"We were almost completely vaporized by you guys!" John Constantine barked, hacking up a lungful of gray concrete dust as the four humans stumbled out of the debris cloud. He was still aggressively complaining about how absurdly violent the Soul Society's rescue methods were.
"Stop your whiny dynamic," Renji Abarai grunted, completely unbothered by the occultist's attitude as he descended gracefully from the sky.
In his majestic [Sōō Zabimaru] form, Renji looked incredibly badass, though the glare he gave the disheveled humans was anything but pleasant.
Seeing that Tony, Constantine, and the Winchesters were entirely unharmed, Rukia Kuchiki let out a quiet sigh of relief. But before anyone could thank them, Renji began to aggressively urge her to move.
"The humans have been dragged out. Our side objective is clear," Renji stated with a somber expression, completely ignoring the four mortals as he smoothly sheathed his serrated blade. "We should go, Rukia."
"My apologies, everyone," Rukia said, turning to Tony Stark with a respectful nod. "We have high-priority mobilization orders from the Seireitei. Since you are safe from the barrier, we must depart immediately."
Rukia and Renji exchanged a brief nod, turning their backs to utilize their Flash Step.
However, before their heels could even leave the dirt, a smooth, sulfurous voice echoed directly behind them out of nowhere.
"Making a total mess of my private trial grounds... and then just casually walking away like that? I don't think so, my two dear Gods of Death."
Azazel abruptly materialized in the space behind them. He hadn't made a single sound, nor had the ambient atmospheric pressure warned them.
His sudden appearance was an incredibly bad sign.
Hell had never been a dimension of peaceful coexistence. Conflict, ambush, and slaughter—that was the daily norm in the Pit. The sudden structural existence of the Seireitei's new encampment had provided a pure, coveted land for rogue souls in Hell, but it had also aggressively attracted the hostile gaze of the native demons.
As a high-ranking Prince of Hell under Lucifer's direct command, Azazel had long detested the arrogant presence of the Shinigami. Now that these two high-ranking officers had foolishly isolated themselves to save a few mortals, how could he possibly let such a golden opportunity pass?
Rukia and Renji's expressions instantly turned grave. They could feel the heavy, oppressive density of the demon's energy. Azazel was absolutely not an easy character to deal with.
"Rukia, get back," Renji commanded, stepping flawlessly in front of her to face the demon directly. "I'll handle this bastard."
In the lower depths of Hell, the only law that truly mattered was that the strong ruled.
"Bankai! Sōō Zabimaru!"
Renji's spiritual pressure violently surged once again, the blinding blue Reiatsu detonating outward as his Zanpakutō locked into its twin-king configuration.
"Wow. Quite energetic, aren't we?" Azazel purred.
CLANG!
Renji violently swung his right blade to strike, but Azazel casually raised his forearm, blocking the raw spiritual steel with his bare skin. The shockwave of the collision blew the surrounding loose rubble away as the two officially entered high-speed combat.
"You guys leave the area, now!" Rukia barked, her face grim as she turned to flash-step beside the four lingering humans. "No 'buts' or arguments! You possess zero spiritual pressure; you will only be in our way here!"
In the center of the smoking crater, the two combatants became blurring streaks of light, flickering everywhere across the terrain. Every one of Renji's heavy, calculated slashes was easily deflected or blocked by Azazel's telekinetically enhanced limbs.
Tony Stark wanted to argue, his armored gauntlet whining as it charged, but he was forcefully pulled backward by John Constantine. The Winchester brothers were also highly sensible survivalists; in a supernatural battle of this staggering caliber, they logically knew that staying meant they were nothing more than structural liabilities.
"Hmm? Trying to run?" Azazel mocked.
While effortlessly fending off Renji's aggressive swordplay, the Prince of Hell could still perfectly track the movements of the mortals on the periphery. Seeing the Winchester brothers turning to sprint away into the fog, a cruel smile curved on his lips.
"Anyone else can leave," Azazel muttered silently under his breath, his yellow eyes flaring. "Except for you... Sam."
SHUUN.
Azazel's figure flickered instantly, effortlessly leaving Renji Abarai's attack range. He materialized on a high ridge and opened his palm directly toward Sam's retreating back.
An invisible, catastrophic gravitational force violently erupted from his hand.
Anticipating the demon's target, Rukia Kuchiki instantly intercepted the trajectory, appearing directly between the Winchester brothers and the Prince of Hell.
"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!"
"[Some no mai, Tsukishiro]!"
The Zanpakutō in Rukia's hand instantly transformed into its pristine, pure-white configuration, the long white ribbon at the end of the hilt dancing elegantly in the wind. Turning her arm in a swift, practiced motion, she drew a perfect spiritual circle in the air.
Azazel looked down at the ground beneath his boots as a blinding white light suddenly radiated from the earth.
CRASH!!!
Massive, towering pillars of solid white ice violently surged out from the circle in an instant, forming a colossal circular formation that completely encased and froze the Prince of Hell into a solid glacier.
"You two, get out of here right now!" Rukia shouted over her shoulder to the startled Winchester brothers, her eyes never leaving the frozen monument.
CRACK... CRACK...
The massive ice pillar that had frozen Azazel was already rapidly spider-webbing with deep, glowing yellow fractures. With a crisp, explosive sound, the glacier shattered violently into a thousand shards of flying ice.
"A Prince of Hell under Lucifer's banner..." Rukia muttered, her expression incredibly grave as she felt a sincere sense of admiration, "...as expected, his durability is immense!"
"Shinigami," Azazel said, brushing a stray ice crystal off his shoulder as he looked up. "What an incredibly interesting system of power."
He spoke to Rukia with a genuine hint of professional praise. The magical power of demons had always been highly straightforward—brute physical strength, high-tier telekinesis, and raw Hellfire. They didn't possess the highly varied, conceptual abilities that the Gods of Death utilized.
But after offering his praise, Azazel had absolutely no intention of slowing down.
SHUN.
When his silhouette reappeared, he was standing directly behind Rukia's blind spot. However, he didn't even take the opportunity to launch a sneak attack on her; instead, keeping his back turned to the Lieutenant, he casually beckoned his finger toward Sam Winchester.
Suddenly, Sam—who had already run a significant distance down the dirt path—felt his entire body violently gripped by an invisible hook. His boots left the ground as he flew backward through the air, hurtling right toward Azazel's waiting hand.
Right then, a massive, skeletal blade tip connected to a heavy steel chain violently smashed down from the heavens like a falling guillotine, slicing right through the telekinetic tract.
BOOM!
The disruption caused Sam's body to drop heavily back to the safety of the dirt.
"Let's go, quickly!" Dean roared, lunging forward to grab his gasping brother's arm. He dragged Sam up, taking one final, horrified look back at the battlefield. "This is not a war we can get involved in!"
The exact spot where Azazel had been hovering was now completely shrouded in a thick, choking cloud of black smoke.
"[Zaga Teppō]!"
A piercing, radioactive red light shone furiously within the dust cloud, followed immediately by a violent, earth-shattering spiritual explosion. The massive snake-jaw blade slowly retracted back into Renji Abarai's left hand as he touched down on the crater floor.
As the dust slowly cleared, Azazel's figure emerged from the crater. His expensive suit was now somewhat tattered and scorched, his hair disheveled.
"You two..." Azazel whispered, his voice dropping to a demonic register, "...have truly managed to annoy me a little."
The Winchester brothers had taken the tactical window to escape completely without a trace, and his own physical form had been rendered so wretched by these two lesser officers. In Azazel's solid yellow eyes, a furious, sulfurous flame slowly ignited. The surrounding dust was violently swept away by the raw telekinetic momentum surging off his skin.
Azazel raised both of his arms, his palms facing the two Shinigami.
Rukia and Renji instantly assumed braced defensive stances, but it was entirely useless against a direct mental assault. Without a single word of warning, both of their necks were tightly, violently gripped by an absolute, invisible telekinetic force.
Their airways collapsed as their bodies were effortlessly lifted ten feet into the air, their legs dangling helplessly.
"Just die like this, pesky Gods of Death," Azazel snarled.
The calm, aristocratic smile on his face completely vanished, revealing a hideous, tyrannical expression of pure demonic malice. This was the true, unchecked form of a Prince of the Pit—cruel, tyrannical, and fierce.
'Like hell I'm going down here,' Renji thought, his vision blurring as the invisible vice grip tightened around his throat.
Compared to the absolute, hopeless despair he had experienced in his past battles against monsters like Aizen or the Quincy Emperor... this demonic pressure was simply not worth mentioning.
Renji violently concentrated the entirety of his remaining Reiatsu into his left arm.
The colossal, fur-covered [Baboon King Palm] resting on his shoulder suddenly came to life, extending continuously across the distance like a massive, skeletal serpent. In a fraction of a second, the giant hand reached Azazel's position.
The massive, fur-clad hand opened wide, tightly clamping around Azazel's entire torso, lifting the Prince of Hell into the air, and violently smashing him spine-first into the bedrock.
CRASH!!!
The sudden, immense physical impact broken Azazel's concentration, and the telekinetic force controlling Renji and Rukia instantly dissipated, dropping them safely to the ground.
The moment his boots touched the earth, Renji didn't waste a single millisecond. Taking advantage of Azazel being pinned and crushed by the heavy Baboon King Palm, he sprinted forward with supersonic speed.
He raised the massive, serrated [Orochi-Ō] blade attached to his right hand, aiming the point dead center at the demon's face.
"[Zaga Teppō]!!!"
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