Eternal Prison

"Kurosaki, what are you doing!?"

Seeing that Yhwach was about to absorb the Soul King, Ishida shouted and fired a succession of Quincy arrows at him.

But how could his arrows possibly affect the King of the Quincy? They dissipated into nothing the moment they neared Yhwach's back.

Ichigo Kurosaki was still dazed, unable to react. Seeing this, Ishida could only turn anxiously toward Lu Li.

But Lu Li had his hands pressed together, looking as though he were struggling greatly just to keep the Three Realms stable. There was no way he could intervene to stop Yhwach from absorbing the Soul King.

Ishida looked toward Aizen again. He remembered Kurosaki saying that Captain Aizen was incredibly powerful, perhaps no weaker than his master's master. So why wasn't Captain Aizen making a move now?

Aizen merely stood there with one hand pressed against Lu Li's back, seemingly channeling Reiatsu into him to jointly support the Three Realms. This left Ishida utterly dumbfounded.

He was a smart man, so he could see clearly that while preventing the Three Realms from collapsing was important, if they did not stop Yhwach now, Yhwach would go on a killing spree afterward, and the Three Realms would collapse all the same.

It was one thing for Kurosaki's master's master to seem a little slow-witted, but Captain Aizen clearly looked intelligent. Why wasn't he letting go and fighting Yhwach first to decide the victor?

"Yhwach!"

Ichigo Kurosaki finally snapped out of it. Ignoring the guilt in his heart, he gripped his twin blades and prepared to battle Yhwach once more.

But Yhwach did not even spare him a glance. He merely absorbed the Soul King's remains into his body, his Reiatsu growing ever more powerful as strange eyes began appearing one after another within the darkness