After the two of them temporarily stopped fighting, the tense atmosphere did not gradually settle down. Instead, it grew even hotter.
The bluestone ground of the open field suddenly exploded, and the blade of Harry's Dangai Reitō shattered inch by inch.
But the moment it broke apart, endless reishi gathered over the original blade and condensed into a purple-white blade of spiritual particles.
Harry's voice, wrapped in the humming vibration of reishi, echoed across the entire open field.
"All phenomena are mine, ferry all souls to the end, release, Bankai! Dangai Banshō Reitō!"
In an instant, the air within a hundred meters rippled with fish-scale purple light. All free-floating reishi turned into thin streams under his command and rapidly converged around his body.
By the time he finished chanting the release command, the reishi blade had fully formed.
Harry gently swung the blade, and everything around him began decomposing into the most basic reishi at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Those particles formed a vortex and poured into the Zanpakuto in Harry's hand.
At the sight of this, the pupils of the captains contracted sharply. Some of the older captains were even deeply shocked, because they had seen similar abilities before.
The Soul Reapers had once had a great enemy, a group known as the Quincy.
And the Quincy possessed the ability to convert matter in the Soul Society into reishi and use those particles in battle.
But even the Quincy could not control reishi on such a massive scale.
Kaien Shiba did not dare be careless. His trident had already stabbed into the ground, and the water beneath his feet spun wildly. The waves it raised suddenly condensed into an ice-blue giant scythe of water.
He threw back his head and roared, his voice shattering the clouds.
"Let the vortex tide flood the heavens and bind all souls, Nejibana: Thousand-Wave Prison Bind!"
The moment the giant scythe swung down, the dueling field transformed into a roaring water prison.
Hundred-meter-tall walls of water closed in from every side. Countless chains appeared across the surface of the walls, and the crystalline water droplets at the ends of the chains glittered like stars. Each one carried a weight far beyond its appearance.
"Try this!"
Kaien Shiba's figure moved through the water prison. The arc cut by his giant water scythe stirred up thousands upon thousands of water spears, their tips stabbing at Harry from every blind spot.
"Reishi Manifestation, Countercurrent."
Harry's fingertip swept through the air. The reishi inside the water prison was suddenly stripped away. The water spears froze in midair, then collapsed into pale-blue streams of reishi that flowed backward behind him and formed blade after blade of light.
In the next second, those light blades suddenly transformed into the exact same shape as the water spears. Even their rotating vortices were identical, down to the smallest detail, but they shot toward Kaien at an even greater speed.
This was a technique that fed on the opponent's attack to strengthen himself.
This time, even Shunsui Kyōraku and Jūshirō Ukitake, the two disciples of the captain-commander, could no longer remain seated.
"It can even convert an opponent's attack into reishi?"
"How is that possible? The reishi in everyone's attacks carries that person's will. It shouldn't be affected by Quincy reishi conversion at all!
"One thing is certain now. Third Seat Harry's reishi conversion ability has completely surpassed that of the vast majority of Quincy!"
Among the captains, Twelfth Division Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi stared greedily at Harry. His fingers twitched nonstop, as if he wanted to grab something.
He could hardly wait to put Harry on an operating table and study him carefully.
What a miraculous ability. If he could thoroughly research it, then his own strength would absolutely rise by a large margin.
Now he had one question. Could Harry's Zanpakuto ability decompose the captain-commander's flames?
If it could, the title of the strongest Zanpakuto in the Soul Society might have to change hands.
"Interesting!"
Facing Harry's attack, Kaien Shiba suddenly swept his trident sideways. The water inside the prison instantly hardened into dozens of water walls, blocking every light blade.
The light blades struck the walls and exploded into a sky full of shattered reishi, stopped completely.
In the next instant, the ground beneath Kaien Shiba's feet suddenly shook violently.
Harry had injected reishi underground. A long reishi blade wrapped in spatial cracks stabbed out beside Kaien's feet.
Kaien sprang into the air, dodging the reishi blade's attack. Then he swung his trident fiercely, and the chains inside the water prison suddenly snapped taut, weaving into an airtight net of water around him.
"Prison-Binding Locked Realm!"
A massive number of water chains tightened at once, rapidly compressing Harry's space to move and coiling toward his body in an attempt to restrain him.
The moment the chains contracted, Harry's reishi domain suddenly expanded. Dark-purple light patterns spread from Harry as the center, extending outward like a spiderweb.
Every chain that touched those light patterns instantly disintegrated and was converted into reishi.
"Within my domain, everything can be converted into the most basic reishi. Your water field is no exception." Harry's calm voice sounded amid the towering currents. He remained composed, without the slightest panic.
"So what? Can you convert it faster than I can create it?" Kaien's trident suddenly stabbed into the core of the water prison, pouring a massive amount of reiatsu into it and strengthening its power. "Final Form, Thousand-Wave Burial!"
The entire water prison abruptly contracted, transforming into a deep-blue water sphere a hundred meters in diameter. High-voltage-current-like lines flowed across its surface, clearly showing that the water had been compressed to the limit.
Yet in the face of such a powerful attack, Harry did not panic at all. He raised his Zanpakuto before his eyes, and the clear surface of the blade reflected the outline of the entire water sphere.
Immediately afterward, he seemed to use the final ability of his Zanpakuto.
"Final Form, Reishi Return to Nothingness."
Harry suddenly transformed into a black singularity, swallowing all the light around him.
The moment the water sphere collided with the singularity, time seemed to freeze.
The lines across the water sphere's surface snapped inch by inch, torn open by countless fine cracks from the singularity.
But the singularity's expansion was also blocked by the high-pressure currents of the water sphere. The two ultimate powers deadlocked in midair, and the reiatsu shockwaves they stirred up sent the watching Soul Reapers flying several meters away. Even the captains had to raise their hands to block them.
Kaien Shiba's sleeves had already been sliced apart by fragments of reishi. He looked at the widening cracks across the water sphere and suddenly burst into laughter.
"You're really amazing, but my guess was right after all. Your Zanpakuto ability does have a limit!
"It looks like I'm going to bully the young here. You should know, I'm already at third-grade spiritual pressure!
"And there's a huge gap between third-grade spiritual pressure and fourth-grade spiritual pressure!"
The moment Kaien Shiba finished speaking, the water sphere pressing down on Harry suddenly expanded several times over. Its generation speed instantly surpassed the black singularity's annihilation speed by a large margin.
The collision between the water sphere and the singularity continued. The dueling field had already sunk several meters, revealing layer upon layer of rock beneath it, traces gouged out by the force of two Bankai powers.
However, unlike the previous stalemate, the water sphere now held the firm advantage. It seemed the battle would end soon.
In the end, Kaien Shiba, with fifty years of accumulated strength, was going to win. Harry had only just graduated, and his foundation was still too shallow. Since he had not reached third-grade spiritual pressure, he simply could not reach captain-level combat strength.
Seeing this scene, the Soul Reapers all sighed in disappointment.
They had all wanted to see the young genius crush the older genius, because for spectators like them, entertainment was the most important thing.
But clearly, events had still developed according to the established order. What they hoped for had not happened. In the end, the genius of the old generation had defeated the genius of the new generation.
However, at that moment, a sudden change occurred within the field.
The black singularity around Harry abruptly disappeared, and the water sphere came crushing toward him with unstoppable force.
At the sight of this, Kaien Shiba's expression changed dramatically. The sudden disappearance of the black singularity caught him completely off guard, causing the water to press down on Harry with full power.
Even if he tried to pull back now, he could only withdraw ten percent of the force. The remaining ninety percent would still be enough to kill Harry. The best possible result would be a serious injury.
Damn it. What was going on with Third Seat Harry? Why did he suddenly stop resisting? This was bad.
The captains watching from the surroundings also discovered the sudden change in the field, but even Kaien Shiba, who was closest to Harry, had no time to stop it, let alone the captains watching from a distance after giving the two of them room to fight.
Most of the captains' expressions darkened slightly, with only one exception.
Fifth Division Captain Sōsuke Aizen still looked as gentle as ever, but if one looked into his eyes at that moment, they would discover that there was none of his usual warmth in them. Instead, they had become far sharper, with their edge fully revealed.
Sōsuke Aizen did not believe Harry would suddenly give up resisting. His Zanpakuto definitely had some other ability.
Come, Harry Potter. Show me your ability. Let me see what is truly special about you.
At that moment, Harry suddenly raised his Zanpakuto, holding it straight up, then slowly brought it down.
At the same time, the intensity of Harry's reiatsu rose dramatically. In an instant, it reached the level of third-grade spiritual pressure, and it did not stop there.
In just a split second, the strength of his reiatsu surpassed Kaien Shiba, who had only just stepped into third-grade spiritual pressure. It crushed him and rapidly approached second-grade spiritual pressure.
As the Zanpakuto descended, the water sphere around him rapidly broke apart and converged toward the blade.
Finally, when the Zanpakuto fully fell, a dazzling blade pressure formed.
This blade pressure was nearly a hundred meters tall. Unlike ordinary blade pressure, it was not scattered. Instead, it condensed into one solid whole, as if it had become a real physical object.
When the water sphere capable of crushing everything collided with that high-pressure slash, it shattered in an instant.
It was completely decomposed into reishi and swallowed by the blade pressure, further amplifying its height until it actually reached two hundred meters.
Kaien Shiba's expression changed drastically. He burst out with all his reiatsu and tried his best to dodge to the side.
But the blade pressure attacking him seemed to possess consciousness. Like a Soul Reaper, it erupted with its own reiatsu and pressed down on Kaien Shiba, firmly restraining him in place.
At that moment, Kaien Shiba felt death rushing toward him head-on.
As that shocking blade pressure drew closer, he even discovered that his spiritual body was gradually becoming unstable.
An indescribable terror instantly filled his heart, and he thought of something.
Since Harry's Zanpakuto could even decompose his own Zanpakuto ability, could it also decompose a Soul Reaper's spiritual body?
When Kaien Shiba felt that his spiritual body was about to collapse and be absorbed by the blade pressure before him, his mind went completely blank.
After absorbing so much blade pressure, that attack had already reached the level of second-grade spiritual pressure. It was not something he could withstand at all.
Was he going to die here? What would happen to the Shiba Clan? Would his younger brother and sister be sad for him?
Everyone cried out in alarm. Under everyone's gaze, a tragedy was about to happen, and the one about to die was Kaien Shiba, the head of the Shiba Clan, one of the Four Great Noble Clans.
Everyone held their breath. But at that moment, the blade pressure suddenly stopped, then rapidly dissipated.
The attack that had filled Kaien Shiba with despair vanished without a trace in an instant.
When the blade pressure disappeared, everyone drew in a breath. At the very least, there would not be a tragedy today that shook the entire Seireitei.
However, they were also shocked. They had not expected Harry to be able to control the blade pressure he had released, and even disperse it so easily.
Such astonishing control was probably something no one but the captain-commander could achieve.
Harry's Zanpakuto was definitely an existence that could rival Ryūjin Jakka.
Kaien Shiba stood there in a daze for a long time. At the moment between life and death, even he had been unable to remain calm.
Only when Isshin Shiba, standing outside the field, gave a light cough did Kaien Shiba finally come back to himself.
He shook his head with a bitter smile and said in a somewhat dejected voice, "I lost. You're really strong, Harry."
Harry maintained a faint smile and did not reply.
A few days after the result of that match was decided, two more major events occurred in the Seireitei.
The first was that Tenth Division Captain Isshin Shiba resigned from his position as captain and disappeared without a trace.
The second was that Kaien Shiba and Harry Potter respectively assumed the duties of Third Division captain and Tenth Division captain at the same time.
Compared with the first event, the second drew even more attention.
Because it meant that the shortest time for an ordinary Soul Reaper to go from graduation to captain had been broken.
The name of Tenth Division Captain Harry Potter also became famous throughout the entire Seireitei.
In the universe where the Illuminati was located, Harry withdrew from meditation.
For the time being, matters in the Soul Reaper world had come to an end. Next, he had to devote more of his energy to the multiverse.
After this period of refinement, he had basically completed the prototype of the casting system.
First, he had created numerous separated spells for later magical combinations, which was also the simplest step.
Second, he had constructed a five-layer magical structure that could be embedded with different separated spells.
If separated spells were fully embedded into the five-layer magical structure, then a sorcerer would completely reach the level of an intermediate sorcerer.
This also meant that as long as Harry lent his magic power to a certain sorcerer, he could mass-produce intermediate sorcerers.
But this still had not achieved the result Harry envisioned. The complete casting system he imagined had a ten-layer structure.
If the ten-layer magical structure were fully embedded with separated spells, then the sorcerer's strength would reach the level of an advanced sorcerer, and even among advanced sorcerers, they would be considered powerful.
The casting system still needed further refinement.
Aside from that, another piece of good news arrived.
Mister Fantastic quickly walked into the secret chamber prepared specifically for Harry, his face full of delight.
"Harry, come over quickly. The magic stabilization instrument we prepared for you is complete. Now we only need you to personally test it and adjust it.
"As long as everything checks out, we'll immediately launch an all-out attack on Six-Stone Ultron!"
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