The Moyao Blade Incident

"Ha!"

"Haah!"

"Ha!"

On the Second Division training grounds, Ailin held a Zanpakuto as he trained with focused concentration.

If anyone carefully observed everyone training on the grounds, they would notice that Ailin's current routine closely resembled that of one particular person among them.

That was because the Zanpakuto in Ailin's hands was not his own, but one Projected from his Mindscape.

By gripping this Zanpakuto, Ailin gained all the experience of its owner.

However, that experience only appeared in Ailin's mind while he was holding the Projected Zanpakuto.

Against those whose Zanpakuto Ailin had copied, he was confident he could match them evenly in a short period of time.

After all, their opponent was not someone else, but themselves.

Yet Ailin was not content with merely matching others evenly. He trained even harder, turning their experience into nourishment for his own continued growth.

Hakuda, Zanjutsu, Shunpo, Kidō...

Every member of the Punishment Corps had some signature move or practical trick in one of the four Shinigami arts, honed over decades or even centuries.

One person's weakness might be another's greatest strength.

After training for a while, Ailin would sheath his Zanpakuto and secretly activate his Shikai, Projecting his Zanpakuto into someone else's weapon to practice and master that person's special techniques.

Once all of these people's experience had been completely absorbed by Ailin alone, just how powerful would he become?

No one knew!

Even Ailin himself was somewhat unsure of where he stood now.

But Ailin was certain of one thing: Captain Furuta, who had once seemed so powerful to him, no longer posed the slightest threat.

And Furuta Aoki ranked among the strongest captains of the Punishment Corps squads.

Once, when drunk, Furuta Aoki had said that he had nearly become the Twentieth Seat of the Second Division.

In every division, besides the Captain and Vice-Captain, there were eighteen Seat Officers who assisted in managing the division, from Third Seat to Twentieth Seat.

The final seat was the Twentieth Seat.

These Seat Officer positions were generally determined by strength.

After all, if someone lacked sufficient strength and was defeated in full view of everyone, the victor would take that Seat Officer's position.

Although the Second Division had four squads, the strongest among them was still the Punishment Corps.

It was not as though the other squads had no strong fighters, but their strongest members were likely only a few squad captains and several sub-squad captains.

Ailin guessed that even if Furuta Aoki had been exaggerating, his strength could at least rank among the top fifty in the Second Division.

As for himself, stronger than Furuta Aoki, he might truly have touched the threshold of becoming a Seat Officer.

"Bang bang bang, bang bang bang..."

Just as Ailin and the others were training with great enthusiasm, the Second Division's emergency assembly order sounded again.

This time, however, not everyone gathered at the training grounds.

That was because hundreds of Hell Butterflies carrying messages had already flown above the Second Division and landed nearby.

Ailin extended his left hand, and a Hell Butterfly came to rest on his index finger.

After receiving the information within the Hell Butterfly through a certain method, Ailin did not dare delay and rushed toward the noble residential district of the Seireitei.

According to the Hell Butterfly's intelligence, the high-ranking noble Kasumiōji Clan appeared to have come under attack and urgently required Shinigami reinforcements.

"The Kasumiōji Clan?"

Following the Hell Butterfly's guidance, Ailin hurried toward the Kasumiōji Clan while recalling whether this deployment matched any event from his memories.

"If I remember correctly, the Kasumiōji Clan was the family that created the Moyao Blade, but lost to Nimaiya Ōetsu by a narrow margin and failed to advance to the Soul King Palace, right?"

"And..."

"The Moyao Blade is a weapon that can directly grant its wielder immense power as long as spiritual pressure is supplied. Even someone who has achieved their Zanpakuto's Shikai might not necessarily defeat a Moyao Blade user."

Although Moyao Blades did not possess Shikai or Bankai like Zanpakuto, every Moyao Blade had a unique ability, and anyone could use one as long as they supplied spiritual pressure.

It could be said that Moyao Blades were permanent, while Shinigami came and went.

With the Moyao Blades in its possession, the Kasumiōji Clan had always maintained more than twenty individuals with strength above that of Seat Officers.

Such a powerful clan had actually been invaded? And it needed the Gotei 13's Shinigami to rescue it?

Was this a joke?

Still, despite his doubts, Ailin did not hesitate in the slightest.

"Boom!"

"Boom boom!"

As Ailin advanced, he could already sense the spiritual pressure of the combatants ahead.

There, dozens of people with extremely chaotic spiritual pressure were fighting someone whose spiritual pressure was somewhat explosive.

From what Ailin could sense, the more numerous side was actually at a disadvantage.

In addition, there were four or five other battlefields where multiple people with chaotic spiritual pressure were besieging those with pure spiritual pressure.

However, at the other battlefields, those with chaotic spiritual pressure held the upper hand.

"Are these chaotic spiritual pressures from the Kasumiōji Clan's Death Warriors who use Moyao Blades?"

One reason the Moyao Blade had been phased out by Nimaiya Ōetsu's Zanpakuto was that its upper limit was lower than that of a Zanpakuto.

The second was that the Moyao Blade had no safety valve when absorbing spiritual pressure.

In battle, a Moyao Blade user could channel their own spiritual pressure into the blade, granting themselves greater power.

But when the user's spiritual pressure ran dry, they would instead be completely devoured by the Moyao Blade.

Using a Moyao Blade required immense courage.

Generally speaking, the Kasumiōji Clan only gave Moyao Blades to Death Warriors they had cultivated themselves.

What they upheld was: "The person may die, but the blade must not be lost."

If someone died in battle, the Moyao Blade they used would be recovered by other Death Warriors.

Not a single Moyao Blade of the Kasumiōji Clan had ever been lost since the day it was forged.

"Whoosh, whoosh..."

More than a dozen Shinigami dressed in ninja garb followed behind Ailin as well.

However, these Shinigami soon split into several squads and headed for the various battlefields.

Those confident in their own strength rushed toward the fiercest fighting.

Ailin, meanwhile, headed to one of the smaller battlefields with three others.

Judging by the fluctuations in spiritual pressure, even if the fighters there were stronger than him, they were not stronger by much. They were still within the range he could handle.

At the main battlefield, based on the strength that person had displayed so far, he was unquestionably Vice-Captain level.

But Ailin suspected that the person being besieged had yet to use his full strength.

After all, how could someone who dared come looking for trouble with the Kasumiōji Clan possess only this much strength?

Ailin would not be surprised even if that person unleashed Bankai later.