Chapter 825: Those Born of Destiny
Pitch-black Ki clashed against brilliant golden aura mid-air, instantaneously cleaving the sky into two violently contrasting hues. As if the structural fabric of the entire world were being torn asunder, catastrophic shockwaves blasted outward without pause.
Across the ocean, the mournful wails of countless sea beasts resonated in terror alongside the frantic roars of the high-tier Gourmet World monstrosities lurking within the mists.
Blown hundreds of kilometers away, Ichiryu, Jirou, and Midora looked on with expressions of undisguised horror.
These three were already the undisputed apex powerhouses of the gourmet realm in this world—the personal disciples of Gourmet God Acacia. They knew the true limits of upper-tier power.
Yet it was never supposed to look like this.
A mere collision of projected aura, completely devoid of any named techniques or offensive maneuvers, was boiling the ocean as though it were being set ablaze.
The world trembled beneath these twin forces. Should even the slightest fraction of residual energy veer directly toward the planetary crust, the biosphere would suffer irreversible devastation.
Beneath such apocalyptic might, no living being possessed the room to resist or intervene.
The so-called mandate of destiny and the will of the heavens were reduced to nothing more than the trivial aftershocks of this raw power.
On the other side of the battlefield, Yoko was completely enveloped by a radiant, golden Cosmo. The Concussive Pulse of the Spiritual Light burned fiercely, its bright yellow flames spreading across the ocean surface; yet it could not free her from the crushing Cosmo that seemed to dominate heaven and earth.
In truth, Yoko was acutely aware that if the Gold Saint before her willed it, he could pulverize her at any second. The dimensional gulf separating their tiers of strength had reached an unbridgeable chasm.
Yet Yoko kept her gaze firmly fixed on Saga, her thoughts razor-sharp.
The manifestation of a Black King was always governed by an underlying rule. To trigger the descent of a specific Black King, this world had to contain an anchor tied directly to that entity's past.
Though she hadn't pieced it together initially, now that the Black King, One-Armed Gohan, was locked in genuine combat against Son Goku, Yoko saw the true causal shift triggered by activating that Miracle Spiral privilege.
At the very least, two Black Kings had breached this world.
One-Armed Gohan had descended due to his existential tie to the legendary native plot character, Son Goku. Even if they hailed from divergent timelines, the absolute weight Son Goku held in Gohan's life was beyond question.
Having lost the protection of his father, Gohan had walked a lonely, agonizing path to his bitter end. Between the two of them lay an inescapable thread of destiny.
Then what of Saga, the Black King who chose to manifest before her?
Would a Black King of this caliber reveal himself simply because she was the successor chosen by Ryo?
Would an entity of this magnitude waste his breath explaining things to a stranger?
He would not.
The singular explanation was that she herself was the bearer of that karmic thread connected to Saga!
Though bound by the crushing Cosmo, the Fire of Humanity burned fiercely within Yoko's breast. Under this extreme pressure, her cognitive processing speed rivaled that of Kaito Shirogane when he electrocuted his own synapses with Magnetic Field Rotation.
Her instincts immediately pierced through the veil surrounding the Black King before her.
As Athena's Gold Saint of Gemini, though his darker half had driven him to rebellion, Saga had ultimately chosen to die as a Saint of Athena. Even beyond death, he had willingly embraced eternal damnation and the brand of a traitor to deliver the secret of the God Cloth and the key to vanquishing Hades to his goddess.
What could drive an entity like that to become a Black King?
The divide between gods and men!
Yoko's intuition caught the thread instantly. Within this world, the Fire of the Heart had found a towering, ancient tree capable of being ignited—a tree sealed away by a barrier that isolated reality, yet an existence that could ultimately resonate with her Fire of the Heart.
Had Saga, hailed as the "Incarnation of God," ultimately chosen to stand on the side of mere mortals? What tragic history lay buried beneath that choice?
Her hair seemed to burn with inner fire.
She realized that if she could unravel the truth behind this, the enigma behind the birth of the Black Kings might finally be laid bare. How on earth had those conspirators engineered the creation of these transcendent monsters within the current Infinite Dimensional Space?!
Liu Ruxue let out a long, shuddering breath.
She was back in her apartment. The familiar, slightly cluttered living room and the sound of her chubby British Shorthair, Xiaobao, padding over to rub against her ankles finally allowed her racing pulse to steady.
The bizarre, terrifying trial she had just survived was difficult to articulate, yet...
She opened her mouth, humming a soft melody. Visible musical notes coalesced out of thin air, dancing across the living room. Xiaobao darted back and forth, swatting playfully at the floating notes with furry paws.
Liu Ruxue immediately cut off the ability.
It was all real. It wasn't a nightmare. That terrifying old entity calling himself [Destiny], and that so-called Infinite Dimensional Space—they were terrifyingly real!
Connecting this to the "Ability Users" that had been appearing with alarming frequency on the news lately, she finally understood: the world had warped beyond recognition while she had been looking the other way.
Those Reincarnators, masquerading under the label of "Ability Users," were running rampant across the globe. Her tranquil, ordinary reality was gone for good.
Liu Ruxue despised this upheaval. The sole silver lining was that she apparently possessed genuine aptitude.
She had secured a massive haul of rewards from her very first mission world. Was this the "favoritism" the Space supposedly bestowed upon the Chosen Ones, as Destiny had claimed?
Though she rarely read infinite-flow web novels and had never even watched an episode of One Piece, she had walked away with staggering benefits.
"No, no, no. That is far more than mere spatial favoritism, Miss Liu."
A voice chimed in.
The voluptuous form of Destiny—still wearing the guise of that blonde woman—materialized before her. Liu Ruxue now knew this was called an [Avatar], a projection allowing Reincarnators to adopt any facade they wished.
The King of Destiny, dressed in the guise of Brunestud of the Crimson Moon, wore an easy, relaxed smile. She bent down and climbed casually through the open window. The intrusion caused Liu Ruxue's brows to knit together tightly. A surge of violation and dread made her want to hiss and puff her fur out just like Xiaobao on the rug.
The King of Destiny paid no mind to the woman's discomfort. She merely twitched her fingers, idly plucking at invisible strings.
"Every gift of destiny comes with an exact price tag attached, Miss Liu. When the bill comes due, you must remember to pay me in full. Otherwise, the backlash of fate is not something an ordinary mortal can endure. Not even you, bearer of a unique destiny, could withstand it."
Still unsure of the entity's true motives, Liu Ruxue stepped back warily, placing herself defensively in front of her cat.
Destiny's smile broadened. No matter how extraordinary a person was, they always had a fragile, fledgling phase. Destiny was so delightfully pliable during this stage; a single light pluck of the strings was enough to fundamentally alter their trajectory.
And when confronted with such boundless gifts, almost no one possessed the will to refuse.
Destiny turned and pointed down through the window at the street below. A short-haired young man wearing a black-and-white striped shirt stood on the pavement, frowning.
"Miss Liu, form a team with that gentleman down there. I imagine your combination will experience an explosive rise—a velocity that won't lag too far behind that Monster King. Before everything truly begins, we still have a window of opportunity..."
Midway through the sentence, the woman's alluring, magnetic voice began to curdle, turning raspy, ancient, and scraping like grinding teeth. The shapely, curvaceous silhouette shriveled into a withered, hunched crone.
The lustrous blonde hair dried to brittle straw and sloughed away in clumps.
Hiss!
Xiaobao's fur stood completely on end, arching its back and hissing violently at the grotesque elder.
Witnessing this horrific transformation again, Liu Ruxue felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat.
Yet she forced a tight smile and accepted the directive.
As for the talk of a "Monster King" or an "explosive rise," she let it go in one ear and out the other.
Her only priority was packing her bags and moving to a new apartment the second this creep vanished!
The thoughts of a fledgling novice could not escape the King of Destiny's perception, but he couldn't be bothered to care.
He could feel that the thread of fate he had buried within Yoko Ekaterina had been severed, its causal outcome spiraling into an uncharted void.
She had likely crossed paths with a top-tier plot character—only an entity of that magnitude could effortlessly override his woven threads of destiny and blind his cosmic clairvoyance.
The trajectory of this world was descending into pure chaos.
Not only that madman Mercenary Tao, but even Yoko was actively clawing her way out of her predestined shackles.
This new generation of Reincarnators truly possessed exceptional talent.
He understood the phenomenon well. Before every cataclysmic extinction event, the world naturally birthed an influx of extraordinary prodigies—a collective immune response of the World's Will.
Sensing an existential crisis, the world produced brilliant champions to resolve the threat.
And the calamity looming over their future was an unprecedented cataclysm; naturally, those born of destiny right now could not be defined as mere "champions."
Several true sovereigns bearing the collective fate of humanity had already emerged. Some were dead, some had once attempted to cast aside their assigned destinies only to have them forcibly thrust back into their hands, and others had grown strong enough to challenge him directly on the board.
Jie-jie-jie!
The withered elder's vocal cords could no longer sustain complex tones, reducing his laughter to a grating, raspy screech.
He stepped toward the open window, his physical frame blurring into an ethereal state, passing straight through the glass pane.
To guarantee the success of his grand board, he had to secure every variable.
Both Ryo and Yoko fundamentally misunderstood him on one crucial point: he genuinely intended to prevent the arrival of the Final Calamity.
Not out of love for humanity, but for himself. Only if the cycle of reincarnation endured could he continue siphoning resources from the fissures of reality and claim the true [Path of Transcendence].
Whether it was the Genetic Lock of prior eras or the current [Stairway], those systems merely elevated Reincarnators from insignificant insects into slightly more formidable insects. What he hungered for was the absolute power that stood above all existence!
Therefore, the more human sovereigns that emerged, the better.
He didn't even mind showering good fortune upon that wild beast Kaito Shirogane—a rabid hound intentionally forged by the King of Souls.
As long as those monsters could hold the line and avert the Final Calamity, none of the rest mattered in the slightest.
Mocking him as the King of Rats?
Slaying his spacetime variants?
Let them do as they pleased!
As the King of Destiny faded into the air above the scenic city, countless individuals throughout the area exhaled in quiet relief.
Sitting inside a coastal café dressed in a Shinigami cosplay outfit, Kurotsuchi's face finally regained a trace of color. She threw her head back, downing the beautifully crafted latte in a single gulp.
"Damn it all... Why on earth would a monster like that show up here? This place is cursed, I can't stay here another second..."
"Who did Lord Aizen want me to wait for anyway? There are so many skateboarders down there, how am I supposed to know which one he meant?! Damn it, I hate riddlers with a passion!"
Driven to frantic murmuring by the sheer stress, her volatile Spiritual Pressure began to fluctuate wildly.
Zzt~
A faint wisp of leaked Spiritual Pressure rippled outward. The very next second, the bustling street plunged into eerie silence.
Pedestrians dropped like severed marionettes, rendered completely unconscious by the suffocating weight of the spiritual bleed.
In an instant, the vibrant thoroughfare became a desolate graveyard, leaving only a handful of individuals clutching their chests, shivering violently on the pavement.
Kurotsuchi vaulted cleanly through the café window. She offered a flippant wave to the collapsed bystanders—a mock apology devoid of the slightest shred of remorse.
She had long grown numb to taking lives. What real difference was there between the mortals of scripted mission worlds and the mortals of the real world?
Killing was killing; dead was dead.
Hah~
Kurotsuchi thought her own detachment was rather stylish. Slipping her hands into her pockets, her Zanpakuto swaying openly at her hip, she rounded the corner and caught sight of a pale-faced young man standing beneath an apartment building, alongside a woman leaning out of a window above.
"Oh? I've got a funny feeling that slaughtering the two of you right here would be a wonderful choice!"
Kurotsuchi strode directly toward them.
Within the halls of Las Noches, Sosuke Aizen rested his chin lazily upon his palm, watching the pristine mirror-screen before him with calm amusement.
The display projected Kurotsuchi's direct field of view.
He observed his subordinate—a woman who possessed little intellect, yet commanded an instinct that transcended conventional information—rest her hand upon her hilt as she advanced toward the two mortals bearing unique destinies.
A spark of genuine curiosity flickered in Aizen's eyes.
So... a brainless archetype like Kurotsuchi, who completely bypasses data and logic to act purely on raw instinct, serves as an organic countermeasure against the mechanics of destiny...?
Though Aizen carried absolute, unyielding arrogance regarding his own power, he remained an intellectual who methodically drafted precise countermeasures for every anomalous adversary.
Every designated numbered asset he forged was an experiment, a calculated contingency prepared for someone specific.
Some were failed drafts, some were incomplete prototypes, but among them were... authentic masterpieces!
Aizen shifted his gaze away from Kurotsuchi. In truth, he held little interest in the so-called bearers of unique destinies and had refused to squander resources competing for them.
Relying on such crutches was merely the symptom of a weakling who lacked faith in their own supremacy.
Scuttling through the cracks like vermin, holding their breath until others weathered the storm before daring to show their faces—how profoundly pathetic.
The mirror-screen before Aizen shifted, an orb of pristine white soul-force melting into its surface.
The most flawless creation he had ever wrought—his [Masterpiece Against the Great Calamity], his [Perfect Black King]—was rising anew from the flames!
Aizen made no attempt to conceal his smile. Beyond pure aesthetic appreciation for his magnum opus, his eyes carried the thrill of an explorer gazing into the uncharted.
Kaito Shirogane possessed the core essence of the Unformed Sea within his soul; no entity in existence could predict what he would ultimately become.
By now, the man had blown far past the initial parameters of Aizen's grand design. The Soul King essence Aizen had forcefully embedded within him had barely been tapped; instead, other transcendent powers were manifesting with terrifying clarity across this perfect vessel.
Furthermore, Aizen could sense that Kaito Shirogane had obtained the recognition of the cosmos itself—he had inherited an extraordinary strain of destiny.
The succession of transcendent, rule-breaking plot characters he had clashed with had all, through the most improbable angles, served as catalysts to shatter the shackles binding this masterpiece.
And now, that terrifying Super Saiyan had done the exact same thing.
"So then... what ultimate fate will you choose in the end, Kaito Shirogane...?"