The Imaginary Blade vs Castle Guard Debate Is Missing One Huge Detail
I keep seeing people use vol 19 Castle Guard feat as an argument against Nihility Energy <Void Collapse>
The argument normally goes like this:
Castle Guard blocked Imaginary Blade, therefore Nihility energy is not absolute.
I don't see it that way if you actually look at what the novel tells us about Rimuru's understanding of his own power.
There are basically 2 different things being mixed here:
The nature of nihility energy vs the user's ability to properly control and apply it.
1. Rimuru didn't fully understand Void Collapse when Imaginary blade was created.
This is the important part people ignore. When Rimuru created Imaginary blade, he outright admitted that he still didn't properly understand Void Collapse. Ciel and Rimuru were basically experimenting with the ability and adapting it into sword technique.
<the idea was to take Void Collapse and turn it into a sword attack> This is how imaginary blade was created. Here main point is Imaginary blade was not the simple really OP sword slash like Meltslash but it consumed spirit particles.
That's why Rimuru explained trying to block it is pointless, but then Feldway's castle guard stopped it. After this happened, Ciel actively started working on VC.
Below are the scans from LN
At times like these, you need to decide things with one
killer blow. And I had prepared for situations like this. I had special skills
—finishers, you could say, the kind that the heroes of shounen manga
series have had for years.
“Imaginary Blade!!”
I asked Ciel to come up with a finisher more suited to my gifts—
and I wasn’t shy about offering it my feedback, either. I wanted it to take
Void Collapse—a skill that I still didn’t really understand, despite multiple
explanations—and adapt it in a way that’d boost my sword powers.
That was how Imaginary Blade was born. It didn’t cut through spiritual
particles at all, you see—instead, it ate them. That’s what made it special.
There was no blocking this ability that consumed spiritual particles into
Complex Space. The only way to resist it was to dodge it entirely.
Catching it with your sword ended the fight immediately, making it a
literal insta-kill.
2. Ultimate skills are not automatically used at their full potential
There is another statement that makes this even more obvious.
The novel explain that an Ultimate Skill can fail to display its true capabilities if the user doesn't understand or properly utilize it.
Having an ultimate skill doesn't mean you automatically understand everything the skill can do.
3. This is also why later Imaginary blade feat matters so much in vol 23.
Now if you compare the early version to what happened later.
Rimuru uses Imaginary Blade against Le-Verger, and this time result was completely ridiculous. The slash doesn't just cut LeVerger's body with EP around 2 trillion, but it tears through surrounding space itself, splitting Dimensions and even another world which were independent to each other connected. A massive space-time storm pours through and Leverger's body get swallowed, compressed and destroyed.
Here Rimuru didn't even used the sword to attack, it was mere a test, and other TD were also regulating how much power they were putting out. Veldora was the culprit letting out small amount of his powers.
Below are the scans:
I exercise my authority silently.
Without panicking, he [instantly teleported] to the row of ice statues and appeared in front of Le
Verger's huge body.
And then, in a fit of anger, he swung [Hope] [Elpis].
Of course, I didn't intend for it to end there.
This is because an astronomical amount of power would be required to destroy Leverger's
enormous body, which is like a mass of super energy.
This was to frighten him and get him to turn his attention to me.
However...
"GROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!"
My slash turned into a powerful blade that cut through the sky, then cut through the giant Le
Verger as well.And that's not the end of it.
A huge amount of energy was generated, unleashing a thunderstorm of nothingness, and the
torn sky showed no sign of closing.
The dimensions split, connecting with another world.
Time flows there, a tremendous space-time storm avalanching in.
The air continued to swirl, swallowing Leverger's massive body and compressing it into a pulp.
Leverger's massive body, which even Gravity Collapse would have felt like a gentle breeze, was
cut into pieces and collapsed helplessly.
4. This is important because LeVerger had Castle guard.
If you say Castle Guard stopped Imaginary blade then what should we take later feat for??
Same Void based attack completely destroyed LeVerger despite her having access to castle guard via Akashic Record.
5. Void Collapse isn't Just an attack you shoot out.
This is another thing I think people miss.
We've already seen it being used in different ways.
1. Put it into weapon / Technique and attack someone.
That's what we're seeing with Imaginary Blade and other Nihility energy based attack.
2. Use it as an energy source.
Zeigon is one of the clearest example of this:
Name: Zegion (EP: 4,988,856)
Race: Micro-god; high-level chaos elemental Watersoul Insect
Protection: Rimuru’s protection
Title: Mist Lord
Magic: Watersoul magic
Ability: Ultimate skill Mephisto, Lord of Illusion
Tolerances: Cancel Melee Attack, Cancel Ailments, Cancel Spiritual
Attack, Cancel Natural Elements, Resist Chaos Attack
================================================================
Name: Zegion (EP: 68,889,143)
Race: Micro-god; highest-level chaos elemental Spirit Insect
Protection: Rimuru’s protection
Title: Mist Lord
Magic: Watersoul magic
Abilities: Ultimate skill Mephisto, Lord of Illusion; Hasten Thought,
Universal Detect, Lord’s Ambition, Dominate Water & Lightning,
Dominate Dimensions, Multidimensional Barrier, All of Creation,
Spiritual Domination, Fantastical World, Dominate Life (Sefirot)
Tolerances: Cancel Melee Attack, Cancel Ailments, Cancel Spiritual
Attack, Cancel Natural Elements, Resist Chaos Attack
See the difference of using it .. his EP increased 13.81 times in matter of minutes rivaling a True Dragon even more then Guy who is stated to have EP 40 Million. This happened after he gained the ability to properly handle and utilize the energy.
And this is without saying that 68.9 million is absolute maximum Nihility can increase. IF he had used it for much longer period his EP would have kept increasing.
6. The same idea applies to Diablo as well.
His EP was 6.6 million, later after using Nihility even Guy couldn't put an exact number on his EP.
7. Final Explanation
IF someone received an US but doesn't understand how it works, and another character blocks their first attempt, that doesn't mean the particular power, under that circumstance was stopped.
Rimuru had weapon and power, but he was still learning how to properly use it. Later only Ciel understanding improves when they were sent to end of space and time and Ciel did all the research on Nihility energy and we saw the final result in vol 23.
