Kitsuchi opened his mouth, trying to order a retreat, only to find that he could not make a sound.
Fear.
It was the most primal fear a living creature felt when faced with something it could neither comprehend nor resist.
"Boring."
Grimmjow shook his hand as though he had merely swatted a few flies.
He turned toward Orochimaru, a flicker of interest crossing his eyes.
"This guy's the target? He doesn't look like much."
"Grimmjow, stand down."
Liuyu slowly descended from the sky, landing three meters in front of Orochimaru.
His white robes remained spotless amid the battlefield's blood-soaked winds, forming an absurd contrast with the hellish scene around him.
"Orochimaru, it's been a while."
Orochimaru stared fixedly at Uchiha Ryūha's bone mask.
Countless emotions flashed through his golden, serpentine eyes: shock, wariness, calculation, and... a trace of barely contained fervor.
"Uchiha Ryūha... no, should I now address you as the Master of Las Noches?"
"It's only a title. It doesn't matter." Liuyu took an ancient-looking scroll from inside his robes and casually tossed it to Orochimaru.
"Take a look."
Orochimaru caught it and unrolled it.
His hands began trembling after he read just the first line.
"Preliminary Draft: Soul Reaper Transformation and the Theory of Soul Immortality"
The writing on the scroll belonged to no known script in the shinobi world, yet, strangely, he could understand it.
The discussions of the soul's essence, the conjectures on reishi reconstruction, the hypotheses on severing the cycle of causality and reincarnation-each exploded in his mind like a thunderclap.
This was... immortality.
True immortality.
It did not depend on replacing bodies or possessing them through forbidden techniques. Instead, it achieved eternal existence at the most fundamental level: the soul.
"This... this is..."
"The preliminary research of a scientist under my command," Liuyu said