Starrk POV
Starrk sighed. The first mission, huh? Nothing major, just a routine patrol, maybe recruiting some allies. Easy enough. Once a month was doable.
Yeah. This should be easy.
—
Time Skip
Starrk stood there, visibly bothered. How the hell did this turn into a problem?
Across from him, a group of Adjuchas bared their fangs at him, their leader—a panther-like Hollow with piercing blue eyes—growling with an all-too-familiar arrogance.
Great. Just what he needed.
This was supposed to be easy peasy. The heck.
He yawned, rubbing the back of his neck. "Listen, I'd rather be anywhere else right now, so let's make this simple." His voice was as lazy as ever. "Either you leave His Majesty's territory, or you join up. Otherwise, you die."
He would much rather they leave. That would make his job way easier because all of the other options would require him to actually have to do his job.
He was the goddamn Sin of Sloth. He refused to do anything more than he had to.
Bet. He might just kill them and get this over with.
Grimmjow, of course, scoffed at the ultimatum. The cocky bastard was already running his mouth about how devouring Starrk would be his ticket to becoming a Vasto Lorde.
Starrk sighed. Of course, it wasn't going to be easy.
Of course, the one day he decided to work was the day he ran into some arrogant-ass Adjucha.
Instead of yapping away with Grimmjow, he let his spiritual energy loose.
The moment it washed over them, the entire group of Adjuchas froze. Suffocating, oppressive—it was like staring into the void itself, death staring right back.
Their instincts screamed at them. It simply told them to do one simple thing... Run.
Starrk remained as unfazed as ever. He tilted his head, gazing at the group of Adjucha.
"If it's power you want, His Majesty can give you that."
Gabriel owed him for this.
"What the hell do you mean?" The most likely-to-die exclaimed.
Starrk stretched, looking like he was about to nap mid-conversation. "Dunno, I'm not even a high-ranking member."
Granted, he wasn't a high-ranking member because he was lazy. The highest-ranking were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Starrk would find a way to make War become a Seven Deadly Sin and Sloth become a Four Horseman.
Yes, he wanted to doze off that badly. Do not judge him. The beds were comfy.
That made Grimmjow pause. Wait. Someone this strong wasn't even in the top four? What kind of monsters were in Gabriel's army?
Starrk let out another lazy sigh. "Oh yeah, forgot to mention—he can remove that whole 'fear of regression' thing. Last I checked, he was turning an Adjucha into a Vasto Lorde before I left."
That got their attention.
Grimmjow's eyes lit up, though he clearly didn't trust the offer. This sounded way too good to be true... like when a predator lures prey using traps.
Shawlong Koufang, the smartest one in the group, stepped forward. "And why would someone with that ability just give it away so freely?"
"Not everyone gets the chance. Besides, Vasto Lorde isn't even the peak of Hollow strength." Starrk still had that lazy look to him.
That silence? That was their brains trying to process what the hell he just said.
Starrk pondered on his choices for a bit.
Well, he told them about it, so now they had the choice to scram, or he would have to pull out the Glock 19 and let it fly.
Killing them wouldn't really be too time-consuming. He could crush them with his spiritual pressure. Apart from His Majesty, he was the strongest person in the kingdom. The hierarchy went like this:
Gabriel, Starrk, Harribel, Belial, that weird dude with two floating balls for a head that Starrk did not bother learning the name of.
And those three chicks—the Tres Bestias, if he remembered correctly.
The gap between Harribel and Belial was quite vast, and the gap between Belial and that weird dude was also decently big.
The gap between him and Gabriel was pretty small. Like, they were damn close to being equal. If they did fight, though, Gabriel would win nine times out of ten because, for some reason, the heavens forgot to give him his balance patch.
Gabriel's ability was so busted that unless you could one-shot him, which chances were high you couldn't, he could still kill you. So to beat Gabriel, one must first be so far above him that it wasn't even funny anymore.
Then and only then did they have a chance at winning, and considering Gabriel was harder to kill than a cockroach... yeah, shit wasn't looking too good.
Have his ass find out the shape of your soul, and bam, he was as strong as you now. {if he has enough soul to buff himself} Busted-ass ability.
Plus, Starrk didn't want to be king. He saw the paperwork Gabriel had to deal with... fun fact: the paperwork was the size of a Gillian...
Hm, yeah, he was not touching that shit with a ten-foot pole.
Fuck. No.
So now, what would their choice be? Join... or die.