Thoughts like a spiderweb continuously spread across his mind, clinging tightly, impossible to sever.
Szayelaporro was firmly convinced of this conjecture.
He unhesitatingly gathered all the reishi around him, after a momentary pause in time.
Rumble!
With a wave of his hand, dozens of Cero blasts exploded in all directions like a raging storm!
The boundless reishi storm expanded and contracted, dazzling like the Big Bang.
For a moment, the domain was rocked by a cataclysmic upheaval, as if the entire world was trembling.
Szayelaporro took a deep breath; the light and heat erupting around him made his smile even more sinister.
He felt more at ease than ever before.
It had been hundreds of years since he had encountered such a troublesome opponent!
What a hellish dog, it was all fake!
It was all an illusion!
"This time…"
"I win!"
Szayelaporro raised his head, a hint of disdain flashing in his eyes.
He looked at Tsugikuni Yoriichi, his posture extremely arrogant:
"Surrender now, and I might consider sparing your life."
"…"
Tsugikuni Yoriichi remained silent, increasingly perplexed by everything before him.
He was nearly cut in half.
Yet he could still speak with such composure…
As expected of a… Vasto Lorde.
Whoosh!
As the thought settled, Yoriichi vanished like the wind.
His gaze was locked on Szayelaporro.
His entire body's muscles tensed rapidly.
A wisp of ghostly fire flickering at the tip of his blade expanded, making the blade itself grow by a third.
The Mukuro carved into the hilt now glowed with a cold light, like a firefly in the night.
In a breath, his gaze swiftly swept over Szayelaporro's entire body, finally locking onto one area.
—That was his target this time.
The head!
At this moment, the multiple Cero blasts had ended.
Just as Szayelaporro, filled with eager anticipation, looked around, believing he had finally broken through the illusion.
He never expected to see everything as normal.
Whoosh—!
In his astonishment, before he could react, a sense of crisis instantly climbed into his heart like a fierce tiger.
A bone-chilling cold permeated his being, and alarm bells rang wildly in his mind.
Every pore on his body screamed frantically, like the roaring of boiling water.
It made Szayelaporro's breathing stop.
At this moment, he had only one thought.
—Not good!
He wanted to move his feet, but there was always a delay between imagination and action.
The moment the thought landed.
Swish!
A black blade light flashed across his vision; he only had time to condense a Cero for defence, but both he and the Cero were instantly cut open by that black blade light.
A heaven-shaking explosion followed.
Rumble!
The earth shook and mountains swayed, the surroundings were covered by expanding reishi tides, and light obscured everything before his eyes.
However, Yoriichi's movements did not stop.
He seemed to have struck something with his blade before quickly retreating from the centre of the Cero explosion.
His distinct black and white attire was completely unharmed.
Flames rising like black smoke slowly converged under the illumination of the pristine white bones, clearly having perfectly blocked the aftermath of the explosion.
It wasn't until the smoke and dust from the explosion cleared, revealing a charred figure within.
Only then did Szayelaporro's formerly elegant posture vanish without a trace.
At this moment, he was sprawled on the ground like a beggar, spitting black smoke, his aura weakened.
One hand gripped his neck, and blood was gushing out between his fingers, dripping onto the ground.
He struggled to stand up, looking quite dishevelled.
But it was also strange.
This earth-shattering explosion had shattered the bone armour defence on his body, yet it didn't even knock off his glasses.
Yoriichi stared at him.
Only then did he realise.
That was his mask.
"Cough cough…"
Through long-term modification, Szayelaporro possessed powerful self-healing abilities, so he only coughed twice, and the explosion wounds from the Cero on his body completely healed.
However…
His neck, his waist.
The slashing wounds in these two places showed no signs of healing for a long time.
He endured the pain and looked.
He found that the black substance clinging to the wounds was spreading along his flesh and blood, already close to eroding his heart and meridians.
His spiritual power had also dropped from first-class to third-class because of this.
This was not a small number; seemingly two units, it actually represented hundreds of years of his effort.
The difference was like falling from third-class back to an ordinary Rukongai resident.
The magnitude of the drop was unacceptable to Szayelaporro.
At the same time, he also could not accept that he was completely unable to see through Tsugikuni Yoriichi's ability.
He considered himself superior, yet now he had been defeated by an ordinary Captain-level Shinigami… How was this different from Yamamoto activating Bankai and being brutally beaten by Kenpachi?
"Damn it!"
Anger surged, and he could no longer maintain his usual composure, his standing body trembling.
Szayelaporro glared at Tsugikuni Yoriichi, and after taking a deep breath, beneath his seemingly furious expression, he was actually rapidly thinking of countermeasures, trying to analyse the essence of this ability.
[Hierro Failure… The slash ignores defence, or rather, weakens defence?]
[My spiritual pressure has been weakened, damn guy… Those black viscous reishi on the wounds cannot be removed, is it the reishi of Hell?]
[How can a domain be indestructible…]
Upon this thought.
Although Szayelaporro was very reluctant to admit it, considering everything, what he was experiencing was indeed a scene only seen in Hell.
The Hierro's failure might be due to being within the Bankai domain.
Shinigami Bankai are too bizarre, like the Gosuke Kenpachi he met before.
Seemingly a direct attack type that transforms into a hammer, it was actually a Kido type that enhances gravity fields.
Any creature that was a little weaker would turn into mush if he slammed it once.
Even if they didn't turn into mush, they would sink into the ground due to the change in gravity, leaving no room for resistance.
This attack was too rushed; if he had collected more data, he wouldn't be in this state now.
Of course, he couldn't be blamed for this.
Before the battle, who could have predicted that a Shinigami with third-class spiritual power could make a first-class Hollow like him suffer such a great loss?
It completely subverted the Three Realms' traditions of millions of years… High-level spiritual power was actually defeated by low-level spiritual power!
Even if the outcome was told to Szayelaporro in advance, he probably wouldn't believe it…
Woo woo~
In his ears was the hellish tune played by the ghostly wind, and Szayelaporro held his breath, suppressing the urge to vomit blood.
Just as he was about to speak.
The next second.
Tsugikuni Yoriichi swung his sword, igniting a fierce flame in mid-air, his aura awe-inspiring.
He pointed his sword at Szayelaporro: "Not dead?"
"It seems Cero saved your life, but next time you won't be so lucky."
"Judgment—Second Sin."
"Wrath."
As the cold voice fell, the black flame swords in his hands instantly vanished.
In their place were two pairs of brilliant white flame armguards wrapped around his elbows, covering his shoulders.
Holy light illuminated everything around him.
With a wave of his hand.
Whether it was reishi or reishi, they were all held in his hand like soldiers, finally merging into his body.
His spiritual pressure gradually soared to first-class.