"Bankai, Akuryū Zōsei!!!" Miyamoto Tetsuya spread his arms wide and laughed madly.
Countless branches sprouted from the ground. But instead of leaves, these branches bore clusters of bacterial spores.
Each spore cluster, about the size of a pinky finger, quickly detached and dispersed through the air.
Although Miyamoto Tetsuya couldn't control the direction in which the spores scattered, the sheer number of them flooded every direction.
Nanatsuki's eyes narrowed. He rapidly retreated to widen the distance between himself and the approaching spore cloud.
To avoid accidentally coming into contact with too many spores and having his Reiatsu drained by the tumors, he immediately took out a Reiatsu-Converging Pill and swallowed it.
Miyamoto Tetsuya was a Shinigami similar in type to Mayuri Kurotsuchi—he even possessed thes ability to modify his own Zanpakutō.
This kind of Shinigami was notoriously tricky to deal with.
Nanatsuki glanced toward Miyamoto Tetsuya in the distance.
In just that brief moment, the wound stretching from his shoulder to his abdomen had already closed.
"My Bankai can fill your Shadow Space—where else can you run? Oh~ right~" Miyamoto mocked, "You can hide in the shadows and not come out—until your Reiatsu runs dry!"
At the same time, the Reishi Shells that came into contact with the spore cloud began to mutate rapidly.
Their bodies split open with countless fissures, from which bulging tumors began to grow.
"Aww, these Reishi Shells have reached their limit. Time to become nutrients for the Akuryū." Miyamoto chuckled softly.
The tumors grew larger and larger on their bodies. Once they reached the size of basketballs, they burst open.
From inside the tumors, spores scattered like dandelion seeds detaching from a stem, rapidly expanding outward.
The space Nanatsuki had to maneuver was shrinking by the second.
'I need a technique powerful enough to finish this in one strike.' Nanatsuki thought.
Although he could remotely attack Miyamoto with his shadows, Miyamoto had Captain-class Reiatsu. Shadows alone wouldn't be enough to kill him.
Miyamoto's body had been modified, making it vastly different from ordinary spiritual bodies.
The bacterial spores attached to him continuously injected regenerative agents into his body, giving him an extraordinary healing factor.
Dragging this out any longer would only work against him.
Nanatsuki raised his Zanpakutō. With his left hand, he bent his index and middle fingers and clamped the blade tightly.
By abandoning the use of a blade hilt and relying solely on his fingers to compress Reiatsu, the swing speed needed to reach its absolute peak in order to maintain stability when releasing the Flowlight.
In the past, his slashing speed had been far inferior to Batsu'unsai's and hadn't met the threshold required for using Blade Sealing.
He had wanted to unleash Flowlight through Blade Sealing using the Thunder-Finger Blade technique to increase his swing speed.
But his strength had already far surpassed what it was before.
Now, even without relying on the Thunder-Finger Blade, Nanatsuki could execute Flowlight using Blade Sealing.
But ordinary Flowlight wouldn't be enough to kill Miyamoto.
After pinching the blade between his fingers, arcs of light and sparks began dancing at Nanatsuki's fingertips.
Even more, an invisible airflow coiled around his fingers.
That airflow carried the arcs and sparks onto the blade.
In a blink, the black blade was wrapped in shimmering threads of golden light, formed from the merging of arcs, sparks, and wind.
The golden threads dyed the blade a dark golden hue.
Stormblaze Thunderflame: Flowlight!
Nanatsuki released his grip, and his Zanpakutō slashed upward.
A dim golden streak of light shot out instantly, reaching Miyamoto in a flash.
Its speed had already surpassed Miyamoto's reflexes.
He didn't even have time to dodge before the golden light pierced through him.
The next moment, Miyamoto's body disintegrated, his Reishi body dissolving within the streak of light.
The dim golden Flowlight didn't slow. It blasted into the wall formed by dark shadows at the edge of the Shadow Space.
A sharp crack echoed.
The Shadow Space shattered like broken glass.
The Flowlight didn't stop. It shot through the underground lab, then pierced through the ground itself.
On the surface, two Onmitsukidō operatives were vigilantly watching the surroundings. If anything suspicious occurred, they were to immediately notify the team infiltrating the underground facility to evacuate.
Suddenly, both Shinigami sensed a terrifying Reiatsu fluctuation surging up from below.
"Isn't there Sekkiseki down there? How is this Reiatsu wave getting through?!" one of them wondered.
But the next moment, out of sight, a streak of dim golden light burst from the ground.
It shot through the earth and into a surface lake.
Zzzzzz— The two noticed something happening in the lake. They immediately used Shunpo to ascend into the air—and saw the lake roiling violently.
Steam burst from its surface as the water level dropped rapidly.
In the blink of an eye, half of the massive lake—spanning thousands of square kilometers—had evaporated.
The streak of dim golden light was now visible to the two Onmitsukidō members in the air.
"What is that light?!" Both Shinigami were utterly shaken.
What they were seeing was too horrifying. A lake that size had evaporated in an instant!
And yet the golden light didn't stop.
Everything in its path—trees, boulders, even mountains—was destroyed and pierced through.
No one knew how far it went before it finally dissipated.
The two Onmitsukidō operatives hovered in stunned silence for a long moment before snapping back to their senses.
One quickly pulled out a Denreishinki.
"Vice-Captain, we just witnessed something strange! A beam of light shot out from underground—are you all safe? What happened down there? Isn't the area sealed with Sekkiseki? That light even pierced through it?!"
They were full of questions, but the most unbelievable part was—the beam had pierced through Sekkiseki, which is supposed to block all Reishi!
What they didn't know was that the Flowlight released by Nanatsuki didn't just contain Reishi, but also physical slashing force. Sekkiseki couldn't withstand such a blow and was directly pierced.
From the Denreishinki, Shihoin Yoruichi's voice responded. She sounded just as confused:
"I don't know the exact details, but… I think that was my teacher's sword technique."
Because of the separation caused by the Shadow Space, Yoruichi hadn't been able to see what had happened.
"That was swordsmanship?!" the Onmitsukidō operatives were left dumbfounded.