Battle Against the Arrancar (3)

Ulquiorra stretched his newly grown arm and said calmly, "When I became Arrancar, I retained most of the High-Speed Regeneration that Arrancar had given up for the sake of power. This level of injury is nothing to me."

Liu Ziyun looked at his newly grown arm, a complex expression flashing in his eyes. He sheathed his Life-Taker, his tone becoming more sincere. "Actually, I could have cut off your head just now, but I didn't. Do you know why?"

Ulquiorra looked at him silently.

"I think it's a waste for you to follow Aizen." Liu Ziyun into his eyes and said, word by word, "Your power, your composure, your judgment far surpass those of ordinary Arrancar. You shouldn't become someone else's tool. Give up following Aizen, return to Hueco Mundo, and stay there quietly. That's where you belong."

Ulquiorra remained silent for a long time. His gaze lingered on Liu Ziyun's face, as if judging the truthfulness of his words. After a long while, he slowly shook his head, his voice still calm and without a trace of emotion. "I'm afraid that won't work."

He drew his Zanpakuto from his waist, its blade gleaming coldly in the sunlight. "Lord Aizen gave me meaning to my existence. Before he appeared, I was just a walking corpse, wandering aimlessly through the wastelands of Hueco Mundo. He taught me what 'heart' and 'hope' are. So..." He raised his Zanpakuto, pointing it at Liu Ziyun, "I will not betray him."

Before he finished speaking, he had already moved. The two Zanpakuto clashed again, sparking dazzling sparks. This time, Ulquiorra held nothing back; his attacks were fierce and swift, each strike carrying a deadly intent. Liu Ziyun had no choice but to take it seriously, and the battle between the two caused the surrounding ground to crack and rubble to fly everywhere.

Just as the two were locked in fierce combat, the situation on the other side of the battlefield changed once again.

Luppi Antenor seized Rangiku Matsumoto again, this time without hesitation, manipulating her tentacles into sharp spikes, which she plunged viciously into her chest. Rangiku Matsumoto closed her eyes, believing she was doomed—

"Clang!"

A figure descended from the sky, severing the deadly tentacle with a single strike. Purple liquid splattered all over Rangiku Matsumoto's face. She opened her eyes in a daze and saw Kisuke Urahara's face with his signature smile.

"Hey, you're just in time, aren't you?" Kisuke Urahara adjusted his hat, his tone as casual as if he had just gone out to buy something.

Luppi Antenor was furious and was about to concentrate her attack on this unexpected obstacle when a small figure suddenly rushed out from the side—

Wonderweiss Margera appeared silently behind Kisuke Urahara and punched him in the back. Kisuke Urahara reacted quickly, dodging to the side, but was still grazed on the shoulder by the force of the punch, and staggered.

Yammy Rialgo became excited upon seeing Kisuke Urahara appear. He fired Bala wildly, one after another, raining down on Kisuke Urahara. Kisuke Urahara had to concentrate on dodging the powerful attacks and had no time to spare for anything else.

Seeing this, Luppi Antenor snorted coldly, abandoning her plan to attack Kisuke Urahara, and turned her attention back to Rangiku Matsumoto and the others. Her tentacles once again transformed into spikes, aiming at the three who were bound—

Just then, a bone-chilling cold suddenly swept over them.

Luppi Antenor looked down and found that all of his tentacles were covered with a thick layer of frost. The frost spread rapidly, from the tips of the tentacles all the way to the roots, freezing his entire body stiff.

"Do you think that your opponent can give up after just one attack?"

A cold voice slowly came from the ground. Luppi Antenor looked in the direction of the sound and saw Tōshirō Hitsugaya slowly flying out of the forest. Although he still bore the scars from the previous battle, his eyes were sharper than ever. His Zanpakuto, emanated a chilling aura in his hand, and the surrounding air condensed into fine ice Hyōrinmaru due to the sudden drop in temperature.

Ruby Antenor's Luppi changed as she tried to break free from the frozen tentacles. She frantically channeled her Reiatsu, attempting to shatter the ice, but the ice remained unmoved, instead freezing even tighter.

"Impossible!" Luppi Antenor exclaimed incredulously, "How can you still have such power?!"

Tōshirō Hitsugaya stared coldly at him, a disdainful smile playing on his lips. "You've given me far too much time to prepare. While you were getting carried away, I was gathering my strength. Now..." He raised Hyōrinmaru, the tip of the blade pointing Luppi Ruby Antenor, "You have no chance."

Huge ice pillars materialized out of thin air around Luppi Antenor, completely surrounding him. The ice pillars emitted a bone-chilling cold, freezing even the air itself.

"Thousand-Year Ice Prison."

Tōshirō Hitsugaya's voice was as cold as frost. As he spoke, all the ice pillars surged toward Luppi Antenor, trapping him in the middle and forming a giant block of ice. Inside the ice, Luppi Antenor's expression froze in a moment of terror, along with his tentacles and his Zanpakuto, everything was frozen in eternal cold.

A massive block of ice stood in the center of the battlefield, reflecting a cold yet dazzling light under the sun. Within the ice, Luppi Antenor's expression was forever frozen in that instant—horror, disbelief, and a trace of lingering arrogance.

His tentacles shattered inch by inch within the ice, turning into countless tiny ice crystals that drifted in the air with the breeze. Those once arrogant and domineering tentacles were now reduced to scattered remnants on the ground around the ice, silently testifying to the cruelty of the battle.

Upon witnessing this, Yammy Rialgo's massive frame involuntarily paused. A slight twitch of muscles on his rugged face creased as he murmured, "What a piece of trash, taken down so quickly."

In that instant of distraction, a figure silently appeared behind him.

"Don't get distracted at a time like this." Kisuke Urahara's voice carried a hint of laziness and a touch of mockery, as if he were merely reminding a distracted friend to watch their step, rather than on a battlefield where life and death were at stake.

But his blade did not hesitate for a moment—a sharp flash of light appeared, and a deep, bone-revealing wound appeared on Yammy Rialgo's thick arm, from which purple blood gushed out.