Explosive spiritual pressure soared into the heavens.
Saketake Tsuzaburo's short blade, in his hand, rapidly reshaped itself amidst the seemingly endless flow of spiritual pressure.
It transformed into a writhing, entwining transparent tendril.
Yhwach gazed at the blade, his eyes narrowing slightly.
As if sensing his gaze, Saketake Tsuzaburo let out a series of low, sinister chuckles.
"Heh heh heh—"
"Let me show you, old man's true power."
The moment the words left his mouth,
the tendril, resembling jelly and seemingly fragile, suddenly sprouted sharp barbs from its tip. They pierced straight through Saketake Tsuzaburo's withered palm, emitting a series of faint, crisp sounds.
Sensing the fluctuation in spiritual pressure, Yhwach acted without hesitation. His scythe-like leg flashed, and his figure abruptly appeared before Saketake Tsuzaburo.
The wind howled, close enough to touch.
The Quincy's cross sword slashed at incredible speed, aiming directly at Saketake Tsuzaburo's withered arm.
Yet, Saketake Tsuzaburo's face wore a mocking smile.
"Pfft!"
Before the sword could strike his shoulder, the blade, Guren Kannazuki Hirumekiu, had already spread like countless transparent wireworms, rapidly infiltrating Saketake Tsuzaburo's body.
The moment the blade touched his skin, his withered, frail body was supported by semi-transparent worm-like entities and exploded violently.
Fragments resembling leather scattered through the air.
A thick white mist surged from the gaps in his body, spreading in all directions and instantly engulfing the ground within a radius of dozens of meters.
Within this mist, the two could barely make out each other's silhouettes.
Yhwach's brow furrowed tightly.
Recalling Hirumekiu's parasitic abilities, he instinctively avoided the fragments.
However, Saketake Tsuzaburo chuckled softly:
"Useless."
"Leader of the Quincies."
"This is the end of your life."
Accompanied by the seemingly endless mist erupting from Saketake Tsuzaburo's body, his hunched, deformed figure slowly straightened, as if growing taller by a segment.
As the mist enveloped the surroundings, semi-transparent worm-like entities extended from the severed shoulder, reconnecting the fallen arm and reattaching it to his body.
Saketake Tsuzaburo's hands were empty, his long eyebrows drooping, his eyes glowing like red stars.
Gazing at Yhwach, his eyes were filled with murderous intent.
"Guren Kannazuki Hirumekiu."
"This is the true Bankai I've honed for a thousand years to kill that man."
"In this space, as long as you've been here—"
"Whether moving, speaking, or even breathing..."
"As long as you've left a trace in this space—"
"Then..."
Saketake Tsuzaburo's aged face slowly contorted into a grotesque smile:
"You're dead."
Yhwach, however, remained aloof, his gaze coldly sweeping the surrounding mist.
"Oh, is that so?"
His tone was equally cold and detached.
Watching his calm demeanor, Yhwach seemed to recall a man from his youth who had been utterly detestable.
Saketake Tsuzaburo's face darkened slightly.
Before Yhwach could act, Saketake Tsuzaburo's figure transformed into a black shadow, suddenly plunging into the mist and vanishing.
Yhwach watched his silhouette disappear into the fog, a hint of disdain tugging at his lips:
"Hide and seek."
"A child's game."
Almost as the words left his mouth, Yhwach abruptly swung his sword toward his back. The blade's surface traced a clear, cyan-blue arc of spiritual energy, carving a curve in midair.
"Clang—"
A figure flashed through the otherwise empty mist. The seemingly frail Saketake Tsuzaburo extended semi-transparent blade-like edges from his arms.
The attack he had concealed behind him collided directly with Yhwach's unexpected strike.
After a brief stalemate, Saketake Tsuzaburo was sent flying by the powerful blow, spinning through the air before crashing to the ground.
Moments later, he stomped the ground fiercely, turning like an arrow and charging again.
Yhwach held his sword casually with one hand, effortlessly blocking the oncoming blade as if playing a game.
But as time passed, he began to notice something unusual.
His body was growing heavier, his reactions slower, his wrists less steady...
How could this be?
He had been holding his breath from the start.
Moreover, this opponent's spiritual pressure was far weaker than his own.
Why was he still affected by this mist?!
What kind of poison is this?
"You..."
"Must have noticed by now, right?"
Feeling the force transmitted through the blade, Saketake Tsuzaburo, who had been leaping about like a monkey, suddenly spoke coldly.
The old man's wrinkled face wore an ugly smile, his dark skin revealing grotesque veins writhing beneath his muscles, supplying him with unending youthful vigor.
Even his voice lacked the raspy tone common in the elderly.
'Is his condition improving?'
Yhwach's eyes widened slightly, his expression growing grave as he looked at Saketake Tsuzaburo.
Noticing the change in his expression, Saketake Tsuzaburo finally couldn't help but chuckle.
"Right! Right!"
"It's just like that."
"Talented young men like you can't possibly understand the cost someone like me has to pay just to earn your respect!"
"Whether Yamamoto, Fujimiya, or... you."
Saketake Tsuzaburo's voice lowered, growing heavier: "Don't misunderstand, leader of the Quincies."
"This mist contains no childish toxins."
"Every particle, every drop of moisture here... is composed of my body."
At these words, Yhwach seemed to realize something, his pupils suddenly constricting.
Saketake Tsuzaburo looked up at him.
A faint smile played on his lips.
In the next moment, his decayed, dark face began to melt like heated jelly, turning into a soft, oozing sludge.
Yet, Yhwach felt no relief.
Instead, his body underwent an abrupt, abnormal change.
His abdomen, chest, back, limbs, cheeks...
Yhwach trembled violently.
Within each part of his body, it was as if a fully formed child was pushing and pulling his muscles and skin, causing his body to swell and contract in a bizarre rhythm.
"What is this... what the hell is this..."
Yhwach exclaimed in shock.
From within his body came Saketake Tsuzaburo's malicious voice: "How does it feel, leader of the Quincies?!"
"This white mist, spewed from my body, is entirely composed of me."
"The moment you stepped into this area, every particle here continuously enters your body through your mouth, skin, every pore, gathering endlessly within you."
"Ultimately, using the nutrients from your body—it forms me!"
Saketake Tsuzaburo's voice was sharp and piercing, carrying a madness unique to an artist: "Only this is the greatest parasitism in the world!"
"Thank me, Yhwach!"
"Your life will be the perfect footnote to my great success—!"
The more he shouted, the more violently Yhwach's body writhed.
At the peak of the chaos, Yhwach's towering, muscular body seemed to contain three or four infants simultaneously pushing against his skin and muscles from within.
The scene was grotesquely horrifying.
However...
"Hmm?"
Saketake Tsuzaburo let out a strange sound of confusion.
On Yhwach's back, a complete human face seemed to be imprinted on his latissimus dorsi.
"Why can't... it break out?"
Saketake Tsuzaburo's voice carried a hint of dread, as if he had suddenly realized something.
"Oh?"
"You've figured it out."
And so, Yhwach, who had just been in excruciating pain, abruptly returned to his initial cold demeanor.
"Smack!"
Before Saketake Tsuzaburo could react, a large hand slammed onto his back, grasping the forehead of the face imprinted there.
Saketake Tsuzaburo's expression seemed to freeze.
In the next moment—
"Boom—"
Yhwach's spiritual pressure erupted violently within his body. Ultra-high-density reishi, concentrated and exploding, also disrupted his internal spiritual pressure circulation with a high-speed reishi turbulence.
Simultaneously, countless reishi particles ignited his blood vessels, forming a dense network of reishi veins on Yhwach's body, transforming into the most formidable static blood armor.
Saketake Tsuzaburo, who had been lurking within Yhwach's body as reishi, was suddenly seized. His entire form was violently extracted, and he let out a series of piercing, mournful wails.
"Get out of my body!"
Yhwach's voice was low and gruff, his arm muscles and veins bulging.
With just this command, Saketake Tsuzaburo, who had been half-embedded in his body, was forcibly pulled out, crashing violently to the ground with a deafening explosion.
Dust rose.
Yhwach stood unscathed in his original spot.
In contrast, Saketake Tsuzaburo lay in a massive crater before him, utterly battered.
"Truly an abomination."
"Can a Shinigami's Zanpakutō Bankai even do something like this?"
Sensing the still somewhat abnormal reishi fluctuations within his body, Yhwach looked at Saketake Tsuzaburo with a hint of appreciation.
Saketake Tsuzaburo gasped for breath, chuckling softly:
"Surprised by just this much?"
"If you're lucky, you'll see it."
"Leader of the Quincies..."
"That truly 'abnormal' man."
As he spoke, he slowly climbed out of the crater.
The final injury Saketake Tsuzaburo sustained wasn't from the fierce slam or the previous relentless assault, but from the moment Yhwach forcibly extracted his reishi-state from his body with that explosive shout.
The instant it happened, Saketake Tsuzaburo, already in a scattered reishi state and constantly moving within Yhwach's body, was like a 3D-printed mosaic with its sequence disrupted.
Saketake Tsuzaburo could clearly feel that his intestines were now connected to his heart, and his lungs were fused with his spleen.
At this moment, the fact that he could still move was already a miracle.
However, in Yhwach's dictionary, there was clearly no room for mercy.
Watching Saketake Tsuzaburo struggle to rise like an ant, he condensed a massive spiritual bow in his hand, the reishi-formed arrowhead pointing directly at him.
Saketake Tsuzaburo closed his eyes, looking somewhat weary.
In his mind, he subconsciously recalled the scene of his battle with Yamamoto, where he had been utterly crushed by the man's innate strength.
Even until the end, using every means possible, he couldn't touch the edge of your realm, Yamamoto.
In the next moment, he heard Yhwach's voice:
"Great Sacred Bow—!"
...
Fujimiya Makoto and Shihōin Senjirō looked up.
In the distance, they seemed to catch a glimpse of a flash of light streaking across the sky.
Farther away, they could sense a spiritual pressure that had been soaring rapidly now plummeting to its lowest point.
The outcome was obvious.
People seem to have a similar "broken window effect."
When the first casualty among captain-level warriors, who might not have fallen in centuries, suddenly occurs, the appearance of a second or third becomes almost expected.
Especially since Fujimiya Makoto and Shihōin Senjirō had just endured a rather "brutal" battle.
"Should we go help now?"
Shihōin Senjirō walked over to Fujimiya Makoto, handing him some water and military rations from his bag, and casually asked.
Fujimiya Makoto took them without hesitation, biting into the dry rice rations and gulping down water, then shook his head:
"If I'm not mistaken, today's battle is pretty much over."
"On the first day alone, such heavy casualties from head-on clashes."
"Even if we're not in a hurry, the Quincies should be."
Shihōin Senjirō nodded in agreement.
Indeed.
Though the war with the Quincies had only been ongoing for a day, anyone involved could see that the casualties were incomparable to those during the war with the Soul Society.
The main reason was simple.
Both sides had deployed a sufficient number of captain-level warriors into the battle.
The large-scale casualties that occurred were mostly caused by these 'strong' individuals.
"But ending it like this won't be easy, will it?"
Shihōin Senjirō muttered casually.
Then, Fujimiya Makoto pointed to the sky: "Yeah, so someone with enough weight needs to step in."
"At least, someone from the other side of the river should make an appearance first."
Shihōin Senjirō was taken aback, momentarily at a loss for words.
In the next moment, a terrifying, surging spiritual pressure suddenly intruded into his perception.
High in the sky, a figure enveloped in flames streaked across like a meteor, leaving a violent and profound trail of fire in everyone's sight.
It was—Captain-Commander Yamamoto stepping in!
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