Yoruichi swung her Zanpakutō once more, shattering the Quincy arrows one by one before they could reach Kōe. The crimson flames resembled a giant beast, opening its maw to pounce on the Quincies in the plaza. Viewed from the sky, the scenery was truly breathtaking.
"[Original Bakudō・Bell Prison!]"
Kōe didn't have much leisure to admire the beautiful scenery. Realizing the Senkaimon was right beneath his feet, he discarded the incantation and activated the Kidō directly. A massive brass-colored bell slammed down, completely covering the Senkaimon beneath him.
The surface of the bell was engraved with eighteen Buddhas, each suppressing a phantom-like malicious spirit beneath them. A deep, heavy tolling echoed from below, causing the surrounding air to faintly vibrate.
Bell Prison was a Kidō that required continuous maintenance. Any attack striking it would be absorbed by the malicious spirits on the bell's surface. As long as the spirits could not break free from the Buddhas' suppression, the Bell Prison would not shatter. If not for the fact that the caster could not leave the top of the bell, it would, to some extent, be a perfect defensive Bakudō.
"[Hadō #33・Sōkatsui!]"
"[Hadō #58・Tenran!]"
Right after deploying the Bell Prison, Kōe seamlessly unleashed a barrage of offensive Kidō. With his left palm facing down, he fired a beam of pale blue flames. Simultaneously, he brought the index and middle fingers of his right hand together and flicked them upward, summoning a pale cyan whirlwind from the ground!
The plaza, originally engulfed in crimson, suddenly bloomed with a touch of pale blue. It looked like blue oil paint spilled across a red canvas, or a solitary, freezing pool amidst a raging inferno. Looking at it alone, no one would associate it with scorching flames.
This harmonious scene did not last long. Fueled by the cyan whirlwind, the two types of flames intertwined as they rose and expanded. Like two giant pythons wrestling together, they rampaged madly across the plaza, reducing everything they touched to ashes.
The wind fanned the flames, and the flames bolstered the wind's might. The inferno burned for a full ten minutes before gradually dying down. The entire plaza was completely leveled, and even a row of adjacent buildings had mostly collapsed. However, that was the extent of the damage. While the buildings could only stand there and take the hit, the Quincies weren't stupid; they had retreated early on.
Although Kōe hadn't expected to wipe out the enemy with just two Hadō, seeing the twenty-one Quincies standing completely unscathed on the rooftops still left a sour taste in his mouth. *'Not even a speck of dirt on their clothes? You guys aren't showing me any respect at all!'* Especially since his old acquaintance, Knott Vohtz, was among them. He felt an inexplicable sense of embarrassment.
Speaking of embarrassment, the Quincies—who had been driven out of the plaza and lost control of the Senkaimon they were supposed to guard in the blink of an eye—were feeling even more humiliated. For a moment, both sides stared at each other from a distance, neither daring to make a rash move.
The Quincies' objective was to protect the Senkaimon, but with Kōe and Yoruichi currently standing right on top of it, they didn't dare act recklessly. Coincidentally, Kōe's objective was exactly the same. If this stalemate continued, it would be absolutely advantageous for him.
Just as Vohtz and the others were at a loss for what to do, a blond, blue-eyed Quincy youth suddenly launched an attack. Three arrows were fired almost simultaneously, aiming at Kōe, Yoruichi, and the Bell Prison beneath their feet. As if that wasn't enough, a darker, faster blue arrow immediately followed. Trailing like a meteor, it shot toward the Bell Prison. Despite being fired later, it arrived at the exact same time as the first three arrows!
"Lord Rein!" Vohtz blurted out in shock. Attacking the two Shinigami was understandable, but why attack their Senkaimon?
"[Hadō #4・Byakurai!]" Kōe's reaction was equally swift. Dozens of white lightning bolts continuously surged from his index finger. They weren't meant to block the arrows head-on, but rather to strike them precisely on the side, forcefully altering their trajectories. The four arrows either missed entirely or struck the ground; not a single one hit its intended target.
Seeing this, the youth called Rein wasn't discouraged. His left hand moved up and down so rapidly it looked as if four hands were continuously drawing the four strings of his diamond-shaped spirit bow. His figure flickered, appearing and disappearing across several rooftops. In an instant, a torrential rain of blue arrows—varying in shades—poured down from all directions!
If Rein had transformed into a mobile arrow tower, then Kōe was currently a ruthless Kidō battery!
"[Bakudō #12・Fushibi!]"
He first used the Kidō network formed by Fushibi to help track the arrows, allowing him to focus the majority of his energy on casting more Kidō.
"[Original Hadō #8・Twin Roar of White Lightning!]"
"[Original Hadō #12・Earth Piercing Sting!]"
Following that, he frantically spammed the two low-level Hadō as if they cost him nothing. Earth-yellow rock spikes and white lightning tightly defended both the ground and the air.
Rein attacked fiercely, and Kōe defended beautifully. For a time, smoke billowed from the ground, and blue meteors defied gravity to shoot into the sky. Yoruichi, standing to the side, found herself with nothing to do but watch the spectacle.
Just as she was getting bored enough to yawn, Ao's elderly voice rang out. "Go knock that archer brat unconscious for me!"
If it were just a matter of defending like this, Kōe would have been perfectly happy to slack off and stall for time. However, he noticed that a few of Rein's arrows had barely grazed past the Bell Prison—and he hadn't bothered to deflect those specific arrows at all!
A Quincy missing a stationary target? *'You've got to be kidding me! Those had to be intentional misses!'*
It wasn't hard to guess what such behavior meant. The enemy was probing his combat style and testing just how much he cared about the Senkaimon beneath the Bell Prison.
Previously, the Quincies had held back out of fear of damaging the Senkaimon. But now, seeing a Shinigami with such precise Kidō control choose to waste energy deflecting attacks rather than dodging, the implication was obvious: the Shinigami cared more about the Senkaimon than they did!
At this point, he needed to seize the initiative. Kōe understood that in a defensive battle, Yoruichi's usefulness was minimal. Therefore, he ordered her to abandon defense for offense, maximizing the utility of their combat power.
Rein was no slouch either. He issued commands almost simultaneously: "Attack the masked one! Don't hold back! I'll handle the woman with the staff! Open the Senkaimon as quickly as possible!"
The "woman with the staff" was naturally Yoruichi. Her Bankai took the form of a long staff, along which ten massive, cube-shaped boulders were distributed. Each of the four sides of these boulders bore different fire patterns that flickered in the night, making it even more eye-catching than the long-handled giant hammer of her Shikai.
Watching Yoruichi continuously create explosions of sparks, Kōe's face beneath his mask was full of schadenfreude. *'Poor girl, she's straying further and further down the path of a pyrotechnician.'*
To be honest, he wasn't under much pressure at the moment. Vohtz and the remaining Quincies were still firing arrows from a distance, but they lacked Rein's "arrow tower" capabilities. Although the power behind each of their arrows was stronger, in Kōe's eyes, it just meant he had to use slightly higher-level Hadō to alter their trajectories. Their lack of quantity and speed actually allowed him to spare some attention for Yoruichi.
Having already achieved Bankai, Yoruichi's strength was absolutely at the Captain level. Meanwhile, based on Kōe's observations, Rein's strength was above that of a Lieutenant but still fell short of a Captain. Therefore, in his view, Yoruichi should be able to finish him off very quickly.
However, an unexpected situation seemed to be unfolding. It wasn't that Yoruichi couldn't defeat Rein; rather, she surprisingly couldn't land a hit on him. It was hard to believe, but it was the truth.
Although the current Yoruichi wasn't yet the future "Flash Goddess Yoruichi," her Shunpo was absolutely top-tier within the Seireitei. Kōe could even tell that her Shunpo was more than twice as fast as it had been a hundred and fifty years ago!
However, Rein appeared to be just like Yoruichi, relying on a clean and decisive combat style based on speed. His Hirenkyaku—the unique movement technique of the Quincies—was the fastest Kōe had ever seen among any Quincy.
Even so, in terms of pure speed, Rein was still slightly slower than Yoruichi. So why couldn't she hit him?
If Kōe could have watched for a little while longer, he definitely would have figured it out. But at that moment, Vohtz and the others suddenly changed their method of attack, leaving him temporarily unable to divide his attention any further.
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