Not far away, Shiba Isshin lay paralyzed on the ground, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles.
He rubbed his shoulder against the earth, unable to even turn his head to the side.
In his perception, that burst of Kido Spiritual Pressure slowly dissipated.
The Spiritual Pressure was overwhelmingly massive and clearly a Shinigami's technique, sparking a glimmer of hope in his heart.
"I sensed a Kido attack just now. Did an expert from the Kido Corps arrive?"
His voice received no response.
Shiba Isshin tried to blink away the blood on his eyelashes, but his vision remained a sea of red, rendering him unable to see what was happening.
However, precisely because of this, he did not witness the release of Kyoka Suigetsu, allowing him to accurately sense Aizen's Spiritual Pressure.
"Are you... the Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division?"
Shiba Isshin coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Run. This isn't an opponent you can handle..."
Aizen said nothing, merely glancing at Shiba Isshin's face.
The Captain of the Tenth Division was collapsed on the ground, his neck lolling to the side and his eyes obscured by blood.
'Not affected by Kyoka Suigetsu... Well, it doesn't matter anyway.'
Aizen withdrew his gaze.
This paralyzed Captain was not part of his plan and held no importance to him.
In the distance, Pernida's eyes darted around.
Its cloak had been shredded by Kurohitsugi, revealing its true form: a gigantic, thick-fingered hand. Broken iron chains littered the ground, and the fissure on the side of its palm twitched slightly.
Unfortunately, its eyes could not see Aizen's true body.
Kyoka Suigetsu had already woven its illusions.
Pernida aimed its attack at a distant boulder. In its perception, that stone was the Shinigami who had just unleashed Kurohitsugi.
Its palm arched slightly, and dense protrusions bulged on the back of its hand.
Spikes erupted from its back, piercing simultaneously into the boulder.
Rubble flew as the massive stone was riddled with over a dozen holes.
The illusion vanished. Aizen created another duplicate to the west, and another to the north.
Pernida began chasing the fake targets. Nerve synapses from the back of its hand spread out like a spider web, covering the ground for dozens of paces in every direction.
When the tentacles touched stone, the stone crumbled into powder.
When they touched broken walls, the structures collapsed into fine dust.
Aizen furrowed his brow, then levitated in mid-air, keeping his feet at a safe distance from the spreading nerves.
He manipulated Kyoka Suigetsu once more, making a distant Tenth Division Shinigami walk toward Pernida.
Pernida's nerve tentacles lashed out. The instant they made contact, the squad member screamed in agony. His leg bones snapped backward, and then his entire body was crushed into a mangled ball.
Aizen observed silently, noting the details.
'It controls objects through physical contact, effective on both living creatures and inanimate matter.'
'That is enough.'
'To withstand the damage from Kurohitsugi, its defense is quite impressive. Furthermore, its ability to recover shows extremely potent regeneration.'
'What if it faces a Kido with even higher offensive power?'
He reached out his hand.
"Hado Number Ninety-Nine, Goryutenmetsu."
Five elemental dragons coalesced around Aizen. Their heads emerged from a vortex of Spiritual Pressure, their roars trembling the very earth.
Pernida sensed the disturbance, but under the influence of Kyoka Suigetsu, it could not determine the direction of the attack.
The next moment, all five dragon heads slammed down simultaneously.
Goryutenmetsu.
The shockwave tore away the surface of half the street.
Stone slabs were ground into dust. Pernida's body disintegrated under the dragons' bombardment, its five fingers tearing away from the palm, its flesh and skin shredded to pieces.
The earth quaked.
Shiba Isshin was flipped over by the blast, finally facing the sky, shaking the blood drops from his eyelids.
Though his vision was still tinted red, he could finally see.
He saw the Vice-Captain of the Fifth Division standing in the sky, one hand outstretched.
Before him, five elemental dragons, concentrated with boundless Spiritual Pressure, ravaged the area, reducing the enemy to dust.
Shiba Isshin opened his mouth. His lips were cracked, and no sound escaped his throat.
'Is this... something a Vice-Captain could possibly unleash?'
Moments later, the enemy was shattered across the ground, and the turbulent Reiryoku gradually subsided.
Yet, Aizen's brow remained furrowed.
Because the fragments on the ground were not completely dead; they were slowly squirming.
Every piece twitched, sprouting fine tentacles from their edges, reaching toward the other pieces like earthworms.
The fragments touched, merged, and rewove themselves into muscle fibers before covering themselves in pale skin once again.
In a matter of seconds, the giant hand had reassembled. This time, its form was even more complete; it had evolved from a mere palm into an entire arm.
Its five fingers dug into the ground, knuckles arching as it reared up. The fissure in its palm reopened, and two eyes glared up at Aizen in the sky.
Aizen stared back at those two eyes.
The Hogyoku grew scalding hot against his chest.
The last time the Hogyoku exhibited such a violent reaction was when he extracted the Soul King's fingertip from that little girl in the Rukongai.
This meant the Hogyoku reacted intensely to fragments of the Soul King.
'This thing before me is immortal and imperishable. To be blasted to ashes by Goryutenmetsu and still piece itself back together... how utterly bizarre...'
He had infiltrated the Tsunayashiro family's archives and pored over the secret files of the Five Great Noble Families.
The Soul King had been dismembered, his limbs severed, and his organs hollowed out.
'Could it be that this hand is one of the Soul King's arms, wandering in the outside world?'
'But why would it be in the hands of the Quincy and treated as one of their members?'
Aizen could not make sense of this.
However, he knew exactly how to deal with this thing.
At this moment, a restless anticipation involuntarily swelled within Aizen's heart.
A mere fingernail of the Soul King had previously granted the Hogyoku a tremendous boost, allowing him to successfully initiate the Hollowfication experiments on the Captains.
'And now, right before my eyes, is an entire arm of the Soul King. If the Hogyoku were to absorb this, what sort of spectacle would that create?'
He retrieved the Hogyoku from its sealing container.
The blue light within the transparent prism surged the instant it touched the air, like a shark smelling blood.
Aizen descended from the sky, Hogyoku in hand, his Spiritual Pressure fully unleashed. The Hogyoku's energy waves rippled through the air, visibly distorting space.
Pernida's nerve tentacles had barely extended before they shattered upon contact with the Hogyoku's overflowing energy.
Watching Pernida's nerve synapses melt and be absorbed by the Hogyoku, Aizen realized that the Hogyoku was a natural counter to such a creature.
'This war with the Quincy... the heavens are truly on my side.'
Sensing the disappearance of parts of its body, a hint of confusion flashed in Pernida's eyes, but it made no further moves.
Yet, the instant Aizen maneuvered the Hogyoku to touch the main body of Pernida's giant hand, everything changed.
Pernida's body began to disintegrate.
The point of initial contact vanished, and immediately after, its fingers vaporized joint by joint.
At this moment, Pernida finally felt instinctual terror.
It tried to escape, but the Hogyoku rooted it in place, rendering it immobile. It could only watch helplessly as it transformed into a stream of pale gold Reishi, melting into the Hogyoku.
Having completely devoured Pernida, the Hogyoku hummed before resting firmly in Aizen's grasp.
Aizen could feel the Hogyoku beginning its internal digestion, akin to having finished a grand feast.
The energy structure within the Hogyoku rapidly condensed and reorganized, evolving toward a higher plane.
The Hogyoku was growing.
Aizen waited until the Hogyoku sucked in the very last wisp of pale gold Reishi before returning it into the prism.
He tossed it lightly in his hand. It felt significantly heavier, its internal energy density having multiplied an unknown number of times.
'Is it... complete?'
Aizen revealed a smile.
He turned his head to look into the distance.
Hasumi Ren stood in the sky, looking in his direction.
Across a distance of a hundred paces, the two locked eyes for a brief moment.
Aizen offered him a brief smile and, without a word, vanished via Shunpo.
Right now, he only wanted to study the changes in the Hogyoku.
This battle against the Quincy had already yielded him more than enough.
Hasumi Ren watched Aizen leave, then landed beside Shiba Isshin.
Shiba Isshin was in an exceptionally miserable state, having fallen unconscious from severe blood loss.
Ren quickly stepped forward, casting Kaido to stabilize his condition.
Unfortunately, Shiba Isshin's injuries were far too grave. After a strenuous healing session, Ren barely managed to secure his life.
Waving his hand to summon a few Tenth Division members who could still move, he ordered them to take Shiba Isshin to the rear and hand him over to Captain Unohana for treatment.
Before they left, Ren slapped a Medallion onto Shiba Isshin's chest.
It was the Medallion he had looted from Quilge, the very one that had stolen Shiba Isshin's Bankai.
In doing this, the stolen power had finally returned to its rightful owner.
Meanwhile, system prompts continued to refresh before Ren's eyes.
As he approached the battlefield earlier, a massive amount of scattered Reishi fragments had been automatically absorbed into his body by Absolute Devour.
His Schrift Awakening progress jumped by 5 percent, reaching 40 percent, and his Spiritual Power EXP also surged significantly.
But none of this was his immediate concern.
Behind him, Yamamoto was still fighting Gerard.
At this moment, Gerard was already as tall as a small mountain.
The flames of Ryujin Jakka seared patches of scorched marks across his body. His flesh melted and regenerated, and with every rebirth, he grew even more massive.
His sword, Hoffnung, had transformed into a colossal greatsword. Its blade dragged along the ground, carving a trench deep enough to swallow an entire street.
Yamamoto had a gash on his left arm, running from his wrist all the way up to his elbow.
It was inflicted by the sword's law of damage reflection when he had sliced through Gerard's Hoffnung.
From that moment on, Yamamoto clearly understood the enemy's ability.
Taking damage made him stronger; the heavier the blow, the greater the surge in power.
He was an opponent who grew more troublesome the longer the fight dragged on. Even though Yamamoto had the power to continue cutting him down, he feared that further strikes would only feed this monster until it became completely unmanageable.
Now, Yamamoto's strategy primarily focused on defense, engaging in a sustained struggle without giving Gerard room to grow any stronger.
But how to actually finish him off remained a difficult problem for Yamamoto.
Gerard swung his sword down once more.
Yamamoto sidestepped the attack. The wind from the blade sheared off the entire top floor of the building behind him.
Rubble tumbled from above, crashing into the ground and kicking up massive clouds of dust.
Hasumi Ren landed behind him.
Yamamoto didn't look back; he simply asked in a deep voice.
"I saw you head toward Shiba Isshin just now. How is the situation over there?"
"Captain Shiba suffered severe injuries and has been sent for treatment. The enemy has been dealt with."
Yamamoto nodded, keeping his eyes on Gerard's continuously expanding frame, the knuckles of his sword hand bulging.
"The enemy before us is difficult to deal with. Do you have a solution?"
Ren pondered for a moment.
"Perhaps we could try my Bankai."
The next moment, Ren raised his Zanpakuto.
"Bankai, Myriad Calamities Return to Void Lotus."
Following Ren's release, his Zanpakuto reverted to its Shikai state.
However, the surroundings had already entered his domain, completely enveloping Gerard.
Gerard's smile froze.
He looked down at his hands.
His fingers were shrinking. Not just his hands, his entire body was shrinking.
That endlessly expanding power was draining away, regressing back to its original state.
Gerard's pupils trembled. Then, with a furious roar, he hoisted Hoffnung and hacked down.
Ren used Shunpo to shift to the other side, causing the blade to miss entirely and smash into the ground.
And Gerard kept shrinking.
His physique dwindled from the size of a hill to the height of a building, then from the height of a building down to a few meters, eventually settling at his standard height of two meters and twenty centimeters.
Bellowing, he attempted to charge at Ren.
"What have you done to my Miracle?!"
Ren didn't answer. He simply raised his hand and fired off Bakudo Number Sixty-Three: Sajo Sabaku.
The golden chain of light from the high-level Bakudo shot from his fingertips, wrapping tightly around Gerard's legs and coiling all the way up his body.
The luminous chains dug into his skin, binding him completely in place.
Gerard struggled frantically, but the chains refused to snap.
Ren added a few more layers, locking his arms to his sides and forcing him to his knees.
Subsequently, Ren silently activated Absolute Devour.
A power originating from the same source as the Quincy surged from within him, immediately locking onto the Reishi flowing inside Gerard.
At this moment, Gerard felt his Spiritual Pressure, which had just returned to normal, bizarrely begin to leak away once more.
'But, why...'
As Ren gradually siphoned away Gerard's Reiryoku, his body shrank even further.
The harvest Ren reaped was far richer than he had imagined.
[SYSTEM: Absolute Devour activated, obtained Reiryoku fragments, Spiritual Power EXP +100] [SYSTEM: Absolute Devour activated, obtained Schrift fragments, Schrift Awakening +1%] [SYSTEM: Absolute Devour activated, obtained Soul King fragments, Hogyoku Awakening +1%] ...
Half-kneeling on the ground, Gerard stared up at Ren. The arrogant confidence in his eyes was finally gone, replaced entirely by dread.
"You... what did you do to me?!"
"This shouldn't be your power!"
Amidst Gerard's panicked roars, his body shrank to the size of a child before Ren effortlessly decapitated him with a single stroke.
Gerard's body collapsed to the ground. Having his abilities sealed and the majority of his core power siphoned away by Ren, he was completely beyond saving.
Ultimately, Ren harvested 2000 Spiritual Power EXP, raising his Schrift Awakening to 55 percent and his Hogyoku Awakening to 25 percent.
A highly lucrative haul.
But immediately afterward, Ren sensed the far more majestic power lingering within Gerard's soul being tugged by an even more massive gravitational pull, rapidly flowing away in another direction.
No matter how intensely he activated Absolute Devour, he couldn't seize even a fraction of it.
Ren vaguely sensed that far away, something was stirring. It seemed... it was about to awaken.
Yamamoto Shigekuni stood off to the side, his aged eyes churning with complex emotions, before he sheathed Ryujin Jakka.
"Well done."
"Go assist Kyoraku. I will handle the aftermath here."
Yamamoto paused for a moment.
"Be careful."
Ren nodded, disappearing via Shunpo.
He dashed past several city blocks, locking his senses onto the Spiritual Pressures of Kyoraku and Lille Barro.
The two were still embroiled in fierce combat, and Kyoraku was struggling immensely to hold his ground with only his Shikai.
This was especially true after Lille Barro had unleashed his Vollständig. His abilities locked down more than half the battlefield, and the golden beams of light gouged out chunks of flesh upon the slightest graze.
Several charred bullet wounds already peppered Kyoraku's body. His haori was burned full of holes, and a bloody gash marred his face.
But for some unknown reason, Lille Barro's Vollständig suddenly vanished. He then looked in a panic toward Silbern, as if he had witnessed something that elicited both extreme excitement and absolute terror.
"His Majesty... is about to awaken."
"But, Your Majesty, why is my power also..."
The next second, Kyoraku appeared behind him, slashing out with both blades.
Although he had no idea why his enemy had suddenly lost his powers, he wasn't about to let such a golden opportunity slip by.
With a single strike, Lille Barro was decapitated. Upon hitting the ground, his corpse crumbled into a pile of white bones.
Kyoraku slumped to the side, coughing twice and spitting up bloody froth.
Even though he didn't know exactly what had transpired, the important thing was that he had survived.
Kyoraku looked at the man who had just pushed him to the brink of death, his brows knit tightly together.
'But, this "His Majesty" he spoke of... who could that be?'