The battle continued from noon until nightfall.
"Pant... pant... pant..."
Only Zaraki and Ailin, both possessing extraordinarily powerful reiatsu, could endure such an intense, prolonged battle.
Yet compared to Zaraki, whose clothes were in tatters and whose body was covered in wounds, Ailin remained as poised as ever. Even the red Windflower gauze around his neck had barely gathered any dust.
The gap between them was obvious at a glance.
"Zaraki, it's about time. This next move will be my final strike."
"If you can take it, you live. If you can't, you die."
Raising his Zanpakuto high, Ailin used reiatsu for the first time in his battle against Zaraki.
Blue reiatsu gathered around Ailin's blade. Then, Ailin brought his sword down upon Zaraki—
Boom!
A hundred-meter-tall blue slash tore through heaven and earth, as though it would cleave the world in two, hurtling toward Zaraki at terrifying speed.
"Haaah!"
Zaraki roared as golden reiatsu burst forth. Under his control, it flowed into the Zanpakuto clenched in both hands, and he charged straight toward Ailin's slash.
Boom—
Rumble—
"Ahhhhhhh..."
The Eleventh Division Soul Reapers watching from ten kilometers away were so terrified that they immediately used Shunpo to flee backward.
Fortunately, they had not been directly in front of Captain Ailin's slash. They were merely caught in the shockwave produced by the clash of the two final attacks. Though they were sent flying a great distance, no one died in the blast.
Once the lingering force of the shockwave faded, a chasm several hundred meters long appeared before Ailin.
At the far end of that chasm lay Zaraki, his body a bloody mess.
Clearly, Zaraki's charge had been defeated in this clash, and Ailin's powerful slash had blasted him hundreds of meters away.
Even with such grievous injuries, Zaraki still