Gremmy then looked at his opponent's shocked expression. 'I can already guess what you are thinking; oh, how can the mind of the Reio block and counter my Grand Ray Cero so easily?' The visionary playfully imitated before huffing. 'It's because I channeled my Spiritual pressure to counter yours, and since we are more or less on the same level.'
WE ARE NOT ON THE SAME LEVEL!' The General shouted out, much to Gremmy's surprise.
'You are nothing more than a lowly disbodied organ, a thing that took the form of a child upon gaining sentience through some freak accident. 'Whose power is nothing more than a temporary illusion upon reality, while mine has been built upon by devouring over sextillions souls!' His Spiritual power began to rise and manifest in a radiant blazing green and white energy aura. 'And you will realize that gap between us soon enough.'
The three worlds began to shake once more as Arturo unleashed his full power.
Soundtrack of Choice: Dark 2211 TYBW Full Orchestra
'Segunda Etapa!'
The blazing aura darkens before bursting away to reveal Arturo's new form.
His skin turned into dark green scales, while circle-like animal markings covered his chest, arms, and sharp black claws and feet. His hair and beard became paler in color yet more wild and unrestrained. His lowered sporting a dark gray tribal leather robe that seemed to be made in ages long forgotten. On top of the General's head were four brightly colored jewels: green, yellow, and red.
Then, in a grotesque display of power. Arturo then plugged his right hand into his chest. The skin and flesh melted into the limb instead of being shredded apart, which was then followed by the Arrancar pulling out a massive great sword with a handle and guard made out of scales and a blade that was shaped like the tooth of a gigantic snake shine and glowed like the three gems on his forehead.
'Fang of the Feathered Serpent,' he spoke lowly and raised the weapon above his head before slowly rotating into a circle in front of his body. At the same time, four disks of bright emerald shining energy were formed from the tip of the blade, and when Artos aimed the sword in the center, a fifth energy disk was created, which quickly grew to connect itself with the other four.
'Dawn of the Fith Sun...' The General uttered in quite a fury, and at once, each of the five disks fired a gigantic petra beam of energy that atomized the white sands of the desert, scorching the air itself for tens of thousands of feet and shining so brightly that it could be seen on the other side of the realm like a rising star over the horizon.
A technique so great that it could wipe out even an entire country in the blink of an eye.
Yet, despite its overwhelming power. The Visionary stood his ground, not struggling to control his fear but confidently seeing everything through.
Then the beam hit its target, and everything across the horizon and far beyond was consumed in a brilliant emerald column of light that lit up the night skies of Heuco Mundo.
