Chapter 40
Thick chains that looked more lifelike and had a metallic sheen burst from the ground.
Starting at the giant Hollow's lower body, the chains wrapped around it like a python constricting its prey, forcibly squeezing every part of it together except its mask!
"Thud."
The giant Hollow, nearly two stories tall, slammed to the ground. This was the opportunity Haruto had been waiting for—
"Hadō #4: Byakurai!"
The layers of compressed Reiatsu in his body poured from his fingertip as a bolt of bluish-white lightning, striking the giant Hollow's mask without obstruction.
"Boom!"
A violent crash rang out, and the impact of the lightning knocked the giant Hollow's head more than thirty degrees to the side.
However...
"Not deep enough."
Haruto narrowed his eyes.
Byakurai had not been ineffective. The Hadō he was proudest of had carved a groove more than ten centimeters long and about half a centimeter deep into the giant Hollow's mask.
But that was clearly nowhere near enough to shatter the mask. When it hit the body, it could bore a fist-sized hole straight through. It was hard to say whether this giant Hollow was simply too cautious or its mask was unusually special.
"In that case..."
"Byakurai!"
"Byakurai!"
Haruto simply resorted to the prince's fighting style, firing enhanced Byakurai at the giant Hollow like a machine gun, as though they cost no Reiatsu at all!
Before, his body had been too weak for him to do that. Now, even with his arm stained completely red, Haruto could still fire Byakurai in succession without being affected.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The lightning dancing at Haruto's fingertip was the greatest of this life... no, it was like sniper bullets, ricocheting off the giant Hollow's mask and blasting deep craters into the ground. The mask, meanwhile, was knocked into all sorts of Dio angles by Byakurai and looked like an icon that had gone to Gaza and received a battle-damaged buff, its originally imposing appearance barely recognizable.
Illuminated by the near-continuous streaks of lightning, the rising dust looked as heavy and awe-inspiring as a thundercloud brewing lightning.
"...Not enough?"
In less than fifteen seconds, Haruto had unleashed more than thirty enhanced Byakurai at the giant Hollow.
If a Soul Reaper had taken that many hits head-on without any defense, even one at Vice-Captain-level would have been knocked down.
But Haruto felt that his attacks seemed to be growing less effective. After the successive bolts of lightning struck the giant Hollow's mask and carved grooves a full two centimeters deep, it was as though they had struck an entirely different material and could go no farther.
Haruto raised his hand, holding his palm straight upright.
Byakurai was the easiest for him to use, but it was no longer the most powerful Kidō at his disposal. When he needed to break through a tough defense—
"?"
Just as Haruto was about to begin chanting Raikōhō,
the giant Hollow opened its mouth, and a piercing red glow rapidly suffused the dust filled with lightning.
"What?"
The change came so suddenly that Haruto's mind couldn't react in time!
"Hum!"
A solid beam of vivid, blood-red light shot straight toward Haruto!
"Shing—"
"Boom!!"
Thick smoke rose from the ground.
Along the beam's path, two irregular, semi-arcing trenches stretched nearly three hundred meters.
"Cero?"
Haruto's left hand trembled slightly as he gripped his sword.
Had Haruto not instinctively drawn his sword and slashed at the giant Hollow's attack at the last moment, he would probably have been melted into mincemeat by now. His reverse-grip drawing slash, enhanced by Zanka no Tachi, had split the Cero-like beam in two.
"But how is that possible!"
"Cero is a technique only Menos Grande and above can use. This thing is just a giant Hollow..."
"No."
Haruto sheathed his Zanpakuto and began gathering the Reiatsu needed for Zanka no Tachi again.
"Whether it's that high-speed movement that resembled Sonído or that absurdly hard mask... it's far too similar to the effects of Hierro."
"If its Reiatsu were higher, this thing could practically be called a lesser Arrancar!"
Haruto couldn't help wondering whether the giant Hollow before him really had crossed from Hueco Mundo to Soul Society on its own because of the Garganta.
If not...
Haruto's back was instantly drenched in cold sweat.
No one could blame him for being too timid. Any transmigrator would instinctively think of Aizen's Arrancar research.
Just then!
As though sensing Haruto's unease, the monstrous mouth beneath the giant Hollow's mask, which had just fired a weakened Cero, lit up with an ominous red glow once more.
It didn't care what Haruto was worried about.
The sphere of energy, stretched into an oval by its extreme speed, reached Haruto before there was any visible windup to the attack!
"Boom!"
"Cough, cough!"
Haruto looked somewhat battered.
He had only just sheathed his Zanpakuto and had no chance to build up Zanka no Tachi. Instead, he held the sword and its sheath in front of himself as a shield—
after adding Enkōsen for defense.
It wasn't that Haruto didn't want to use a higher-level Bakudō. The giant Hollow's attack had come so suddenly that he only had time to use Enkōsen.
"That just now was..."
"It even used a Bala?"
Losing focus in battle was a grave mistake.
Whether or not the giant Hollow before him was connected to Aizen, Haruto first had to do everything he could to destroy it. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't live to see the day Aizen's plot was exposed and would leave his bones here today.
"Rip."
Haruto tore away the strips of cloth hanging from his chest.
The impact of the Bala's explosion had blown his clothes to shreds. These weren't Shihakushō, so he couldn't strengthen their defense by infusing them with Reiatsu.
Meanwhile,
taking advantage of the opening created by the Bala's explosion, the giant Hollow finally forced apart the chains binding its body.
Sajō Sabaku had lived up to its rank as Bakudō number sixty-three, successfully restraining the giant Hollow for nearly half a minute. Although it hadn't completely sealed the flow of its Reiatsu, Haruto was already very satisfied with its performance in actual combat.
"Next."
The bleeding from his arm had already stopped.
Where Haruto couldn't see, tiny buds of flesh, nearly invisible to the naked eye, intertwined and joined together, continually stitching and repairing his damaged skin and muscles.
"Round three."
Haruto beckoned to the giant Hollow with a crooked finger. Such an obvious, contemptuous provocation naturally stirred it up—
"Hum!"
The giant Hollow vanished from Haruto's sight once again.
Haruto still couldn't track its movements.
But since Haruto himself was the only target it could attack here, he could always dodge by taking a gamble...
At least he could avoid the first strike that way.
"Whoosh!"
The giant Hollow had suffered quite a few setbacks attacking head-on.
Following the habitual thinking of a living creature, Haruto bet that it would attack from the direction that had given it an advantage at the start of their fight.
So,
without even looking, Haruto accelerated straight forward!
"Boom!!"
The giant Hollow's attack hit empty air.
The ground, which had suffered especially badly today, had another deep crater smashed into it.
"Bingo~"
Haruto had bet right:
He hadn't run straight into the giant Hollow's arms.
And even his unrefined Shunpo was enough to keep him a relatively safe distance from it. As he opened the gap, Haruto turned around in midair and faced the spot where he had just been:
"Bakudō #30: Shitotsu Sansen."
The triangular fangs of Reishi shot toward the giant Hollow that had just appeared!
"Whoosh!"
It missed!
Even with one arm still buried in the ground, the giant Hollow vanished from Haruto's sight again the instant Beak-Piercing Triple Flash reached it.
When it reappeared, it was once again in Haruto's blind spot!
Only...
"Why don't you ever learn your lesson?"
Haruto didn't even turn around, as though he hadn't noticed the giant Hollow at all.
Only the sound of his Kidō chant rang clearly in the giant Hollow's ears.
"Bakudō #63."
The giant Hollow had only just suffered from it. Hearing the same Bakudō chant again, he instinctively slowed by half a beat.
Unfortunately,
no matter how careful the giant Hollow was, it could never have guessed where this Bakudō would come from.
"Sajō Sabaku!"
"Whoosh!!"
A sharp rushing sound rang out from every direction at once.
Sajō Sabaku didn't come from any single direction. It completely sealed off every position in front of, behind, beside, above, and below the giant Hollow!
They came from...
Tsuriboshi!
Haruto had never said that the Tsuriboshi, which had given the night so much of a daytime atmosphere, had been combined with only one Kidō, Shōtenkyū!
"Graah—"
The giant Hollow's roar cut off abruptly.
Sharp as its claws were, there was a limit to how much Kidō they could tear apart. The Tsuriboshi covered the entire clearing like a canopy, and brute force alone couldn't clear it away.
Before it could swing its claws a third time, a dense mass of Reishi ropes had bound it from head to toe like a zongzi.