Just like that, the air in the cave grew heavy, turning into an invisible, crushing weight. The Oni's legs buckled mid-stride. With a sickening thud, the creature face-planted into the mud, its club flying from its grip. The demon groaned, its massive body trembling as the atmosphere itself hammered it into the earth.
Ulquiorra blinked, genuinely surprised at how easy it was to use his powers, "Wow. That actually worked."
He pushed a little harder, leaning into the sensation of his own power. Almost immediately, the cavern echoed with a chorus of dull, heavy impacts. Looking around, he saw several more Oni's hidden in the periphery sprawling across the ground with blood bubbling from their ears, noses, and eyes.
"Dead already?" he mused. He retracted his presence, letting the heavy, suffocating weight vanish. The remaining Oni, sensing the terrifying shift in their predator, didn't hesitate; they scrambled into the shadows and fled like rats.
Ulquiorra began to step forward, but his eyes narrowed suddenly as he felt a flicker of movement in the air a distortion like heat haze tipped him off. He didn't turn around. He simply reached up, his movements was both fluid and bored as he caught a razor-sharp cleaver between his index and middle fingers.
The blade simply stopped, caught by the sheer density of his skin. The hierro.
He slowly turned his head to see a blue-skinned Oni, with its body shimmering as it struggled to maintain its invisibility.
"Did you really think a sneak attack from behind could ever work on me?" Ulquiorra asked, He didn't reach for his own weapon just yet and just continued talking, "I don't want to stain my own sword with the blood of trash. So, excuse me if I use yours."
Before the blue Oni could blink, Ulquiorra snatched the cleaver from its grasp. In a motion too fast for a human or even monster eyes to follow, he stepped through the creature's guard. And have a single, clean slash of the stolen blade, and the Oni was split perfectly in two.
He dropped the ruined cleaver into the mud with a soft clack.
"Now then," he said, staring into the dark corners of the tunnel where the sound of heavy breathing and shifting stones grew louder. "Why don't the rest of you come out as well?"
One by one, they emerged. Horned, hulking, and hungry. Ulquiorra counted them as they filled the cave, encircling him.
'Almost sixty, huh?' he thought, his pulse finally quickening, not with fear, but with a cold, analytical curiosity. 'Well, this should do to test my new body'.
He stood in the center of the trap, his hands back in his pockets, his green eyes glowing in the dark. Then suddenly, he closed his eyes, searching for the feeling he had felt back in the white room, 'How did I do that again? he wondered, letting his mind sink into the vast, dark ocean of his own spirit.
————
Deep in a different section of the labyrinth, the air didn't feel heavy with nihilism, it felt like it was vibrating with pure, unadulterated violence.
Grimmjow or rather, Ren, whose consciousness had been completely overwritten by the predatory instincts of the Sixth Espada but still retaining his mind nonetheless. He stood amidst a pile of shredded, crimson-skinned remains. His blue hair was disheveled, and his jawline was pulled back into a wide, feral grin that showed far too many teeth.
He currently held an Oni by the throat, hoisting the eight-foot monster into the air with one hand. The creature clawed frantically at Grimmjow's wrist, its iron-spiked club shattering into a dozen pieces the moment it struck Grimmjow's Hierro.
"You've got to be kidding me," Grimmjow growled as his voice came out with a low, raspy snarl. "Is this really it? You pathetic, crawling maggots actually thought you could touch me?"
He didn't wait for an answer. With a sickening snap of vertebrae, he crushed the monster's throat. He didn't even bother to watch it hit the ground; he was already pivoting on his heel. As a blue-skinned, invisible Oni lunged from the shadows, Grimmjow didn't even look back as he simply unleashed a brutal, roundhouse kick. The monster's torso impacted with the force of a wrecking ball, turning it into a gruesome mist of blood and bone before it even fully materialized.
"Boring," Grimmjow spat, wiping a speck of ichor from his cheek.
Another group of Oni charged, emboldened by their numbers. Grimmjow sighed, drew back a fist, and felt a surge of energy pool in his knuckles. Instinct took over as he threw a punch, and instead of just kinetic force, a concentrated orb of crimson light roared from his fist.
BOOM.
The explosion wasn't so huge but the impact was considerable. It tore through the remaining monsters, vaporizing them instantly and blowing a gaping hole through the cave wall, exposing a layer of deep, dark stone beyond. Grimmjow stood there, staring at his fist as red static electricity crackled between his knuckles.
"So that's Bala, huh?" He started to chuckle, then broke into a manic, predatory laugh that echoed down the tunnel, "Well, let's try that again!"
He began throwing punches into thin air, unleashing rapid-fire volleys of red energy. Each shot turned the cave into a ruin, collapsing ceilings and turning the Oni's into nothing more than smears on the wall. Within seconds, the section was deathly quiet.
Grimmjow exhaled, his chest rising and falling rhythmically. "All gone? Man, how boring. I wonder where my brother's at."
He started walking around a random direction. The last thing he recalled was the "Aizen wannabe's" words. 'Solo Leveling world, huh?' He scanned the cavernous walls. 'If this is one of those 'Gates' or 'Dungeons,' I guess I have to clear it to get out. With or without Kai or Ulquiorra's help then get out of here.'
He paused as he felt the familiar, cold pressure spiked in the distance again. He knew that sensation, it was Ulquiorra's Reiatsu. It was strange; they had never had anything like this when they were human, but now, he could practically map his brother's position on a mental radar and know that's his energy. 'He's over that way huh? Figures, he's probably off sulking or brooding somewhere.'
He smirked. 'Let him have his fun. I'm going to find the exit for the both of us.'
Grimmjow took a left at a junction, following the path he had been traveling before the ambush. A minute later, the dark rock gave way to a soft, pulsating azure glow. The walls were lined with luminescent crystals, casting long, eerie shadows across the path.
"Huh? What's this?"
He reached out and pried a glowing shard from the rock face. It hummed with a faint, steady energy. He squinted at it, tossing it up and down in his hand.
"Mana stone? Crystal? Whatever this trash is, it's definitely new."
He lost interest almost immediately and let the crystal drop to the floor,
Grimmjow kicked the dust-covered mana crystal before a sudden, cynical realization hit him.
'Wait a minute.' He remembered the snippets of information about this world, that these crystals were supposedly worth a fortune to the locals. He deadpanned, his brow furrowing as he looked at the glowing debris under his boot. "We're going to be broke, aren't we? I literally just pulverized a paycheck."
He let out a short, scoffing laugh and shook his head, continuing down the tunnel. The cave air shifted, growing stale and thick with a metallic tang. Then came the sound of a rhythmic, heavy thundering against the stone floor. It wasn't the slow, clumsy shuffle of the previous Oni. These were fast, coordinated, and numerous.
'Fifteen? No, closer to twenty,' he thought, his internal radar pinging with anticipation. 'Is that a raid team?'
He rounded a bend in the cavern, and the source of the noise slammed into view. It wasn't a team of humans, but a fresh horde of monsters. They were massive, twice his height, hulking shadows of muscle and hatred. Unlike the smaller Oni he'd just slaughtered, these were armored in white patches of bone that looked suspiciously like a crude attempt at hollowification. Their skin was littered with runes of a sort and the weapons they gripped were massive axes, serrated spears, and heavy maces that hummed with a sickening, vibrant energy.
'Magic weapons?' Grimmjow's grin widened until it felt like his face might split. 'Now we're talking.'
The creatures radiated a palpable aura of malice, a dark, suffocating pressure that would have paralyzed a B-Rank human hunter. To Grimmjow, it was like the smell of a challenge. His blood began to race, turning the cold, hollow void inside him into a furnace of predatory intent.
He just stood there, hands at his sides, shoulders loose, vibrating with the desire to tear something apart.
'Well, how nice of this place to provide test subjects,' he thought, his eyes immediately located and tracked the leader of the pack who was a towering brute with a bone-crested helm. 'I need to see just how far I can push this body before I have to actually put in effort.'
He did a quick mental calculation. If he didn't clear the floor and do it fast, Ulquiorra would probably wander in and bore them to death with his nihilism, or worse, wipe the whole dungeon out before Grimmjow could have any fun.
'The mission is simple,' he mused, his breathing steadying into the rhythm of a hunter stalking its prey. 'Kill the boss, or kill everything that moves. Preferably both.'
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