Kenpachi Zaraki had only covered half the distance toward the massive Evil Eye and the Golden Flame Blut Giant when his path was blocked by Sōsuke Aizen.
"Do not disturb Professor's battle."
Aizen gazed at the Golden Flame Blut Giant ahead, a flicker of longing visible in his eyes.
"Has Professor mastered the power of the Quincy?"
He instantly recognized the glowing blue veins coursing through the golden flame armor as the Quincy Blut ability.
Even though he had successfully fused with the Hōgyoku, Aizen realized he was still far behind his mentor.
Professor had mastered and harmonized the powers of Shinigami, Hollow, and Quincy. Aizen, on the other hand, was still hovering precariously on the boundary between Shinigami and Hollow.
Suddenly, he sensed a shift in his spiritual body. "The Hōgyoku is responding to my desire..."
The Hollow power dormant within Aizen began to surge. A thick white substance erupted from his chest, attempting to envelop him in a transformative cocoon.
"No. This is not the path I wish to walk!"
Aizen understood the Hōgyoku's intent and immediately waved his hand, forcefully dispersing the white matter surging from his chest.
A moment later, the Hōgyoku fell silent, and the white substance ceased to emerge.
After witnessing Professor's path to power, Aizen no longer considered transforming into a Hollow as true evolution.
Maintaining a human form while transcending boundaries—that was the correct direction for evolution!
Nelliel emerged from a pile of rubble nearby, her body covered in wounds.
She had been significantly injured by the internal explosion within the Evil Eye's red mist dimension.
"So strong... The peripheral shockwave alone was enough to seriously injure me. I can't intervene in a battle of this magnitude..."
Nelliel watched the clash between the Golden Flame Blut Giant and the colossal Evil Eye, and her resolve to gain power hardened.
The Hōgyoku fragment fused with her responded to her conviction, and the Shinigami power within her began to strengthen rapidly.
...
Having reabsorbed the red mist, the Evil Eye's physical form expanded dramatically. Its size now rivaled that of Sora's Golden Flame Blut Giant.
"Die!"
The crimson light within the Evil Eye intensified, turning the dark red sky of Hell pitch black.
Then, the darkness broke. Ten meteors, wreathed in crimson hellfire, tore through the blackened sky and smashed toward the ground.
"Is this the true power of the Evil Blade? If these meteors fell on the Soul Society, they could probably destroy the Seireitei entirely!" Nelliel looked up at the apocalyptic scene, her face etched with worry.
"Worry about yourself first. We are well within the blast radius." Aizen's expression was grave.
The meteors targeted not just the Golden Flame Blut Giant, but also Nelliel, Aizen, Zaraki, and the Hell Expeditionary Force stationed further away.
It was a massive area-of-effect annihilation attack!
"Then we just have to cut every last one of them down!" Zaraki grinned, his bloodlust spiking. Although he wasn't sure he could withstand such an attack, the word 'retreat' didn't exist in his vocabulary.
Just then, everyone felt their mouths go dry. The moisture in the air—and even from their skin—began to evaporate rapidly.
The Golden Flame Blut Giant in the sky moved.
The giant swung the hundred-meter-long blade in its hand. It slashed out a golden crescent so massive its edges extended beyond the horizon, encompassing all ten meteors and the hovering Evil Eye in a single stroke.
Boom—!!!
The ten crimson meteors detonated simultaneously in mid-air, and a wave of golden flames swallowed the entire sky.
In the distance, the members of the Hell Expeditionary Force—except for Captain Kuruyashiki—were knocked unconscious instantly by the sheer pressure of the shockwave.
Nelliel, Aizen, and Zaraki, who were closest to the epicenter, faced an even more dangerous impact.
Although the explosion occurred high in the sky, the shockwave slammed down with enough force to rip the ground apart.
Aizen reacted instantly. He raised his hand and cast Dankū three times in rapid succession, erecting a triple-layered barrier in front of them.
The first two barriers disintegrated instantly upon contact with the shockwave. The third Dankū, reinforced by Aizen's personal maintenance, barely managed to withstand the remaining force.
Moments later, the golden flames obscuring the sky began to dissipate.
The dark red sky of Hell was gone. In its place was a massive, pitch-black void.
"The sky of Hell... was pierced through!!!"
Nelliel stared, dumbfounded. As a Hollow, she was intimately familiar with the Garganta. She recognized at a glance that the darkness beyond the massive hole was the Garganta itself.
"Incredible power... to be able to tear directly through the dimension of Hell..." Aizen murmured, his voice low. "But this verifies one theory: the Three Worlds created by the Soul King are located directly above Hell."
Hueco Mundo, the World of the Living, and Soul Society were connected by the Garganta. In essence, they could be viewed as bubbles floating within the Garganta, with Hell serving as the bedrock below.
"It seems I have a long way to go," Zaraki thought, gritting his teeth. He felt that his own slashes were pitifully weak compared to an attack that could shatter space itself.
"That big eyeball has been cut in half." Nelliel regained her senses and pointed upward.
The massive Evil Eye in the sky had been bisected cleanly. The wound still burned with golden flames, which were spreading rapidly, consuming the entity.
"You... actually... have already... touched... the Soul King's... dimension..."
The Evil Eye's voice was broken and intermittent. The golden flames were incinerating its very essence, making speech difficult.
"Although we are both Transcendent, I have walked further on this path than you."
After entering the Transcendent form that fused the powers of Hollow, Shinigami, and Quincy, Sora discovered that the energies within him intertwined to create something new—a power possessing characteristics similar to the Soul King's own reiatsu.
However, he didn't believe he had reached the true heights of the Soul King yet. At the very least, he couldn't create the Three Worlds from nothing.
His 'Path of Transcendence' was still ongoing, but his current power was more than enough to crush the Evil Eye, an entity possessing only the powers of a Shinigami and Hell.
"You won..."
Countless golden cracks spread across the massive Evil Eye's surface. It could no longer suppress the turbulent energy raging within.
Bang!
The massive eyeball exploded in the air.
"A dying struggle."
Sora observed parts of the Evil Eye's body separating from the sections tainted by golden flames. These fragments turned into red mist and rained down on various spots on the ground.
However, the golden flames had already incinerated most of the Evil Eye's mass. The separated red mist was too weak to maintain the Transcendent state.
Upon hitting the ground, the red mist condensed into the puppet servants whose minds it had once corrupted. They immediately scattered, fleeing in all directions.
Sora dispersed the Golden Flame Blut.
He tapped his fingers repeatedly in the air. With every bolt of lightning fired from his fingertips, a puppet was blasted into oblivion.
Within moments, all the fleeing puppets were annihilated.
Sora could no longer sense the Spiritual Pressure of the Evil Eye.
"One threat resolved."
Regardless of the current status of Yhwach and the Lord of Hell, eliminating the Evil Eye significantly weakened the opposing forces.
An Evil Eye at the Transcendent level couldn't defeat Sora, but if the Lord of Hell wielded a Zanpakutō of that caliber, the story might be different.
At this moment, Kenpachi Kuruyashiki used Shunpo to arrive at Sora's side, delivering urgent intelligence.
"Captain Katori!"
"The SRDI just sent an emergency alert—the 'Hell's Eye Seal Site' is under attack by a strong enemy!"
"By the way, they also mentioned they couldn't reach your Denreishinki..."
"Is it Yhwach?" Sora asked calmly.
"It is Yhwach. And he's not alone—there are many powerhouses who fell to Hell in the past with him," Kuruyashiki explained, his expression grim. "They even identified several First Generation Captains!"
"First Generation Captains? Are they being controlled by the Will of Hell?"
Sora realized the timing was no coincidence. He had actively used 'Absolute Blind Spot' earlier, which cut off the signal of his Denreishinki. The SRDI couldn't contact him.
Yhwach had seized that exact moment to attack the other seal site.
"Yhwach finally made his move. He can't see my future, but he can see the future of the seal site to judge the perfect timing..."