Inside the Central Training Ground, the previously suffocating balance was finally broken.
Like a bowstring snapped at its limit or a frozen volcano erupting, the battle between Isayama Yomi and Unohana Retsu suddenly entered a new stage that made everyone's souls tremble!
No longer a probing match, no longer a peak contest of skill, it had returned to the most primitive and savage killing instinct of living creatures—slaughter!
"Chila—Clang! Puchi!"
The ear-piercing sonic booms almost tore through space! The dull thuds of sharp blades cutting through shinigami uniforms and tearing flesh, combined with the screeching whistles of Zanpakuto violently clashing, wove together into a frenzied symphony.
The movements of the two turned into two blurry afterimages, so fast that even the eyes struggled to track their trajectories.
The once elegant and flowing footwork, and the exquisite techniques of deflecting and redirecting force, seemed to have been thrown into a furnace and completely incinerated.
What remained was only pure speed, violent power, and... naked desire for destruction!
They abandoned all forms of defense almost simultaneously!
Isayama Yomi's ruthless moves, like those of a phantom assassin, were completely reckless. Every strike condensed all the wicked Spiritual Pressure suppressed for six years, aiming directly at Unohana Retsu's throat, heart, and brow—vital points—as if she wanted to skin the "Strongest Swordsman" alive.
In those blood-colored eyes burned a wildness and brutality crazier than the fires of hell.
Her shinigami uniform was already torn to rags. On her exposed snow-white skin, deep and shallow sword wounds crisscrossed, with blood flowing like small streams, staining half her body red.
And Unohana Retsu, this "Demon of the Sword" who had stood at the pinnacle of Soul Reaper swordsmanship for a thousand years, felt her long-dormant fighting spirit completely ignited and boiling!
Facing Yomi's tempestuous and death-defying assault, her signature gentle smile had long since vanished, replaced by a deep, pure, and awe-inspiring focus and turbulence.
She did not choose to overcome force with skill, but instead responded in the most direct and dangerous way!
That unreleased, seemingly ordinary Zanpakuto erupted with the power of a landslide or tsunami in her hands. It was no longer a rock of protection, but a murderous weapon piercing straight into purgatory!
"Hah!"
With a low, sharp cry from Unohana Retsu, the momentum of her blade suddenly changed again!
She no longer just blocked with walls of Spiritual Pressure, but chose to meet Yomi's attacks with her own!
The blade precisely met every sword strike Yomi dealt, completing the most dangerous exchanges in the gaps of a thousandth of a second.
Every clash of blades sent out a shower of blinding sparks, and every pass-by drew a trail of spurting blood droplets!
Yomi slashed at Unohana Retsu's waist and abdomen. Unohana Retsu didn't even dodge; she flipped her wrist, her blade sliding along Yomi's sword toward her wrist. Simultaneously, she closed in sideways, delivering a knee strike wrapped in condensed Spiritual Pressure hard into Yomi's chest and abdomen!
Yomi barely pulled back her arms to block. The immense force made her groan, her chest churning as she stumbled back.
But the blood-red in her eyes deepened. She forced her body to twist, delivering a tricky backhanded upward slash aimed straight for the center of Unohana Retsu's back!
As if she had eyes in the back of her head, Unohana Retsu didn't even turn around. Her Zanpakuto parried backward at an incredible angle. "Ding!" Sparks flew everywhere.
Using the force of the collision, she spun instantly. Her long blade, driven by centrifugal force, turned into a mournful crescent arc of light, sweeping toward Yomi's neck!
Yomi leaned back awkwardly. The blade passed almost touching the tip of her nose, the wind from the sword carving a thin line of blood on her cheek.
She kicked off the ground violently with one foot, launching herself like a cannonball back into Unohana Retsu's embrace. Her right fingers formed a claw, whistling as they tore through the air, aiming straight for the heart!
Unohana Retsu's eyes turned cold. She also abandoned elegant parrying techniques. Her left hand shot out like lightning, fingers pressed together like a knife, carrying terrifying Spiritual Pressure as she stabbed fiercely into Yomi's palm!
"Bang!" A dull impact, and the air exploded! Both of their arms shook violently, and they were both sent flying back by the massive impact!
Blood, like splashed ink, continued to bloom and spread across the cracked blue-black stone slabs on the ground.
The wounds on their bodies were increasing at an alarming rate, yet they were being suppressed and repaired in an equally startling manner.
Being pushed to such a pathetic state by Yomi didn't mean she couldn't win.
A thousand years of accumulation gave her countless ways to temporarily suppress or even severely injure the crazed girl before her.
But that would be too boring!
This near-suicidal, life-risking slaughter, this fighting spirit wild enough to scorch the soul—this was exactly the opponent she had sought in vain throughout the long years!
If she crushed the opponent with overwhelming power, the core meaning of this slaughter would be destroyed as well.
"Mmm..." Unohana Retsu took a deep breath of the air filled with the scent of blood and rust, a intoxicated and excited light flashing in her eyes.
A certain "switch" inside her was flipped.
There was no shouting of the Bankai's true name, nor the full release of that massive Spiritual Pressure that made the world tremble and disintegrated all things.
But the shape of the ordinary Zanpakuto in her hand was undergoing a subtle yet fundamental change.
On the blade, the covering Spiritual Pressure was no longer a formless, quality-less airflow, but had become... viscous!
A crimson Spiritual Pressure, dark like clotted blood, began to flow and coil around the blade. Every swing seemed to pull out fine, hard-to-heal "blood scars" in the air.
As the crimson light swept through the air, it made a faint "sizzle" sound, with faint signs of being corroded and decomposed.
Beneath her feet, on the ground she trod upon, faint dark-red patterns appeared on the hard stone slabs, as if they had been soaked in blood.
This was just the tip of the iceberg of her Bankai [All Things' End]'s core power—the ultimate ferocious power symbolizing the essence of "blood" and "battle," of which she had carefully released only a negligible trace!
She danced on the tip of a blade, maintaining a delicate balance on the edge of the abyss of slaughter's pleasure. She didn't let this power overwhelm her opponent instantly, but used this lethal bloody aura to push this cruel aesthetic to the extreme!
She didn't want it to end; she only wanted to be intoxicated by it, to see how long this bloody, wicked flower could sway in the storm of destruction!
As the one enduring this bloody sword momentum, the pressure Isayama Yomi felt was something others simply couldn't imagine.
Every contact with that crimson blade was not just a physical cut or an energy impact.
The "blood" intent attached to the blade drilled into her wounds like a maggot in the bone, trying to congeal her blood, disintegrate her will, and drag her flesh and even her soul into that endless purgatory of slaughter!
Intense pain! A pain that went deep into the marrow and touched the soul!
But instead of making her retreat, it was like pouring oil onto a fire!
Something deep within her, equally terrifying and equally longing for release, was completely infuriated by this external bloody ferocity!
"Ugh—ah—!" A low growl that didn't sound human, filled with pain and madness, squeezed out from the depths of Yomi's throat.
Every time her body was severely injured by the blood blade, the wounded area would instantly erupt with a more intense and wicked red glow!
Inside those wounds that were deep enough to see bone and even potentially fatal, it was as if countless blood-red energy threads were rapidly weaving, knitting, and closing!
Muscle fibers aggregated like wriggling little snakes, and bones made faint but tooth-aching "clack-clack" sounds of squeezing and restructuring.
This was not the Kaidō healing technique of the Soul Reaper World! This was an instinctive reaction from the core of the sesshōseki deep within her soul—the stone she had brought with her when traveling between worlds—which contained powers of immortality and calamity!
This power was passively driving her body into an outburst that transcended limits. Consequently, her Spiritual Pressure, like a furnace forcibly ignited, climbed uncontrollably in the cycle of constant injury and repair!
The violent torrent of energy washed through her entire body, remodeling her meridians and blood vessels, transforming her pain, madness, and unyielding spirit into a purer, more wicked power!
This power fused intensely with her own combat instincts, ensuring her movements didn't slow down under heavy injury but instead became wilder, more reckless, and more filled with a suicidal madness.