Even the drifting clouds were blown apart by the gale. Wherever Muten Natsu passed, the Hollows that had been praying were crushed flat by his Reiatsu, forced to the ground.
Muten Natsu stepped forward, and icy hellfire rolled outward, spreading and swallowing vast swaths of Hollows.
The Reishi released as the Hollows disintegrated surged toward Muten Natsu like moths drawn to flame, causing the black fire around him to burn even more violently.
As the hellfire ate away at him, gashes split open across Muten Natsu's skin. Even deeper, darker flames poured out from within, intertwining with the surrounding fire to sketch blurred afterimages of the Hollow horde. It was as if the Hollows hadn't truly died, but were still wailing beside him.
"That is…" Uryū Ishida stared at Muten Natsu's back. "What… is that?"
"Hollowfication." Rukia Kuchiki dug her nails into her palm, blood seeping through her fingers. "Hellfire gives him power by destroying the stable structure of Reishi. Hollowfication pushes his body to the brink of collapse, letting him briefly control the active Reishi left behind after the burning. That's how he gains such overwhelming strength in such a short time."
The price was obvious.
Hellfire alone already damaged Muten Natsu's body. Hollowfication made it even more unstable. Together, it was like throwing oil onto a blazing fire.
Every step Muten Natsu took was accompanied by the death of Hollows. Wisps of escaping Reishi flowed into his body, like a kneeling horde offering up their lives to him.
Just watching made Ririn feel cold all over. That usually lazy guy was terrifying when he got serious. "I'm starting to understand why Central 46 locked him up."
"Muten…" Orihime Inoue frowned tightly, biting hard on her lower lip.
Muten Natsu's pace gradually slowed. Power at this level was extremely hard to control. If he rushed forward without restraint, a single step might cause the ground itself to collapse.
Faced with such blatant Reiatsu, the Gillian slowly adjusted its massive head, fine-tuning the direction of its Cero.
An ominous red glow swelled at its mouth. The instant it reached a critical threshold, it suddenly compressed.
Then came deathly silence.
The sun seemed to vanish, replaced by a blinding crimson glow that dyed the blue sky red. Reiatsu refined to the absolute extreme poured down from the heavens, a flood of red light surging toward Muten Natsu.
There was no time to charge up. Or rather, there was no longer any need to. Enormous power flowed around Muten Natsu, surging upward as he drew his blade.
A pale, kite-shaped skeletal shield floated up from Muten Natsu's shadow. The residual spirit weapon, Shadow Blade Shield, met the Cero head-on.
Black and red collided, and only then did the piercing roar of the Cero fully explode outward.
The crushing pressure of the blade forced the Cero back. Hellfire burned fiercely, pushing against the red light as it climbed upward.
Muten Natsu's hands trembled around the hilt. Clear cracks spread across the skull mask on his face.
Gillian slowly lowered its head. The crimson Cero pressed the hellfire back once more, the boundary between black and red inching closer to Muten Natsu.
A suffocating, overwhelming Reiatsu followed. The ground beneath Muten Natsu shattered, his body sinking uncontrollably.
Still not enough…?
Behind the mask, Muten Natsu's eyes narrowed. More wounds split open across his body as the hellfire further eroded his flesh, releasing even greater power.
It was nothing more than his strength being burned down to zero again. Muten Natsu's eyes rolled upward. A mere Menos…
Snap.
A hand landed on Muten Natsu's shoulder. The raging Reishi instantly stabilized, and a deep blue glow flared between the red Cero and the black hellfire, glaringly distinct.
"To prove my grandfather was right," Uryū Ishida said through clenched teeth, enduring the agony as hellfire scorched his palm, "I shouldn't be standing over there. I should be standing beside you, shouldn't I?"
Rukia Kuchiki's earlier words sparked a realization in Uryū Ishida.
If hellfire could give Muten Natsu power by destroying the stable structure of Reishi, then as long as someone could provide him with a stable Reishi structure, Muten Natsu wouldn't need to burn himself to gain immense power.
Quincy can gather the spiritual energy that exists in the atmosphere, wrap it with their own Reiryoku, and manifest it as Reishi Spirit Weapons to fight Hollows.
Turning intangible spiritual energy into a Reishi bow that can be held in one's hands—no one understands how to build a stable Reishi structure better than a Quincy.
Using the silver pendant on his wrist, Uryū Ishida drew together the intensely concentrated, almost suffocating active Reishi surrounding Muten Natsu. He wrapped it with his own Reiryoku and fed it straight into the hellfire engulfing Muten Natsu.
"Don't underestimate a Quincy's power!"
The hellfire surged violently, forcing the Cero back by half.
But Gillian continued pouring out power, lowering its massive body and pressing the hellfire down once again.
Just as the Cero was about to crash down head-on, a hand landed on Muten Natsu's shoulder.
"If you can do it…" Ichigo Kurosaki said, imitating Uryū Ishida's posture, "then I should be able to do it too!"
Deep blue Reishi erupted around their hands, gathering wildly and condensing into dazzling light. It spread across Muten Natsu's shoulders like faint, ethereal wings unfolding.
The skull mask on Muten Natsu's face finally gave out, shattering and fading away.
Beneath it, there was none of the earlier ferocity left on his face.
The corner of his mouth lifted. Muten Natsu swung Myōki, releasing all the power surging within him—
Slash!
Black flames intertwined with blue light, completely swallowing the blood-red Cero and cleaving the Menos cleanly in two.
Almost the moment the Menos dispersed, all three of them collapsed together.
Muten Natsu tried to activate Soul Essence Stealing, only to discover that Myōki was already riddled with cracks.
After all, his power hadn't fully recovered. In its current state, Myōki simply couldn't withstand an outburst of that level.
The fact that it hadn't snapped outright was already impressive.
His fingers relaxed slightly. Muten Natsu gave up on Soul Essence Stealing and drew Myōki back into his body, allowing it to recover slowly.
He looked at the two beside him. "Are you guys insane…?"
Ichigo Kurosaki tugged awkwardly at the corner of his mouth. "I really don't want to hear that from the first guy who charged in…"
"So it was you I sensed earlier…" Uryū Ishida stared at Ichigo Kurosaki, his voice weak.
"Why do you have Quincy power?"
"It was left to me by my mother…" Ichigo Kurosaki looked down at the silver pendant on his wrist. "Before today, I didn't even know it had this kind of power."
"You charged in on the very first day you realized it," Muten Natsu said, gazing up at the now-cleared sky.
"You really are crazy."
...
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