Riku's POV.

The minotaur Vasto Lorde attempted to take my head off with a wild right swing. His arm muscles tensed heavily in the attempt. His claws, however, were no longer a threat. The Hierro around the claws was no longer as stable and sharp as before.

He's gotten sloppy.

The sweat cascading down his snout, and his laboured breath pointed to him losing steam.

'Bakudō #8. Seki'

I quickly activated a Seki from the back of my left palm. I used the repulsion produced by the spell to angle and deflect the swing. He immediately stumbled backwards, seemingly not prepared for an obvious counter to such a reckless move.

As any warrior worth his salt would, I capitalised on his slip-up.

With a pulse of my Seki rockets (henceforth known as just rockets), I closed the distance between us. With all due credit to him, he recovered quite quickly and tried to bring up his left, likely as an attempt to uppercut me. However, it was too late.

By the time his left was halfway up, both my palms were centimetres away from his mask. I was facing two opponents, so I tried to pace myself. Instead of going for a flashy high-level Kidō, I settled for something a bit more practical.

"Hadō #73. Sōren Sōkatsui."

His bright yellow pupils dilated to their extreme, and I watched how the creature cycled through multiple emotions in what seemed to be a single moment. First, surprise, then despair, which was quickly eclipsed by rage, and finally giving way to a sort of acceptance.

The blue flames of Sōren Sōkatsui wasted no time engulfing the creature's entire upper torso. Permanently ending the clumsy Vasto Lorde.

'What a waste...'

Silence fell onto the battlefield, with only the ever-blowing winds of Hueco Mundo preventing complete silence. The remains of the dead Hollow collapsed not long after.

A ridicule-filled applause rang out as I distractedly watched the corpse start slowly break down into reishi.

'Szayelaporro.'

I knew a single Shakkahō wouldn't be enough to keep him down for long. I just needed a few seconds for me to finish off the weaker Vasto Lorde.

'Weaker' at least according to his reiatsu.

The destined Octava Espada appeared similar to his released form in the anime. He was essentially a weird purple, pink and grey hentai-tentacle monster in a humanoid form. I'm not one to judge by appearances, but it was obvious to anyone that he probably had some disgusting method to fight.

"Well done, Shinigami-san..." In an exaggerated, sarcastic voice, he started his expected monologue. His pink hair fluttered in the wind as he tilted his head to the side.

"Although, Juren was a weakling who was, in all honestly, lucky to have made it all the way to the Vasto Lorde level. He was still a...colleague of sorts." With a surprisingly quick movement, he appeared not far from me.

"I'm sure Baraggan will start nagging if I don't bring him something of value in exchange for losing a...valuable subordinate." It seemed he couldn't bring himself to believe his words as he struggled to keep himself from laughing out loud.

However, I wasn't just standing there listening to the giggling pervert. During his monologue, I actively and discretely spread trap seals throughout the area. Mainly under the sand, but a few were invisible and could be placed in the air.

I could also sense a sizable reiatsu closing in on our location. I didn't know if Szayelaporro could as well since his body language had practically remained the same as earlier.

Deciding to get this over with, I immediately concealed my reiatsu to a minimum. Before Szayelaporro could react, I turned invisible and propelled myself backwards.

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'Bakudō #26. Kyokkō'

And not a moment too soon. Right after I left my previous position, a pink tentacle spiked from under the sand. The failed attack was followed up by an irritated "tsk".

Even if I was invisible, it didn't mean I couldn't be found. Previously I had modified the spell to mute any sound I make as well, but clearly, Szayelaporro had some other way of sensing me. I started circling the battlefield, and hopefully, that'll confuse the Hollow a bit.

Szayelaporro didn't stay idle, though. Six tentacles attached to his underarm rapidly extended and retracted in different directions.

*Floosh* *Boom* *Boom*

The attack was pretty much useless without a visual on a target. For practical purposes, he might as well have been flailing around.

It seemed he didn't have a good area-of-effect technique to handle this type of situation, but it could also be a trick.

Floating a few metres in the air, I contemplated my next actions. I had hoped that Szayelaporro would freak out and start moving around. That way, he would fall into the traps littering the battlefield.

But if I'm being honest, I can finish this battle pretty easily since Szayelaporro's abilities aren't particularly tricky to handle. Aside from Ceros, all I need to do is to avoid his tentacles.

*Sign*

Alright, let's end this.

As if sensing my change in mindset, the Hollow started charging up a bright pink Cero right in front of his mouth.

"Again, too slow..."

"Unnumbered Bakudō. Roppō Fūjin."

Multiple green cubes of energy immediately encased the bewildered Hollow. He immediately fired the charged-up Cero. The energy sphere exploded on contact. But it didn't so much as leave a crack in the barrier. It didn't take long for the colour in his face to drain after seeing that.

He followed up by spraying some disgusting-looking pale pink acid all over his prison. However, that ended with similar results.

I idly noted that my previous guess was correct. He did have something up his sleeve.

However, the unknown reiatsu signature was getting dangerously close.

'I need to hurry.'

Deciding not to delay, I started chanting a high-level spell. One that would probably put the tentacle creature out of its misery.

"Seeping crest of turbidity-", My voice rang out in the solemn tone this spell deserves.

"-Arrogant vessel of lunacy! Boil forth and deny!-" I ignored the Hollow's howling promises of my inevitable gruesome death at the hands of his King. As well as the various creative descriptions of what experiments he would run on me once he was free.

"-Grow numb and flicker! Disrupt sleep! Crawling queen of iron! Eternally self-destructing doll of mud!-"

In the background, the incoming hostile entered my scanning range. It was a middle-aged human (sort of) encased in pure reishi and generally resembled a comet - as the reishi left a trail in his wake.

Feeling an increased sense of urgency, I practically growled out the remaining incantation.

"Unite!"

"Repulse!"

"Fill with soil and-" I raised my index finger in his direction while Sōten ni zase strained at the effort of empowering the spell to the absolute limit.

I would not take a chance with an opponent known to revive himself multiple times.

As the final part of the spell matrix activated, I concluded the chant with a low tone of sombre finality.

"Know your own powerlessness. Hadō #90. Kurohitsugi."

Dirty grey reiatsu fluctuated off me, and from it, pitch-black bands of materialised space energy slowly weaved around the Roppō Fūjin.

Throughout the process, the Hollow screamed and ranted about how he would eventually return to wear my skin as a coat.

I like to believe that both of us knew this was the end for him.

The shouting gradually seeped more and more with despair. And as the final black band was forming, he finally quieted down. Instead of glaring at his killer, he simply closed his eyes. Seemingly just tired of all of this.

It mattered not. The black bands finally enclosed the Hollow and coalesced to form a large black coffin. With a quick mental command, I deactivated the Roppō Fūjin to ensure the Hadō has maximum effect.

The weaker chantless version of Kurohitsugi essentially acts as an iron maiden, piercing the opponent from all sides. However, the chanted version is very different.

As the Hollow was undoubtedly experiencing firsthand, the full-power version of the spell essentially trapped the opponent in a maelstrom of intense gravity.

Within the coffin, spacetime distorts, and the fabric of reality is pissed on. The final result is that whatever was in there before is pulverised into cosmic dust.

As expected, within a few moments after activation, the spell ran out of power and disintegrated into pure reishi. Presumably, along with whatever remained of the Hollow.

It was a shame that I lost both Hollow specimens, but I couldn't risk leaving them alive while I duke it out with an unknown hostile.

Technically I don't actually know if the middle-aged man is hostile, but who are we kidding? The guy is rushing to a battlefield with a manic grin on his face - he is definitely here to pick a fight.

I didn't have the leisure of fully recovering to my peak condition as a veritable shower of reiatsu arrows rapidly closed in on my location.

Finding it prudent to avoid any attacks from an enemy with unknown abilities. I sent a pulse of energy to my rockets and quickly launched myself a good distance away from my previous location.

The species of my opponent was quite evident by now. He was a Quincy — a powerful Quincy at that.

I just hope he's a traditionalist with predictable and rigid techniques.

Because as I am right now, I don't think I can take on a fucking Sternritter...