He swung his saw-like Zanpakuto directly toward Asakura Yoh. The steel segments connecting the blade segments extended, and in the blink of an eye, it reached the top of Yoh's head.
"Why waste words with him! Captain, once he sees the gap in our strength, he'll run away in a panic!"
"Yoh! Watch out for that guy!"
Kurosaki Ichigo's warning was still in the air when he witnessed an unbelievable sight.
Yoh lifted the massive "stone tablet" behind him. He didn't swing it with effort; he simply placed it where Zabimaru was about to strike.
Seeing this, Abarai Renji smirked. Such a static block was useless against the flexible and unpredictable Zabimaru.
However, the outcome was the exact opposite of what he expected. When Zabimaru's blade segments made contact with the "stone tablet," they were violently repelled.
That wasn't all. The rebounding Zabimaru actually reverted to its unreleased state on its own, even though he hadn't deactivated Shikai.
Renji's mind went blank; he had never encountered such a situation.
Before he could react, a powerful impact and sharp pain radiated from his left shoulder.
Forced to his knees under the weight of the stone tablet, Renji tried to stand, but he felt the Spiritual Power in his body dissipating at an incredible speed.
"I see..."
Kuchiki Byakuya's cold voice rang out from the side, making Renji, who had suffered consecutive failures in battle, feel utterly humiliated.
"That strange weapon... is it Sekkiseki?"
"Bingo! You figured it out so fast. As expected of a Great Noble Captain."
"..." Byakuya narrowed his eyes at Asakura Yoh, his brow furrowing slightly.
"It seems that unlike the boy over there, you are not entirely ignorant of us."
While the two were talking, Renji gritted his teeth and used the brute force of his right hand to lift the stone tablet off his left arm.
Asakura Yoh watched Renji struggling to distance himself out of the corner of his eye, his expression showing little emotion.
He didn't harbor much malice toward the man; that strike just now was merely payback on Ichigo's behalf.
'Still... maybe I can use this chance to try that...'
Yoh's left hand reached for Renji's head, and at that moment, Kuchiki Byakuya finally stopped being a bystander.
He flickered behind Yoh with Shunpo, his Zanpakuto clearing its scabbard with unbelievable speed, the blade thrusting toward Yoh's back in an instant.
But just as the sword was about to touch his clothes, a survival instinct honed through years of combat sent a danger signal to Kuchiki Byakuya.
Instinct acted faster than his mind, causing Byakuya to flash backward. The ground where he had just stood shattered and erupted in orange flames—flames that carried an aura entirely different from the two wounded people.
Byakuya's intuition told him that thing was extremely dangerous.
"To hurt Ichigo like that... I... might be a little bit angry..."
A giant-sized Kurosaki Masaki raised a flaming longbow in her hands, her gaze toward Kuchiki Byakuya chillingly cold.
Using Furyoku to make a pure spirit body grow massive was a relatively wasteful way to fight, but it was very suitable for providing combat support—provided one had so much Furyoku they didn't know what to do with it.
To be honest, Yoh's current Furyoku level couldn't yet be squandered as freely as Hao's from the original Shaman King series. Furthermore, Kurosaki Masaki's power as a spirit was nowhere near as strong as Hao's Spirit of Fire. He was doing this mainly to show off.
After all, this was the world of Soul Reapers. How could one survive without looking cool?
A massive flaming arrow soared toward Kuchiki Byakuya. It was clear that Masaki was genuinely furious this time.
"Bakudo #81: Danku."
A massive rectangular barrier appeared in front of Byakuya, but to everyone's surprise, the barrier failed to provide even a hint of resistance.
For the first time, a look of genuine shock appeared on Byakuya's face. He immediately used Shunpo to dodge the attack, his expression becoming solemn as he looked at Asakura Yoh.
Kuchiki Rukia and Abarai Renji were even more stunned into silence by this scene.
They were both well aware of Byakuya's strength. Even though he could only use twenty percent of his power due to the spirit pressure limiter, and even though he had skipped the incantation, that was Danku—a spell said to be able to completely defend against any Hado below number eighty-nine...
Yet the attack just now had treated it as if it didn't exist, passing through without any obstruction at all.
"..."
Byakuya's frown deepened. The attack just now confirmed another of his previous suspicions.
"The power you use... does not originate from Reishi."
It wasn't a question, but a statement of fact.
Danku had the ability to isolate Kido, and Kido, simply put, were attacks constructed from condensed Reishi. Therefore, even for an attack that Danku couldn't fully defend against, it would never simply pass through without any resistance.
The only possibility was that the flaming arrow was not constructed from Reishi.
But how was that possible?
"How could—"
Before the shock could be voiced, Asakura Yoh's palm landed on Abarai Renji's head.
Instant Refinement!
As if compressed by some force, Abarai Renji instantly lost his human form, turning into a ball of ghostly fire with eye-catching red hair and strange tattoos.
"Abarai Renji—Single Point Spirit Form!"
Having been turned into a spirit ball, Renji stared blankly, having no idea what had happened. He only felt as if his entire body was being completely controlled by a single palm.
This was an experience he had never had before.
It was a bit bewildering, a bit novel, but mostly it was a terrifying sense of losing control over his own body.
"Pfft—Hahahaha! It actually worked."
Asakura Yoh laughed unceremoniously at Renji's expression.
As it turned out, a Shaman in the world of Soul Reapers was like a Pokemon trainer entering a Safari Zone full of rare Pokemon.
Of course, that was assuming the opponent's spiritual pressure wasn't stronger than his own Furyoku.
"What did you do?"
Over several centuries, Kuchiki Byakuya thought very few things could still surprise him.
But today, the man before him had broken his common sense time and time again.
Similarly, Rukia's mouth hung open, completely speechless. While she knew Yoh's abilities were eerie, she hadn't expected them to be this bizarre.
It was one thing to be able to control ordinary souls to fight...
But Renji was a Soul Reaper—a lieutenant-level Soul Reaper at that—and you could even do this to him?!
This was beyond ridiculous!
"You bastard! Let go of me!"