Marvel: The Imposter Inventor

Chapter 411 The Strongest Genius in a Millennium

"Om~"

The dull thud of the sword stopped abruptly less than a finger's width in front of Luca.

Seeing Luca lying on the ground looking like a dead pig unafraid of boiling water, but in reality still not even having removed his armor, Kenpachi Zaraki's face immediately showed a constipated expression.

Kenpachi knew that even if he swung his sword, he might not be able to cut through the kid's armor, but he was only just getting into the swing of things.
'Shouldn't a fight be a battle until one of them falls to the ground? Well, this kid has indeed fallen.'

Filled with resentment, Kenpachi Zaraki swung his sword fiercely, leaving a deep slash mark on the ground. Without even glancing at Luca on the ground, he turned and left.

"Yachiru! Let's go!"

"But Little Swordsman~ Little Baldy said we should help him pick up Little Red Hair~"

Dragging her small Zanpakuto, Kusajishi Yachiru hopped over to Kenpachi Zaraki's side. She first tapped Luca's head, who was still pretending to be dead, and then immediately turned to Kenpachi Zaraki and said something that no one else could understand.

Kenpachi Zaraki paused upon hearing this. He, who was usually not very sensitive to these things, actually felt a little embarrassed.

Then, his gaze swept fiercely across the graduates who were huddled together like quails.

After locking onto Renji Abarai's red hair, Kenpachi immediately used Shunpo to appear beside Renji.

"Genggengmu Team. Hey hey hey~~"

Under Renji's horrified gaze, Kenpachi ignored his attempts to dodge, grabbed him by the collar, and swaggered away from the scene.

"Ahem~ Um, Renji hasn't even registered his information yet, and he's already being taken to the Eleventh Division, is that really okay?"

Upon hearing this, everyone turned to look.

Luca got up from the ground as if nothing had happened, removed his black flame-like armor, and even had the mind to care about his former classmate's 'employment' problem.

Many people had black lines appearing on their foreheads.

"Don't worry, the academy will be more lenient with graduates who are particularly talented. Maybe a mentor will take the initiative to go to the Eleventh Division to complete the formalities for him tomorrow."

Seeing Luca still brushing off non-existent dust, Kyoraku Shunsui chuckled and stepped forward to explain.

"But you've gotten really good now, you can even dominate someone like Kenpachi!"

As he spoke, Kyoraku Shunsui stretched out his finger, seemingly wanting to tug at Luca's Shinha armor to see what divine intent it held.

Seeing this, Luca quickly dodged away with some disgust, thus preventing Kyoraku Shunsui from continuing to pull and tug at him.

"Please stop teasing me, band leader. Do you think I don't know my own skill level?"

"Captain Zaraki's two blows to me were by no means a full-force attack!"

As he spoke, Luca looked in the direction where Kenpachi Zaraki had left, and shook his head with a wry smile.

Don't be fooled by the fact that he spent most of the time in his fight dominating Kenpachi Zaraki.

But in reality, Luca knew very well that he was just bullying his opponent in his normal state.

Because he so desperately craved a battle of equal strength, Kenpachi Zaraki had been consciously or unconsciously suppressing his true power. He intentionally used a spiritual pressure restraint eye patch made by Mayuri Kurotsuchi, but even with the eye patch removed, Kenpachi's normal strength was basically at the bottom among the captains.

In the original story, several decades later, even Ichigo Kurosaki, who had not yet mastered Bankai, was able to defeat Kenpachi Zaraki head-on by suddenly unleashing his power.

Kenpachi hasn't completely shut himself down to that level of incompetence yet, but he's not far off.

Luca's early advantage in the battle, even to the point of blasting the opponent away, was also due to this reason.

As for what happened later, Kenpachi grew stronger with each fight as his sealed power gradually dissipated, while Luca grew weaker with each fight due to the spiritual power he had poured into his Shinha armor dissipating wildly. Naturally, there was no need for him to continue fighting Luca.

'Unexpectedly, the rate at which the Death Armor dissipates spiritual energy during battle far exceeds expectations, and the structural stability of the armor itself is also questionable.'

'Is it due to the fluctuations caused during spiritual pressure confrontation? As expected, we need real-world testing to find the problem.'

'It seems that the insulating material of the Kido Capsule alone is insufficient to support the high-intensity combat of the Death Armor; further improvements to this design are needed.'

The problem of spiritual energy infused into an object dissipating has always existed.

However, the dissipation rate of ordinary ghost traps is quite slow, so there is no need to worry about this weakening when setting them up in battle.

The existence of the 'Ghost Path Capsule' is itself due to the isolation shell that Luca specially created for long-term storage.

Unfortunately, it seems that this material is still somewhat insufficient for the Death King Armor, which has several times the spiritual power of its own.

'Hmm, we also need to equip the Death Knight Armor with a separate sword of the same design as a supplement for combat. Although the fist's power is decent thanks to the Kido enhancement, its finishing effect is still lacking in actual combat.'

With these thoughts swirling in his mind, Luca suddenly lost much interest in the upcoming academy graduation ceremony.

Besides Mayuri Kurotsuchi's orders, he came here simply to see Renji and his team's choices.

Kira and Hinamori have now joined the 4th and 5th Divisions respectively, and Renji has also been 'kidnapped' by Kenpachi.

Luca, who hadn't yet mastered the ability to break the illusion of the mirror image, didn't intend to stay here and watch Aizen's performance one more time.

However, after Luca left on his own, the others at the scene kept discussing the battle that had started and ended so suddenly.

Soon, the news that the third seat of the 12th Division had directly suppressed and "defeated" the captain of the 11th Division spread throughout the entire Seireitei.

Yes, the information that has been leaked has completely distorted the facts.

Although many captains were aware of Kenpachi Zaraki's situation, few of the different academy students and members of the 13th Division had any concept of it.

What they saw was that Luca almost completely suppressed Kenpachi Zaraki, who was the captain, throughout the battle, and finally voluntarily conceded defeat to end the fight, 'out of consideration for the captain's reputation'.

Of course, this statement isn't entirely wrong. If Luca really had murderous intent, he might have been able to unleash his full power and kill Kenpachi before Kenpachi removed his eyepatch and regained his strength from the battle.

Moreover, it should be noted that throughout this battle, Luca did not use his most proficient trap setups or Kido bursts from beginning to end.

Therefore, even in the conversations among the captains, most acknowledged that Luca possessed strength comparable to theirs.

In short, after this battle, Luca's reputation as the 'strongest genius in a millennium' once again spread throughout the Seireitei.

(End of this chapter)