"Monster!!!"
"This Bai Chen—he's a total monster!!!"
"Why is his Zanpakutō that strong?!"
"Why does he—just in Shikai—have power that's more than ten times stronger than me even after I release?!"
"Ulquiorra…"
"At this rate, the two of us are completely finished!!!"
At that moment—
Driven by instinctive terror, and the crushing despair of facing death—
Wrath-Beast Yammy's massive body curled into a tight ball.
If he hadn't been screaming like a madman, you might've mistaken him for a moving mountain of flesh—
a living target waiting to be pummeled.
Normally, with Ulquiorra's temperament, he would've coldly shut Yammy up on the spot.
But now…
Staring at that sky-reaching Giant Wood Golem—
Ulquiorra went silent.
Completely shut down.
For Ulquiorra—proud, aloof, always contemptuous of every species other than Hollows—
humans were trash.
Shinigami were trash.
Both were nothing more than "soul rations."
Yet before this enormous wooden deity—formed and solidified from a raging flood of spiritual power—
even if Ulquiorra didn't want to admit it…
he had to.
In front of a higher-tier power—
the Espada, born for slaughter from the moment they were given numbers,
looked no different from ordinary humans:
helpless.
hopeless.
and small.
Ulquiorra only had to look—
and the reiatsu inside him, once flowing endlessly with absolute confidence…
was starting to stagnate.
He couldn't even breathe right.
Seeing Ulquiorra not respond, Yammy swallowed hard, stammering through terror:
"Ulquiorra…"
"How about we… just run back to Hueco Mundo?!"
He knew what that meant.
Total disgrace.
Total failure.
But he still trembled and pushed it anyway, face be damned:
"Your eyes have already recorded everything, right?"
"Then… this mission can count as barely completed!"
"Even if we crawl back looking pathetic, we shouldn't get punished!"
But—
after transforming, Yammy's voice had also grown absurdly loud.
Even if he tried to whisper…
Bai Chen heard every word up in the sky.
"Run away?"
Bai Chen held both blades and sneered.
"Yammy… don't bother."
"You really think Soul Society is your personal garden—come and go whenever you want?"
He clapped his hands.
And the "Gundam" he was piloting—the Giant Wood Golem—moved with him.
It raised its enormous arm.
It had no weapon in its hand…
yet it roared and lunged, clawing at the air—towering over Yammy with absolute dominance.
And the Wood Dragon coiled around its arm—
ROARED.
BOOOOM—!!
That sound alone blasted through the sky over Rukongai.
A waterfall of reiatsu slammed down from above.
Wrath-Beast Yamikmy's massive body staggered back—trembling.
If he didn't have twelve legs bracing him…
he would've been flipped like a toy.
Far away, the Shinigami sucked in cold air one after another.
Under Sasakibe's command, hundreds of purification troops released their spiritual pressure together, forming a temporary barrier—
barely holding back the constant shockwinds.
But even from that distance…
watching Yammy's humiliation—
they were stunned all over again by how insane a wood-type Zanpakutō could be.
"If that massive Wood Dragon wraps around him…"
"Wrath-Beast Yammy will get smashed to pieces by the wood golem in one hit…"
Ikkaku stared wide-eyed.
He still couldn't believe it.
What had looked like a desperate "run for your life" situation had flipped instantly into a one-sided stomp.
This kind of "free win" felt unreal.
Back in Rukongai, following Zaraki…
every fight ended with cracked skulls and blood.
This?
This was a different universe.
"Yeah…"
"And thank god Boss Zaraki passed out early…"
Yumichika patted his chest, still shaken.
"If he'd pissed Bai Chen off…"
"Boss might've been slapped flat before the Arrancar even showed up."
He glanced back at Zaraki—now on a medical stretcher, receiving emergency treatment from Fourth Division members—
and silently thanked Bai Chen for holding back.
Otherwise…
there might never have been a "king of basic swings" in this world again.
Yammy Fires a Cero
Under everyone's horrified eyes—
as Bai Chen drove the giant construct,
the Wood Dragon dove through the clouds like a living storm—
and Yammy panicked.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!!!"
"I'm not fertilizer for the dirt!"
"Don't you dare drain all the reiatsu out of my body!!!"
Before coming, Yammy had studied intelligence on Wood Dragon.
He knew it could plunder spiritual power.
So to prevent the dragon from getting close—
"Cero—!!!"
Yammy bared his fangs and opened his mouth wide.
Like a whale swallowing the sky, he inhaled the air around him—
and fired.
BOOOOM!!
A crimson beam ripped across the horizon, carrying apocalyptic force.
It dyed the sky red as it surged forward—
about to collide head-on with the Wood Dragon.
Isane—who was no longer paralyzed by fear—still couldn't stop herself from worrying.
"That was his full-power blast…"
"Wood Dragon… it won't get pierced, right?"
Sasakibe, however, said the exact opposite—his tone almost cryptic.
"Pierced?"
"Lieutenant Isane… you still don't trust Bai Chen enough."
"In my view, Wrath-Beast Yammy should be thinking about something else…"
"Whether he can survive his own Cero."
Isane froze.
"You mean… it'll get pushed back?!"
If that really happened…
From Yammy's perspective, it would be absolute despair.
And then—
the battlefield answered in real time.
Wood Dragon: Absorb
Bai Chen, piloting his "Gundam," pulled off a flashy maneuver in front of everyone—
exactly like Sasakibe predicted.
"Wood Dragon—absorb!!!"
Bai Chen didn't visibly move.
But as his voice dropped from hundreds of meters above—
the Wood Dragon accelerated.
It dove straight into the Cero beam.
"What?!"
Yammy's eyes went blank.
His body shook with fear.
He couldn't believe it.
The Cero he'd fired with his entire stock of reiatsu—
was treated like nothing.
But what happened next was worse.
Far worse.
In the sky—
the collision happened…
yet the expected explosion did not.
"That's impossible!!!"
"It didn't just absorb the Cero…"
"It compressed it?!"
This time, the one who exclaimed wasn't Yammy.
It was Ulquiorra.
For the first time, the cold face with green tear lines cracked—
his emerald eyes filled with genuine shock.
Because the Cero—after being compressed—
had turned into a massive crimson sphere of spiritual power…
locked tightly in the Wood Dragon's jaws.
No explosion.
No leakage.
No overflow.
Then—
the Wood Dragon whipped its head around.
And in front of everyone—
it threw the crimson sphere like a toy.
A high arc.
Straight toward the Giant Wood Golem.
"WHAT THE—?!"
The entire battlefield went stupid.
Shinigami.
Yammy.
Ulquiorra.
Everyone's eyes nearly popped out of their skulls.
"You can do that?!"
Bai Chen looked down at their expressions from above and smiled in satisfaction.
"Scared already?"
"Back in the shinobi world, Senju Hashirama used the exact same method…"
"To deal with the Nine-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb."
His smile deepened.
"Getting your head blown off by your own Cero…"
"That has to be the most hopeless feeling in the world, right?"
He clapped his hands again.
The Giant Wood Golem moved in perfect sync.
Its gigantic arm reached out—
and caught the crimson Cero sphere in midair with flawless precision.
Then—
under Yammy's utterly desperate stare—
the wooden arm slammed downward.
It pinned Yammy's head—
and pressed the Cero sphere straight onto his forehead.
And finally—
BOOOOM!!!
The Cero detonated.
Yammy's head burst.
His enormous body collapsed in the explosion's glare—
and in front of everyone—
he was brutally headshotted by his own attack.
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