Chapter 39: Devouring Grimmjow |
"Cero."
Grimmjow, who had just ascended to the rank of Vasto Lorde, raised his right hand. He spoke with cold indifference, his gaze fixed on the crimson arrow launched from Lilith's bow.
A brilliant red radiance gathered before his palm, pulsing with overwhelming waves of Reiatsu. In an instant, it transformed into a massive torrent of concentrated energy, surging forward to meet Lilith's arrow head-on.
The Cero of a Vasto Lorde!
This blast was leagues beyond those of Gillians or Adjuchas in every respect, whether in pure volume or its lethal level of concentration.
Boom!
The collision between Grimmjow's Cero and Lilith's arrow produced an ear-splitting thunderclap. A blinding flash of red light erupted, momentarily illuminating the dark, desolate wastes of Hueco Mundo.
The vast sea of grey sand covering the ground was whipped into a frenzy, billowing outward in every direction like a terrifying, primordial sandstorm.
Every Hollow within a radius of several kilometers recoiled instinctively, falling into a state of paralyzed shock at the raw power on display.
The opening exchange had ended in a stalemate.
"Heh..."
Grimmjow let out a malicious smirk, staring up at Lilith. He raised his hands and unleashed a savage roar, "Desgarron!"
Accompanying his roar, the razor-sharp claws on his hands ignited with a brilliant blue radiance.
In the blink of an eye, he vanished, reappearing directly in front of Lilith to deliver a blistering strike.
His clawed hands lashed out from multiple angles, unleashing ten massive blue energy trails that wove together into a dense, inescapable net designed to tear Lilith's small frame into ribbons.
Boom!
Lilith remained unnervingly calm in the face of the assault. She gripped the end of her massive bow's shaft with her small hands and swung it like a heavy club against the encroaching blue net.
The dense network of energy distorted violently before shattering into fragments under the sheer weight of Lilith's brute-force counterattack.
But Grimmjow didn't wait for the debris to clear.
Whoosh!
Grimmjow's figure blurred and reappeared behind the turning Lilith, thrusting his sharp claws directly toward her heart.
Lilith showed neither fear nor surprise at this seemingly sudden and lethal assault; her crimson eyes tracked every micro-movement of her opponent with ease.
Thud!
Lilith snapped her left elbow back, meeting Grimmjow's clawed hand with a hard block just inches from her chest.
She turned slowly, meeting the shocked gaze of the Vasto Lorde with a bored expression. "Is that really all you're capable of?"
As she spoke, she freed her right hand and drove a tiny fist—wreathed in an immense amount of concentrated Reiatsu—straight at Grimmjow, all while maintaining her grip on the bow with her left hand.
Boom!
Thrown back several meters by the heavy blow, Grimmjow stared intently at the diminutive girl. His Vasto Lorde pride and arrogance began to crumble.
He had never imagined that Lilith would continue to block his attacks so effortlessly, even after his ascension to the highest rank of Hollow!
'This Shinigami possesses terrifying power!'
In truth, in a direct contest of raw spiritual power, Lilith was slightly inferior to the transformed Grimmjow. Her ability to parry his superior speed and strength came from her high-level Dojutsu, which perfectly complemented her Shinigami abilities.
Just like Yeruashi, Lilith was capable of manifesting her Dojutsu in her soul form.
Unlike the Nine-Tomoe Rinne Sharingan of the Naruto world, Lilith's visual technique specialized in close-quarters combat. The dynamic vision of the Sharingan and the vast perspective of the Byakugan were nothing compared to the precision of her specialized eyes.
Her Dojutsu enhanced her dynamic vision to such an extent that she could clearly track Yeruashi's movements even at dozens of times the speed of sound, let alone a Vasto Lorde's bursts of speed.
Lilith suddenly put distance between herself and the staggered Grimmjow, raising her massive bow once more as she began to draw the string.
"Bankai, Final Scene: Jigoku no Songu!"
Lilith understood perfectly well that a Vasto Lorde possessing such massive Reiatsu could almost never be defeated by standard means. She decided to unleash the most devastating ability of her Bankai.
Hum-m-m!
As the bowstring was pulled back, the surrounding Reishi began to vibrate violently, creating a distortion visible to the naked eye.
To activate this technique, Lilith didn't pull the string with her hands alone; she used her entire body. Most notably, unlike her battle with the Panther Clan, she positioned herself exactly where the arrow should form, bracing her feet against the bowstring rather than her hands.
The ultimate technique of this Bankai centered on transforming the master into the arrow itself!
It was a technique that carried immense risk, not just for the target but for the wielder as well—a perfect testament to Lilith's unwavering resolve.
By concentrating her entire spiritual essence, she would create an attack of unimaginable destructive potential.
But...
Lilith would be reduced to a pulp of flesh and bone if she failed to pierce her opponent through with this single strike.
Kill the enemy, or perish.
That was the essence of her Bankai's ultimate form!
As the massive bowstring reached full tension, Lilith's figure began to glow crimson, accompanied by the frantic churning of the surrounding Reishi.
In an instant, she transformed into a colossal arrow of blood, radiating a pale scarlet light that rivaled a full moon.
"!"
Grimmjow narrowed his eyes, his muscles tensing. Instinct screamed at him, warning of the mortal peril radiating from Lilith's blood-red form. He knew the attack was lethal, and he felt that dodging it was impossible.
If it couldn't be avoided...
Then he would simply crush it with everything he had!
"Desgarron!"
Grimmjow roared as the colossal Reiatsu of the strongest class of Hollow surged into his arms, concentrating entirely at the tips of his razor claws.
The extreme concentration of energy ignited a storm in the surrounding atmosphere, creating spatial distortions around his hands. The grey, lifeless sand of Hueco Mundo vibrated violently, sending concentric ripples outward across the desert like waves on a calm lake.
Lilith cast a cold, detached look at Grimmjow. She folded her delicate hands before her, mimicking the point of an arrowhead, and finally released the shot.
Whoosh!
Lilith's figure tore through the air, turning into a streak of brilliant crimson light that seemed to split the dark sky of Hueco Mundo in two.
With a primal, beastly roar, Grimmjow thrust his hands forward. Ten elongated blue claws, forged from a staggering amount of concentrated Reiatsu, shot out to meet the incoming Lilith.
The ten long blue claws flew in a tight formation, rotating rapidly clockwise to form a massive, shimmering blue drill.
A heartbeat later...
The blue drill and the red arrow collided in the middle of the dark sky!
The scale of this clash between a Vasto Lorde's ultimate strike and Lilith's Bankai was comparable to a battle between elite Captain-level Shinigami in the Soul Society.
The world itself shuddered before splitting apart at the moment of impact!
A brilliant crimson radiance flooded the ground after engulfing the sky, while a vivid blue light surged upward, bathing the earth below in its glow.
A stark boundary formed between the heavens and the earth, the intense brilliance illuminating the vast, gloomy expanse of Hueco Mundo like a rising sun!
Countless arcs of red and blue lightning branched out from the epicenter of the collision, spider-webbing across the sky and the sands.
The scarlet and blue lights froze in a fierce, uncompromising deadlock, venting secondary bursts of concentrated Reiatsu in every direction.
Meanwhile, Nell Tu, who was still about twenty kilometers away, could clearly see the violent clash of colors lighting up the horizon like a false dawn.
"Just as I thought, a battle..." "It seems it has already reached its climax," she whispered.
She could tell from the sheer power of the Reiatsu pulse that the new Vasto Lorde had staked everything on this single attack.
But what shocked her even more was the equally powerful Reiatsu opposing it—energy that was distinctly non-Hollow. It had to belong to a Shinigami from the Soul Society!
The new Vasto Lorde had not only encountered an exceptionally powerful Shinigami, but their battle was clearly reaching its end.
The outcome of this clash would decide who lived and who died!
"..."
Without a moment's hesitation, Nell Tu took a sharp breath and pushed her speed to its absolute limit, racing toward the light.
Rumble!
The struggle between the blue drill and the crimson arrow continued to produce a terrifying din, accompanied by violent surges of spiritual energy.
Grimmjow, having poured every drop of Reiatsu into the attack, bared his teeth in a savage grin and began to funnel his very life essence into the strike.
But...
As the stalemate persisted, the razor-sharp tips of the rotating blue claws—forged from massive Reiatsu and pure spiritual force—began to spider-web with fine cracks before finally starting to crumble!
Having only just evolved into a Vasto Lorde, Grimmjow hadn't fully mastered his new capabilities. His attacks relied on the sheer, unrefined concentration of his massive energy.
Lilith, however, had wagered her life on this final strike, an attack specifically designed to end an opponent of equal strength in a single blow.
Grimmjow let out a maddened roar, his eyes bloodshot, but he could no longer hold back the tide as his own attack began to disintegrate.
In the end...
The scarlet arrow tore through the blue Desgarron like a hot blade through butter, slamming directly into Grimmjow's crossed arms!
Splat!
After a brief moment of resistance, Grimmjow's arms were mercilessly shredded by the arrow.
Thud!
The crimson arrow then plowed through Grimmjow's torso and plummeted into the lifeless desert behind him.
The surrounding desert buckled and groaned before collapsing inward, as if signaling the onset of a catastrophic earthquake.
When the dust settled, a massive black crater several kilometers wide had been carved into the uniform desert, revealing the Forest of Menos lurking beneath the sands of Hueco Mundo.
Yet not a single Hollow remained in that exposed section of the forest; they had all fled the moment Grimmjow first began his transformation into a Vasto Lorde.
"Cough..."
Grimmjow, suspended in the air directly above the exposed forest, hacked up a mouthful of blood. With great effort, he tilted his head down to inspect his abdomen.
Where his small Hollow hole had once been, a massive, bloody void now gaped, nearly severing his upper and lower body.
"I'm not... yet..."
Grimmjow ground his teeth, his eyes burning with refusal.
How... how could he die here, immediately after finally reaching the peak of Vasto Lorde status?!
He hadn't even begun his conquest of Hueco Mundo!
He hadn't become the true King!
"A-a-a-h!"
With a guttural, animalistic roar, Grimmjow's flesh began to writhe and flow toward his shattered abdomen, desperately trying to fill the void.
While many Hollows lose their high-speed regeneration upon becoming Arrancars in exchange for other powers, almost all of them possess it to some degree before then—especially the mightiest among them, the Vasto Lorde!
But...
Grimmjow had not only suffered a catastrophic wound; he had completely exhausted his Reiatsu. This wasn't just a severed limb or a damaged internal organ; it was a mortal injury that had disintegrated a massive amount of his spiritual particles.
Had he still been an Adjuchas, he would have dissipated into nothingness the moment Lilith's arrow made contact.
His flesh and blood continued to slowly crawl toward the center of the wound, but their momentum and vitality were visibly fading with every passing second.
It was at that moment that Lilith appeared in the sky above the ruined desert, flying slowly toward him.
Chishita had already returned to its sealed state. Lilith's Reiatsu seemed depleted and fragile, but her gaze remained steady and full of calm confidence.
"You..."
Grimmjow turned his head, his mouth hanging open as he stared at the approaching girl.
At that instant, Lilith's upper body began to swell and distort. Her snow-white hair whipped around as she turned into a viscous, milky-white fluid before taking the shape of a colossal, one-eyed head.
Crunch! Crunch!
Lilith, having transformed part of her soul into the form of the Ten-Tails, opened a terrifying, fanged maw and snapped her jaws shut. She chewed several times before swallowing Grimmjow whole.