"Captain Ryūjin, you've fought Hollows modified by Aizen in the Human World before. Could it be that these Hollows were also modified by Aizen?"
Soi Fon's expression was hard and serious. She kept her eyes fixed on Ryūjin as she asked.
Toshiro Hitsugaya didn't look any better. These Hollows were already operating on a different level from anything normal, with Hierro so dense it bordered on indestructible, far beyond what any Menos Grande of the same class had any right to possess. That alone had made them an enormous problem.
And now they were coming back after being killed.
Nobody present was naive enough to think they'd only revive once. If it happened once, it would happen again. Second time, third time, however many times it took. The upper limit was unknown, but a single revival was clearly not the ceiling.
The Hollows had already been a headache. The idea of them being unkillable made everyone's skin crawl.
Even Kenpachi, who typically had no interest in anything that wasn't a good fight, wore an unusually grim look.
"Aizen really has put together some interesting things," Ryūjin said. There was a faint pull at the corner of his mouth, more amused than concerned.
He didn't buy that these Hollows were truly eternal. That kind of thing didn't exist. No matter how many times they could revive, the number had a ceiling, because if it didn't, Aizen would have to be a literal god. Breaking the line between life and death permanently was beyond what Aizen could pull off.
And if they weren't permanent, they weren't a problem. Not for Ryūjin.
"Captain Soi Fon, Captain Hitsugaya, Zaraki. Pull back. I've got a way to handle this."
Soi Fon read the situation without needing it spelled out. If Ryūjin was saying he had a plan, he had a plan. She gave a short nod and fell back without another word.
Toshiro Hitsugaya and Kenpachi did the same. Kenpachi's jaw was tight, every instinct in him itching to stay in the fight, but he wasn't an idiot. Whatever Ryūjin was about to do required space, and getting in the way of it would be pointless. He stepped back.
Swish swish swish.
With the three of them clear, Ryūjin stood alone in the middle of the field, facing all eight Adjuchas-class Hollows without shifting his posture.
Swish swish swish.
The Hollows moved at the same time, all eight converging on him like thrown blades.
"Death Aria."
The words were quiet. The response wasn't.
A mass of black mist erupted from Ryūjin's body, thick and rolling, spreading outward in every direction. It swallowed the charging Hollows whole before they could close the distance.
The moment the mist touched them, they came apart. No struggle, no resistance. They dissolved the way fog burns off under direct sunlight, the way ice goes against open flame.
Gone.
"That black mist..."
"It looks exactly like Baraggan's."
On the sidelines, Toshiro Hitsugaya and Kenpachi both shifted slightly at the sight of it. The black mist pulled up a specific memory neither of them was particularly fond of, the kind left by an encounter with Baraggan during the push into Hueco Mundo. That mist had eroded everything it touched without exception.
Captain Ryūjin's mist behaved the same way.
Toshiro found himself wondering, with some quiet relief, whether that ability was enough to keep the Hollows from coming back this time.
It was.
The eight Adjuchas dissolved under the mist and didn't return. No gathering particles. No reforming shapes. Whatever loop Aizen had built into them, it didn't survive contact with Death Aria.
"Ding! Congratulations to the host for killing a mutated Adjuchas-class Menos Grande, obtaining the reward: the steel skin of this mutated Adjuchas-class Menos Grande!"
The notification hit eight times in a row inside Ryūjin's head.
He felt the change settle into his skin immediately, a density building layer by layer with each successive reward. Eight kills, eight stacks of the same attribute. His skin hardness had gone up by eight percent total, one per Hollow.
Eight percent might not sound like much written out, but the baseline it was working from was a body already operating at Six Paths level. On that foundation, eight percent was not a small number.
Ryūjin let a brief, genuine smile cross his face.
Honestly, Aizen kept delivering. The man was practically a gift at this point.
He had originally considered using Kamui to warp the whole group directly to Las Noches and cut travel time down to nothing. That option was off the table now. If Aizen was going to keep sending experiments his way, Ryūjin had every reason to take the scenic route.
"Alright. They're finished. Let's keep moving."
He turned and gestured to Toshiro Hitsugaya and the others, and the group fell back into formation, continuing toward Las Noches.
Aizen did not disappoint.
The resistance kept coming all the way there, wave after wave, a mix of standard Hollows and more of the mutated Menos Grande produced through the Hogyoku. Each individual kill paid out small, but the volume was substantial, and the stacking added up fast. By the time Las Noches came into view, Ryūjin's skin hardness sat at fifteen percent above where it had been when they started. That was a real number.
One thing did catch his attention, though.
With all the resistance Aizen was throwing at them, not a single Espada had shown up. Every opponent sent their way had been, without exception, a poor match for Ryūjin. Aizen had to know that. He wasn't operating blind.
So what was the point?
Ryūjin turned the question over once, then let it go. A passing curiosity, nothing more. Whatever Aizen was scheming, it didn't particularly matter. At the level Ryūjin was currently operating, raw strength was enough to collapse most schemes before they had a chance to play out.