Kido Artillery

Yoruichi swung her Zanpakuto again, blasting apart every Quincy arrow before it could hit Hongjiang. Red flames surged like a giant beast, jaws open as they lunged at the Quincies in the plaza. From above, the sight was truly beautiful.

"Blue Binding Way: Bell Prison!"

Hongjiang had little time to admire the view. Spotting the Senkaimon directly beneath him, he cast a Kido without an incantation, dropping a brass-colored bell over the gate.

Eighteen Buddhas were engraved on the bell, each suppressing a phantom demon beneath them. The deep toll rose from underfoot, and the surrounding air trembled faintly.

Clock Prison was a Kido that required constant upkeep. Any attack that struck it would be absorbed by the demons on the bell's surface. As long as the demons couldn't break free of the Buddhas' suppression, the prison would hold. If the caster didn't have to remain atop the bell, it would be a perfect defensive Bakudō in some respects.

"Hadō #33, Pale Fire Crash!"

"Hadō #58, Heavenly Storm!"

No sooner had he set up Clock Prison than Hongjiang began unleashing offensive Kido one after another. He aimed his left palm down and released a pale blue torrent of flame. At the same time, he raised his right index and middle fingers together, and a pale green whirlwind rose from the ground!

The plaza, already awash in crimson, suddenly blossomed with pale blue, like blue paint spilled across red cloth, or a lonely, icy pool amid the flames. Viewed on its own, no one would have connected it with scorching fire.

The harmonious scene didn't last long. Driven by the green whirlwind, the two flames twisted together as they rose and spread, like two giant serpents locked in a fight. They rampaged across the plaza, reducing everything they touched to ash.

The wind fanned the flames, and the flames lent the wind their force. The blaze burned for more than ten minutes before gradually dying out. The entire plaza had been leveled, and even a row of nearby buildings had largely collapsed. But that was as far as it went. Buildings could only sit there and take the hits, but the Quincies weren't fools. They'd retreated long ago.

Hongjiang hadn't expected two Hadō spells to wipe out the enemy, but seeing the twenty-one Quincies standing unscathed on the rooftops still left a bad taste in his mouth. Their clothes weren't even dirty. Couldn't they at least show him some respect? One of them was his old acquaintance, Nodt Futz, too. For some reason, that made the whole thing feel embarrassing.

If Hongjiang felt embarrassed, then the Quincies who'd been driven out of the plaza and lost the Senkaimon they were supposed to protect must have felt even worse. For a moment, the two sides stared at each other from a distance, neither making a move.

The Quincies' goal was to protect the Senkaimon. With Hongjiang and Yoruichi standing right on top of it, they didn't dare act rashly. But Hongjiang's goal was the same as theirs, and this stalemate was all to his advantage.

Just as Fuzi and the others were at a loss, a blond, blue-eyed Quincy boy suddenly made his move. Three arrows shot out almost simultaneously, aimed at Hongjiang, Yoruichi, and the Clock Prison beneath them. That wasn't all. A deeper-blue arrow, much faster, followed like a shooting star with a tail of light, hurtling toward the prison. Though it had been fired later, it arrived at the same time as the first three!

"Lord Ryan!" Fuzi blurted, momentarily stunned. Attacking the two Soul Reapers was understandable, but why attack their Senkaimon?

"Hadō #4, White Lightning!" Hongjiang reacted quickly, too. Dozens of white bolts poured from his index finger in succession—not to block the arrows, but to strike them precisely from the side and force them off course. The four arrows either missed or hit the ground. Not one reached its original target.

The boy called Ryan wasn't discouraged. His left hand moved up and down, as if four hands were pulling the four strings of his diamond-shaped Spirit Bow at once. His figure flickered, appearing in succession across several rooftops. In an instant, light and dark blue arrows poured down from every direction like rain!

If Ryan had become a mobile arrow tower, then Hongjiang was now a merciless Kido artillery battery!

"Bakudō #12, Crawling Fire!"

He first formed a Kido net with Crawling Fire to help track the arrows, allowing him to devote most of his attention to casting Kido.

"Hadō #8, Twin Roar White Lightning!"

"Hadō #12, Earth Piercing Sting!"

He followed with a relentless barrage of two low-level Hadō spells. Earth-yellow spikes and white lightning sealed off the ground and sky.

Ryan attacked fiercely, and Hongjiang defended beautifully. In one moment, smoke billowed across the ground; in the next, blue shooting stars broke free of gravity and flew skyward. Yoruichi, off to the side, had nothing to do but admire the view.

Just as she was getting bored enough to yawn, Ao's aged voice rang out. "Go knock that little archer unconscious for me!"

If all Hongjiang had to do was keep defending, he'd have been happy to drag things out. But he knew Ryan had fired several arrows that had only barely missed Clock Prison—and he hadn't done a thing to stop them!

A Quincy missing a stationary target? Give him a break! Those arrows could only have been deliberate misses!

It wasn't hard to guess what that meant. The enemy was testing his fighting style and how much he cared about the Senkaimon beneath Clock Prison.

Earlier, the Quincies had held back because they were afraid of hitting the gate. But now they'd seen a Soul Reaper who could cast Kido with such precision choosing to waste his strength rather than dodge. The message was clear: the Soul Reapers cared about the Senkaimon even more than they did!

Now was the time to seize the initiative. Hongjiang understood that Yoruichi would be of little use in a defensive battle, so he told her to go on the offensive and make the most of their strength.

Ryan was no slouch either. He gave his orders almost at the same time. "Attack the one wearing the mask. Don't hold back! I'll handle the woman with the staff! Open the Senkaimon as quickly as you can!"

The woman with the staff was naturally Yoruichi. Her Bankai was a long staff, with ten cubic boulders spaced along it. Each of the boulders' four sides bore different flame patterns that flickered in and out in the night. It drew even more attention than the long-handled war hammer of her Shikai.

Watching Yoruichi put on a fireworks display, Hongjiang couldn't help feeling delighted behind his mask. Poor girl. She was getting further and further down the path of a pyrotechnician.

Honestly, he wasn't under much pressure at the moment. Fuzi and the others who'd stayed behind were still firing arrows from a distance, but they weren't as capable as Ryan in his arrow-tower form. Their arrows were more powerful, but to Hongjiang, they only required a slightly higher-level Hadō to knock off course. They didn't have the numbers or speed to overwhelm him, so he could spare some attention for Yoruichi.

Yoruichi, who had already mastered Bankai, was definitely Captain-level. And based on what Hongjiang had observed, Ryan was stronger than a lieutenant but still fell short of a captain. So, in his view, Yoruichi should have been able to deal with him quickly.

But now, something seemed to have gone wrong. It wasn't that Yoruichi couldn't beat Ryan; she simply couldn't hit him. It was hard to believe, but it was the truth.

Yoruichi wasn't yet the "Flash Goddess Yoruichi" she'd become in the future, but her Flash Step was already among the best in the Seireitei. Hongjiang could even tell that she was more than twice as fast as she'd been a hundred and fifty years ago!

Ryan seemed much like Yoruichi, relying on speed for clean, efficient fighting. His Hirenkyaku was the fastest Hongjiang had ever seen among the Quincies he'd encountered.

Even so, Ryan was slower than Yoruichi. So why couldn't she hit him?

If Hongjiang had been able to watch a little longer, he would surely have understood. But just then, Fuzi and the others suddenly changed their method of attack, leaving him unable to spare any more attention.