All Things in the Universe Turn to Ash!

In the blink of an eye, the two of them reached the Water God Dragon, close enough to touch.

"We're in position!" Nancy abruptly shoved Lu Chongwei forward. "The rest is up to you!"

As her words fell, she doubled back, dropped toward the ground at top speed, and instantly withdrew from the danger zone.

Lu Chongwei hovered alone in midair, with nothing beneath his feet.

A few meters in front of him was the Water God Dragon's mountain-sized body, its magic power surging to the heavens.

Water rushed madly from every direction, impossible to avoid.

This was the moment.

Lu Chongwei did not dodge. His eyes snapped open, his expression calm and resolute.

His right hand clenched Ryujin Jakka's hilt in a death grip.

The magic power inside him no longer surged wildly outward. Instead, it compressed to the extreme, drawing inward as all of it poured into the blade.

All things in the universe turned to ash.

Bankai.

"Zanka no Tachi."

Bzz—

There was no heaven-shaking roar, no dazzling light—only a dead silence that swallowed everything.

The crimson flaming blade melted away by itself, charred, and broke apart.

In the end, it was replaced by a broken tachi covered in fine cracks, ancient and pitch-black from hilt to tip.

The blade was dim and lightless, without the slightest fluctuation of magic power, looking as if it would shatter at a touch.

Yet the instant the tachi took form, an extreme heat powerful enough to shake the soul erupted.

It was not flames rising, nor a heat wave spreading, but a pure domain of high temperature sweeping across the entire battlefield.

Hiss, hiss, hiss—

The air was ignited by the heat, then completely evaporated into nothing in the next instant.

The water, soil, and stone on the ground had