Chapter 386 - 385: Gift Bereich
If Ulquiorra’s reiatsu had already been overwhelming during his initial Resurrección, Askin had assumed that was his absolute limit. That belief had guided everything — even the lethal condition he’d set against him.
But the moment Ulquiorra invoked his Segunda Etapa, that assumption shattered.
The surge of reiatsu was immediate and catastrophic. What had once been immense now expanded severalfold, exploding outward in a black storm of energy. The sand cracked. The air screamed.
It was the kind of increase that rivaled a shinigami’s leap from Shikai to Bankai — five, maybe ten times stronger. The pressure alone warped the landscape.
"Are you kidding me?!" Askin shouted, eyes wide in disbelief. "I’ve never even heard of a second-stage Resurrección!"
For the first time since the battle began, panic slipped into his voice.
The ability to perform Resurrección — to "return to the blade" — was the defining trait of arrancar. It released the sealed power within their Zanpakutō and restored their original hollow essence, healing their injuries in the process.
The Wandenreich had studied that thoroughly. Years of research from the Karakura War had confirmed the mechanics of arrancar transformations. Nothing in that research had ever hinted at a second stage.
And yet here it was. Ulquiorra Cifer, standing silent amid the storm of his own power, his form transformed into something that defied every chart, every precedent, every law of combat logic.
’A second-stage Resurrección...?’ Askin thought, frozen. ’That’s— impossible! Why do the others only have one? What is this thing facing me?’
The thought was half disbelief, half outrage.
Why did one arrancar get to rewrite the rules?