"Is this the guardian of the Hell passage?"
Sōsuke Aizen gazed at the giant eyeball at the bottom of the lake.
"A Quincy..."
To those with keen spiritual senses, the Spiritual Pressure of Shinigami, Hollows, and Quincies were distinctly different. Aizen quickly discerned that this giant eyeball was neither a Shinigami nor a Hollow, but a Quincy.
"My Lord... have you already crossed the limit?"
A cold, hollow voice echoing in Sora's ears carried a trace of surprise.
The giant eyeball continued, "Since we last met... it seems not much time has passed..."
It had lived through eons, slumbering since ancient times until Sora's arrival awakened it. Therefore, in its view, a few decades were insignificant.
That Sora had achieved the goal of transcending the Shinigami limit in such a short time was truly unexpected to it.
Sora nodded and stated his purpose: "Yes. I am here to deal with the Zanpakutō of the Lord of Hell."
"Please wait..." A faint light lit up in the giant eyeball. "Allow me to inspect the seal..."
A moment later, the light in the eye dimmed, and it continued, "The seal binding the Will of Hell has been damaged. Now is indeed the best time to deal with the Evil Blade..."
The reason the Soul King sealed the Lord of Hell's Zanpakutō was due to the requirements of the sealing ritual.
These three seals located in special locations within Hell were interconnected, forming a trinity with distinct functions. The entire seal possessed functions like absorbing Reishi and self-repairing, ensuring the Lord of Hell could not break free on his own.
Now that the seal binding the Will of Hell had been destroyed by Yhwach, there was no need to keep the Lord of Hell's Zanpakutō to maintain the system.
"Are you two going in as well?" The giant eyeball looked at Sōsuke Aizen and Nelliel, warning them, "The Evil Blade possesses the power to corrupt the heart. Those defeated by the Evil Blade in the past have all become part of it. If you are defeated by the Evil Blade, its power will grow even stronger."
"Since we are already here, there is naturally no reason to retreat."
"I want to help too!"
Aizen and Nelliel nodded respectively.
"This is the formula to undo the seal." A Reishi formula projected from the pupil of the giant eyeball and landed in Sora's hand. "Place it on the Evil Blade, and the seal will be lifted..."
Then, a violent tremor came from the bottom of the lake, and the massive eyeball floated up.
The magma at the bottom of the lake was indeed the skin of the giant eyeball. As it floated up, the magma on its body did not drip off.
A moment later, the spot where the giant eyeball had been lodged revealed a deep pit comparable in size to a football field.
Inside the pit, a stone gate slowly opened, revealing a bottomless passage.
"I have opened the passage to Hell..."
"Please be careful... Do not let the Evil Blade provoke the darkness in your hearts..."
"Thanks, Big Eyes!" Nelliel patted the magma-like skin of the giant eyeball curiously. "Hiss, it's hot—it really is magma!"
The skin was indeed magma, but it was bound to the shell and did not flow off.
"Let's go."
Sora took the lead and entered the pit passage.
The passage at the bottom of the lake was bottomless. At the speed of the three, they traveled rapidly for two or three minutes without reaching the end.
Nelliel looked confused: "Is Hueco Mundo this deep? Diving this deep under the desert sands, we should have reached the Forest of Menos underground long ago."
"This is no longer Hueco Mundo," Sora explained, having noticed the hidden spells on the passage walls. "Hell is not located beneath Hueco Mundo, and this passage does not connect to the underground of Hueco Mundo. You can understand this place as a 'Dangai' leading to Hell, a passage connecting two worlds."
A moment later, the three reached the end of the passage.
There was an open stone gate at the end. After stepping through the gate, they arrived in Hell.
Sora observed the surrounding environment; they appeared to be inside a cave.
The location where the three stood was a T-junction. Besides the passage they came from behind them, there were two other paths.
"Is this Hell?"
The environment here made Nelliel feel somewhat uncomfortable.
"The Reishi here is very strange."
It was Nelliel's first time encountering Reishi containing the aura of Hell. However, since she used her own Spiritual Pressure when fighting, it wouldn't affect her performance in the short term.
"The Reishi in the environment all contain the aura of Hell, so this must be Hell."
"This is an antibody drug developed by the Department of Research and Development." Sora took out a few pills and handed them to Nelliel. "It can purify the Hell Reishi absorbed by the spirit body."
Sora and Sōsuke Aizen had already crossed the Shinigami limit. Their spirit bodies possessed the ability to automatically purify Hell Reishi, so they didn't need to take antibody drugs.
However, Nelliel couldn't purify Hell Reishi yet and needed the medication.
Nelliel took the pills, chewed them a few times to taste the flavor, and swallowed them with a grimace: "So bitter!"
"Do we need to notify the Shinigami stationed outside?"
One of the paths led to the outside. Sōsuke Aizen sensed the Shinigami outside the cave.
Layers of sealing Reishi formulas lined the cave. They were currently inside the seal, isolated from the Shinigami outside.
The Shinigami outside the cave were the Hell Expeditionary Force.
The seal binding the Hell's consciousness had already been destroyed.
The Hell Expeditionary Force had stationed troops at the other two seal locations to lie in wait, preventing Yhwach or the Lord of Hell from undoing these two seals.
Moreover, Captain-class Shinigami were stationed on rotation at both seal locations.
The ones currently on rotation here were Kenpachi Zaraki and Kenpachi Kuruyashiki.
"No need. Separated by the sealing formulas, they can't get in anyway. Let's go deal with the Evil Blade directly."
Sora entered the path opposite to the direction leading outside.
The further they went, the more sealing formulas appeared on the walls. Dense sealing formulas, like thin threads, extended to the end of the passage.
At the end of the passage, a Zanpakutō was stuck in the ground. Countless sealing formulas wrapped around the blade like chains.
Sora opened his palm, and the Reishi formula given to him by the giant eyeball flew out, landing on the sealed Zanpakutō.
The sealing formulas on the Zanpakutō rapidly faded and disappeared.
In the next moment, billowing red smoke suddenly erupted from the blade of the Zanpakutō, surging towards the three of them.
"The seal on the Evil Blade is lifted. Be careful!" Sora warned.
The billowing red smoke enveloped the three at an extremely fast speed, pulling them into a strange space filled with red mist.
"It looks a bit like the environment created by Minazuki..."
Sora looked around. Except for the absence of a blood pool on the ground, the surrounding red mist was very similar to the environment created by Unohana's Bankai.
However, the effect of this red mist was completely different from the red mist created by Minazuki.
In the red mist, countless indistinct blood-red figures gradually emerged.