I'm really not the number one slacker in Soul Society.

Before he could finish speaking, more than a dozen yellow light bullets radiating a dangerous aura blasted towards Mi Zhen.

However, Mima neither dodged nor avoided, standing still and letting the light bullets engulf his figure—the power of this demonic path was indeed enormous, but as long as the direct hit was dodged with "displacement", the remaining aftershocks of the explosion could be completely withstood by the Sky-Splitting Armor.

Amidst the deafening explosion, Urahara, along with a bespectacled man wearing a blue robe over his shihachi uniform, moved the fallen figures to the side.

A few seconds later... the smoke and dust gradually dissipated.

"That was a rather rude greeting."

Mizhen emerged from the smoke, seemingly unharmed. "Watashi Tessai, would such a venerable demon master choose to launch a sneak attack?"

"what?"

Tetsuzai stared in shock.

That was his full-force Thousand Hands Heavenly Cannon without any incantation! If it had been blocked or dodged, that would have been understandable, but this guy... was completely unharmed?

He and Kisuke Urahara exchanged a glance, their already serious expressions growing even deeper.

They were uncertain, and Mimi... was even more uncertain.

We can't beat them, we really can't beat them this time.

It took more than ten "misalignments" from Woling Tiezhai's Thousand Hands Heavenly Cannon to create the illusion of being completely unharmed, but for this great demonic Taoist, a single level 90 breakthrough was probably just a greeting.

To maintain his high-class image, Mima didn't choose the low-cost, simple method. He could only unleash about one-seventh of his spiritual pressure on the "misalignment" point in one go. In other words, if he did this a few more times, he would probably be forced to reveal his trump card.

"Alright, I've said my greetings." Mi Zhen shook his still-smoking hand—it was a minor injury caused by the last Thousand Hands Lightning Cannon, about as severe as being burned by a lighter, which he could heal quickly even with his half-baked healing skills.

A few seconds later, he walked to a relatively flat piece of land and sighed, "Could you explain why you attacked me? I'm in a good mood tonight, so maybe I'll forgive you."

"What utter nonsense—"

Lisa only managed to shout half a sentence before a pale, turbid stream gushed from her face.

It gradually took the form of half a diamond-shaped mask with a cross on it.

"This...Miss."

Urahara stared at Mima with icy eyes: "What have you done to them?"

"Hmm? Can't you tell?"

Mima brandished his sword twice with a carefree air, and said with righteous indignation, "These Hollows are disguising themselves as members of the Gotei 13, preparing to invade Soul Society—how could I, a righteous person, sit idly by in the face of such heinous acts? That's why I risked my life to come and punish them."

"A clumsy lie..."

Urahara changed his stance, becoming more aggressive: "Only third-rate villains would resort to such verbal tricks."

"You're saying I'm lying?" Mima looked at Urahara with suspicion. "Was there something wrong with what I just said?"

"This is clearly..."

Urahara glanced at the people on the ground out of the corner of his eye—Hiyori, Luo Wu and Lou Juro's masks were already completed, and Hirako and Yushoda were almost done as well. The only one who could still maintain her senses was Lisa, who was the least injured, but without exception, their shocking changes in spiritual pressure made him feel a chill in his heart.

The head of the technology development bureau suppressed his anger and uttered the term: "virtualization."

"Great, great!"

Mima clapped his hands insincerely: "As expected of the founder of the Technology Development Bureau, you have such broad knowledge."

"Captain Urahara..."

The clone that Urahara had placed under the tree struggled to sit up, pointed at Mima with its forearm (which had no hands), and said through gritted teeth, "It was... her, who... took Lisa and the others..."

"Huh? You can still talk?" Mima looked puzzled, scratching his head. "This makes me look at you in a new light."

"you……"

"Watanabe, the fifth seat, stop talking. I understand the situation."

Urahara stopped his clone from standing up, then turned around and stared coldly at Mima, asking, "What exactly do you want to do?"

“New technologies always need test subjects,” Mima shrugged. “See, isn’t it a great success?”

"Damn it, you're the one responsible for the disappearance of the Rukongai residents..."

Urahara couldn't help but take a step forward, as if about to do something.

But then she saw Mi Zhen turn around decisively and walk away.

"Bye-bye! I've already achieved my goal, so there's no need to stay here any longer." Mima waved her hand. "See you later~"

"Wait……"

Facing Urahara's pursuit, Mima didn't even turn her head, stopping him with just one sentence: "Is this a good idea? To leave our fallen comrades unattended? — I don't know the exact time, but they probably won't live much longer."

"Oh, and there's the one lying under the tree."

Before completely disappearing into the darkness of night, he added to his clone, "You got lucky this time, but remember to get stronger, otherwise it'll be too boring fighting you—"

................................................

It's finally done...

If Tessai and Urahara are determined to keep him here, then Mima will have no choice but to dismantle his clones and run away.

Among the secret techniques of the Kidō sect are some rather outrageous things, such as time stopping, which are quite a headache to think about.

Not to mention Urahara.

Mima once categorized the Bankai that would appear in Soul Society now and in the future into several levels based on their strength.

The first tier includes characters like the Black Rope Heavenly Punishment King who wears clothes, Iron Fist Windbreaker, and Dragon Pattern Ghost Lantern Maru. They are all flashy but useless, and can be easily defeated with a kick. There is almost no need to pay attention to them.

The second tier, including the Kinsara Dance Troupe, Enma Cricket, and Suzumebachi Raikōbō, while useful, all have obvious weaknesses and can be easily countered by following certain methods.

The third tier, such as Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, Shinsatsu Spear, and Daiguren Hyōrinmaru (fully unleashed version), features swords and their masters of exceptional quality. There's no way to skip them; they can only be defeated through sheer strength.

As for the fourth-tier Zankatana, the Katen Kyokotsu, Kuromoshin, and Shirabun Ichimonji are completely cheating. Even now, Mima can't think of any proper and feasible way to counter it—after all, he's not a Quincy and can't use something even more cheating like stealing the Star Seal.

Unfortunately, Kisuke Urahara's Kannon Kai Benihime Kai also belongs to the fourth tier.

Chapter 59: Cooperation Achieved

Forget about how to deal with it. Because he had never seen it with his own eyes, Mima didn't even know what "transforming everything" was, which wasn't even clearly explained in the manga. Even if it could be dealt with by eliminating time in theory, he was unwilling to gamble on something unknown.

I'm always the one who uses my trump cards to crush others; it's never my turn for someone else to do that to me.

After running a bit further and confirming that Urahara wasn't following, Mima finally breathed a sigh of relief. He then casually found a tree stump to sit on and called out to the dark forest, "Aizen Sousuke."

The next second, three distinct footsteps sounded from the side and behind.

Mima turned around and saw Aizen revealing himself by parting the branches.

"Brilliant! He easily defeated several captains all by himself." Aizen stepped forward and smiled sincerely. "It's truly something to be admired."

—You're kidding me.

"The bokeh effect is indeed quite good."

Mima looked in the direction of the incident scene and chuckled, "I just didn't expect Kisuke to come. Captain-Commander Yamamoto would actually send someone in charge of technical development to the front lines? That doesn't fit my impression."

"In my opinion, that was Captain Urahara's arbitrary decision-making."

Aizen adjusted his glasses and answered Mima's deliberately provocative question, then changed the subject, saying, "Having watched from the sidelines for so long, I also have a few questions. May I ask Miss Messenger to answer them?"

This kind of step is definitely indispensable.

Mi Zhen crossed her legs and shrugged, seemingly unconcerned, saying, "Go ahead and answer, I'll answer whatever I can, consider it a perk for my partner."

"Just some simple questions."

Aizen said with almost humble words, "The messenger and Urahara Kisuke should be from the same place, but when they confronted each other just now, they acted like strangers meeting for the first time. I am very curious about this."

"Yes, that's a very reasonable question."

Mi Zhen responded, then flipped his hand and pulled the messenger token hidden in his sleeve into his hand.

"However, this problem is complicated to explain, so I'll just give you the conclusion."

He released the mosaic barrier that came with the token, transforming himself into a simple stick figure, and then pointed to this version of himself, saying, "This is a messenger."

Then he tore down the barrier, put away the token, and pointed to himself, saying, "This is not it."

“…I see.” Aizen nodded thoughtfully. “Does Urahara Kisuke know the identity of ‘Messenger’ rather than ‘Miss Messenger’ herself? That’s rather interesting.”

"After all, everyone has their own difficulties."

Mi Zhen sighed deeply, shifted to a more comfortable position, and while seemingly complaining about the world, she was actually having a great time.

—I was just making some riddles, and you came up with the conclusion yourself. If it's wrong, it's not my fault!

No wonder so many people love telling riddles; it's so satisfying to be a master riddle teller!

"The second question," Aizen said with a smile, "Miss Messenger seems to be quite interested in Watanabe Yama of the Eighth Division—consider it a token of my sincerity, if you need it, I can bring you his true form."

As expected, Aizen was keeping this in mind.

Because that's exactly what Mima wanted him to see.

If he didn't want Aizen to misunderstand, why would he have gone to the point of cutting off his own hand?

To put it bluntly, this behavior is somewhat similar to a wild animal marking its territory. He is indirectly telling Aizen, "This person is my type, so don't interfere." After all, Aizen is the kind of weirdo who would do something like having Kurosaki Ichigo kill him because he is too invincible, so he can definitely understand this so-called "nemesis complex."

Once this impression is established, Aizen will not easily take action against "Watanabe Yama".

Although it might seem like a cover-up, if the identity of "Watanabe Yama" were to be used to do something someday, Aizen would still pay extra attention. It's better for him to take the initiative now, so that he can gain some control.

“Oh, that kid?” Mi Zhen raised an eyebrow. “His ability is interesting, but too weak to really pique my interest… But after this, he’ll definitely hate me. Hatred can make people stronger quickly, and only by becoming stronger can he better test my abilities.”

Before she could finish speaking, Mima suddenly noticed that Aizen's gaze had become somewhat strange.

Not in a negative sense... Specifically, it should be a feeling of sudden realization, like "Oh, I didn't know there was such a way to do this, I've learned something new."

Something just doesn't feel right...

“Then let’s move on to the last question.” After pondering for a moment, Aizen looked up and smiled again. “We were talking about destroying the current order. I hope that Miss Messenger can explain her position in more detail. This will surely be helpful for our future cooperation.”

“Well, it can’t be called ‘destroy’.” Mima corrected Aizen’s choice of words. “It should be called ‘remodeling’ because I didn’t have the idea of ​​burning Soul Society to the ground and then building a new order from scratch. First, that doesn’t fit my idea of ​​‘gathering forces to defeat the Quincy King’, and second, it’s not realistic.”

"What exactly is the messenger's idea..."

"It's very simple. If we compare Soul Society to a human body, certain institutions are like lesions that cause the body to die—such as some nobles and their representatives, the '46 Chambers.' My goal is to cut off and destroy these lesions, and then build a more reasonable operating mechanism to make Soul Society, this human body, stronger quickly."

Mi Zhen shrugged and said, "It's just the old and new stuff. Of course, I'm not stupid enough to expect to build a perfect system in one step... Specifically, it just needs to be about 50% more reasonable than it is now. If we can't avoid extinction even if we do that, then I'll just have to lie down and wait to die."