As the Flying Hollow missed again,
a beam of light shot over.
Wrapped in red-black energy and carrying an aura of destruction, it surged from before the Gillian's mask, straight toward where Shuichi stood. Wherever the beam passed, the air burned into ripples.
Shuichi swung his blade.
This was no casual swing. He increased his spiritual pressure output to at least three times its previous level. Sword energy flew from the blade, thicker, brighter, and fiercer than before.
Two red forces collided in midair.
Red against red, sword energy against Cero.
The sword energy did indeed split the Cero apart. Blade-sharp spiritual power cut into the very center of the Cero like a red-hot knife through butter. The beam of Cero energy divided down the middle and bent to either side, grazing past Shuichi's body and shooting into the night sky behind him.
But it lasted only an instant.
The Cero's impact was too powerful. The sword energy began to fracture before it had cut even a third of the way through. Cracks spread outward from the cut like fractures across ice. Then the Cero swallowed the sword energy, and the remaining beam continued hurtling toward Shuichi.
Shuichi did not hesitate.
Shunpo.
His figure vanished from where he stood. The Cero tore through the spot he had occupied moments ago, its beam streaking westward and carving a blinding trail through the night until it disappeared into distant clouds.
The Gillian's Cero was stronger than he had expected.
The Flying Hollow came again.
The Steel-Skinned Hollow with membranous wings shot up rapidly from below and to the side. The sound of its wings tearing through the air was as shrill as a whistle. This time, it had learned its lesson. Rather than diving from the front, it attacked from Shuichi's blind spot, claws spread and wing membranes drawn in, its entire body like a black arrow.
Shuichi's spiritual-pressure senses caught it.
Kidō.
He opened his mouth to chant, but the Flying Hollow was too fast. High-level Hado required time to chant, while low-level Hado was meaningless against a Steel-Skinned Hollow like this. His mind made its judgment within a third of a second, and the incantation in his mouth stalled just after "ash of—"
Too late.
He abandoned the chant.
"Bakudō #4: Hainawa!"
With the chant discarded, a rope of Reishi light shot from Shuichi's palm and wrapped precisely around the Flying Hollow's neck. The moment it touched the Hollow's skin, it automatically tightened, looping around once, twice, three times, coiling like a snake around its neck and the base of one wing.
The Flying Hollow's body stiffened in midair.
Its flight posture was ruined. The wing membrane was bound by the light rope and could not spread fully. Its wings were unbalanced, and its flapping rhythm fell completely apart. It beat its wings desperately to maintain altitude, but the rope tightened more and more, restricting its wings further. It tried to tear the rope apart with its claws, but they were too short to reach its neck.
After struggling in the air several times, the Flying Hollow lost lift.
It fell.
The Gillian's second Cero was gathering beneath its mask. Red light gradually brightened, like an eye opening in the darkness.
Shuichi did not wait for it to finish. He released spiritual pressure and drove his spiritual power, making that red sword mark "come alive" on its own.
This was an ability he had not fully mastered: summoning chains from the traces of a slash.
Golden chains grew from the sword mark, pouring outward from within the crack. Link after link locked together, entirely golden, their surfaces flowing with a faint Reishi glow. They extended along the cracks in the mask, winding around them, tightening, and biting deep into the mask's bone-like material.
The Cero's gathering was interrupted.
The swelling ball of red light beneath the Gillian's mask suddenly flickered like a flame being choked by the throat. The energy began to destabilize. Red turned dark red, dark red turned black, and fine white sparks burst from within the blackness.
Then it exploded.
The unfinished Cero exploded on the Gillian's own face. There was no direction, no focus; all the energy scattered across the mask's surface. A muffled boom rang out, like an earthquake detonating deep underground. The Gillian's entire head was engulfed by the blast, black smoke and red fire mingling as they spread through the night sky.
The Gillian staggered back repeatedly. Its enormous body left deep footprints in the ruins, and the ground shook with every step. One foot crushed an already half-collapsed house, sending rubble and dust soaring dozens of feet high.
Shuichi did not wait for it to regain its balance.
Shunpo.
His figure vanished from the air and appeared directly before the Gillian's head, level with its mask. Spiritual pressure coiled around his blade. He gripped the sword with both hands. There was no flashy movement, only a slash.
The blade came down upon the sword mark on the mask. The angle, force, and spiritual-pressure output were the best he could currently manage.
Nothing happened.
Shuichi immediately used Shunpo to pull back, avoiding any close-range attack.
The blade had slid across the mask's surface. The bone-like material of the Gillian's face was harder than that of any Hollow he had encountered before.
He had underestimated the Gillian's defenses somewhat.
The Gillian steadied itself as it retreated.
Its hollow eyes fixed on Shuichi. Beneath the mask, a point of red light lit up again. This was the third time. Cero gathered quickly; from the beginning of its charge to firing, it took only a few breaths.
The red point appeared from nothing and grew from small to large.
Shuichi gripped his blade. He did not think much—there was no time to think. Once more, he swung out a powerful red sword energy slash.
The sword energy cut across the night sky, striking the Cero just as it began to gather.
Second verse, same as the first.
The Cero's energy exploded again. The unfinished ball of red light burst apart, its shockwave and fragments spreading in every direction. The Gillian's head was thrown backward by the blast, and its huge body staggered back again, its feet plowing two deep trenches into the ground.
Shuichi froze slightly.
Then he used Shunpo again.
He remembered something.
Ironstone Style.
One of the sword techniques Yachiru Unohana had taught him.
Shuichi held his blade in both hands and raised it over his head.
Ironstone Style had only one move: a downward chop from overhead. The blade traveled in a straight line, with no variation and no follow-up. If this strike failed to kill, the one who died would be its wielder. It was too slow, its trajectory too direct, too easy to predict, evade, and counterattack. Using this strike was a gamble with one's life.
Shuichi was not gambling with his life now. His opponent was a Gillian that could barely stand, its mask covered in cracks. Cero had exploded on its own face twice. Its defenses were no longer intact.
He brought the blade down.
The spiritual pressure flooding the blade was not sharpness, but weight. This strike was not a cut, but a smash. The blade landed on the mask.
The mask cracked.
Starting from the center of its forehead, the crack ran down the bridge of its nose all the way to its jaw. It was straight, clean, without the slightest hesitation.
As the blade cut in, the Gillian's entire head split apart to both sides like a cleaved watermelon.
The Gillian's eyes flickered the instant its mask separated, then went dark.
Its massive body began to disintegrate into a phantom. Starting from the edges, its outline blurred like ink dripping into water, slowly and irreversibly spreading outward. Countless black motes rose from its collapsing body, like black snowflakes drifting backward into the night sky, returning to the Reishi Cycle.
The Gillian disappeared.
In the distant Soul Reaper camp,
"Captain!"
"He got it!"
"The Gillian's down!"
Some people pumped their fists, some slapped their thighs, and some leaped up from the ground.
But they did not celebrate for long.
Shuichi's gaze passed through the lingering Reishi mist left by the Gillian's disintegration and settled on the Steel-Skinned Hollow. With the Gillian down, these Menos Grande-class Steel-Skinned Hollows had become the greatest threat amid the ruins of Kaimachi.
"Let's go!"
"Support the captain!"
More than a dozen black-clad figures charged out from the camp. Some gripped Zanpakutō, while others had already begun chanting Hado. Their spiritual pressure lit up one after another in the night like stars.
Before you continue