"I am the bone of my sword…"
A strange, incomprehensible chant sounded.
Aizen suddenly discovered that the world before his eyes had changed. It was no longer the ruined Las Noches. Instead, he had arrived in a crimson wasteland.
Massive gears turned beneath the dim sky, and the wasteland was filled with swords of every shape and form. As the words "Unlimited Blade Works" fell, Aizen found the one responsible.
A skintight combat outfit, black on the outside and red underneath.
Aizen was just about to attack this newly appeared enemy when the man casually spread his hands and said,
"Your opponent isn't me."
Why would Aizen listen to him?
After suffering several hidden losses already, he knew the importance of seizing the initiative. He raised his hand and immediately threw out a Sōkatsui.
But the result was exactly as that man had said.
Bathed in blue flames, he vanished without a trace, while this world filled with swords showed no change at all.
Had Aizen been trapped here?
In the next instant, he threw that guess to the back of his mind.
Sawada Tsunayoshi would not do something so foolish. What he wanted was to put pressure on Aizen and help him fuse with the Hōgyoku. Trapping him with an illusion would be meaningless.
In that case, there had to be an enemy in this world.
With that thought, Aizen's Reiatsu rapidly spread out, sweeping farther into the distance.
Under the influence of Aizen's Reiatsu, the swords stuck into the ground seemed to tremble faintly. Aizen did not take this to heart. His Reiatsu was immensely powerful. Causing slight tremors in ownerless objects was perfectly normal.
Nothing.
He could not find any enemy.
The veins on Aizen's forehead twitched slightly. His dissatisfaction with Tsunayoshi rose by another level.
It was one thing to almost get him killed earlier. Was he now trying to imprison him too?
Perhaps because the opponents he had encountered had all been too real, Aizen had even overlooked the fact that Tsunayoshi was using a Mist-attribute ability.
In other words, no matter what sort of opponent it was, he could create one at any time.
A faint rustling sound rang out.
It was the sound of feet stepping across gravel.
That tiny noise was exceptionally clear to Aizen's highly focused ears. He immediately locked onto the source.
It was a middle-aged man with long white hair. His handsome, expressionless face seemed to have the word "invincible" written across it.
What drew Aizen's attention most was the man's left arm.
That pale arm was completely out of place compared with the man's yellow-toned skin.
Had he been infected by Hollow power?
And how had he managed to restrict Hollow power to a single arm?
Was it because of the two ring-shaped devices on that arm?
Out of professional habit, the moment Aizen saw a different type of Hollow power, he immediately became curious about the device capable of limiting it. He had even already begun considering the possibility of capturing this opponent.
But his clear mind told him that this newly appeared person might even possess combat power greater than his own.
The prerequisite for capturing him was that Aizen's strength had to far exceed his.
Aizen's hand tightened around his Zanpakutō. More white lines representing Hollow power coiled around the blade.
No matter what, he still wanted to try.
He wanted to press this powerful opponent beneath his feet.
Unlike Aizen, the owner of the white arm was not focused on him at all. He was observing this sword-filled world with great interest. His hand gently brushed across the hilt of a nearby sword, as softly as though he were caressing a lover's cheek.
"A world of swords? How interesting."
That single sentence from the white-armed man actually resonated with the entire world.
Countless swords vibrated in unison at that moment, responding to the emotions of the white-armed man.
Aizen's gaze sharpened.
All the swords in this world had reacted abnormally. That was not good news.
This person was very powerful.
Aizen made that judgment instantly. In the next moment, three Kidō spells flew toward the white-armed man. There were both Bakudō and Hadō among them, while Aizen himself used those spells as cover and charged forward.
He still had to take the initiative.
Although Aizen did not know whether an even stronger opponent would emerge after he defeated the white-armed man, he did not want to face someone who could control every weapon in this world.
Faced with the dazzling Kidō spells, the white-armed man merely lifted his eyelids slightly.
Then his pale fingertip gently curled.
Every sword in the world flew up.
They danced through the air. A storm made purely of swords rose from the ground, the weapons cheering and whirling as though celebrating the arrival of the god who commanded them.
Naturally, the Kidō Aizen released was completely blocked by the sword storm.
As for Aizen himself, he stood at the very center of that storm. He could feel the hostility radiating from those weapons.
"A pity. They aren't the real thing."
With only this brief connection, the white-armed man had already grasped the essence of all the swords in this world.
"But if it's only one strike, there will be no problem."
He suddenly opened his white hand.
At that moment, all the weapons seemed to receive an order. With Aizen at the center, they spread throughout the entire world. Half rose upward, half descended. Half hovered in midair, and half sank into the earth.
A grand formation capable of covering the entirety of the Unlimited Blade Works Reality Marble appeared.
Its only opponent was Aizen.
Its user was the white-armed man.
Blade Master / Holy / God / Ultimate?
"Ultimate: Ghost Sword Art."
After calmly leaving behind the name of the technique, the white-armed man grabbed a nearby weapon and turned into a streak of light, slashing toward Aizen.
With a crisp clang, their swords collided.
Yet the sword held by the white-armed man was unexpectedly fragile. A single blow from Aizen's blade shattered it, causing it to dissolve into specks of starlight.
A smile once again appeared at the corner of Aizen's mouth.
It seemed his previous judgment had been wrong.
This man's Zanjutsu amounted to no more than this. Aizen could completely capture him.
As for those swords, they were even more laughable. They could not withstand a single slash. They posed no threat at all.
Without showing it, Aizen glanced at the arm holding the sword in the sky.
Once again, the thought of capturing him alive arose.
However, he would still need to notify Sawada Tsunayoshi and prevent him from erasing this person. The arm rings that restricted Hollow power were worth researching.
Having made up his mind, Aizen prepared to thoroughly humiliate this opponent in Zanjutsu before asking Sawada Tsunayoshi to preserve him.
Clang, clang, clang—
The sound of blades colliding rang out continuously.
But the situation did not seem to proceed as smoothly as Aizen had planned.
The white-armed man's slashes grew faster and faster. His strength also continued to increase. Aizen even felt that the swords in his hands were becoming sharper and sharper.
Crack.
It was an extremely faint sound, almost nonexistent amid such an intense battle.
But Aizen noticed it.
Because the sound had come from his Zanpakutō.
It was an extremely tiny chip.
According to Aizen's deduction, if the opponent's swords continued to grow sharper, his Zanpakutō might be the one to break first.
That instant of shock was enough.
A violent pain came from his shoulder.
The speed of the white-armed man's sword strikes had already left Aizen with no room to be distracted. If he did not focus completely, his fate would be to be cut down by a storm of blades.
Forcing himself to concentrate, he blocked two more strikes.
Two more chips appeared on his Zanpakutō.
Aizen's heart nearly ached to death.
His Zanpakutō fusion had not even begun, yet his blade was already about to be sacrificed first.
It was not that Aizen had not considered counterattacking.
The opponent was simply too fast.
Within this grand formation where weapons filled the sky, he could not capture the opponent's figure at all.
Launching an attack blindly would only be wasting a big move. Worse, it would expose even more openings.
So the only options left before Aizen seemed to be defense and evasion.
Defense?
Could he really defend against slashes capable of cutting open even a Zanpakutō?
Then he could only flee.
He had to escape until the white-armed man exhausted all the swords.
Using two chips in his Zanpakutō as the price, Aizen created room to move.
Shunpo.
Sonído.
Whichever movement technique was convenient, he used it.
Aizen wanted to escape this killing formation of Ultimate: Ghost Sword Art at extreme speed.
But this Unlimited Blade Works was a Reality Marble, and Ultimate: Ghost Sword Art covered the entire Reality Marble.
How could Aizen possibly escape?
The moment Aizen's figure appeared, a streak of sword-light was already waiting at his landing point.
Helplessly, he once again used his Zanpakutō to block.
This time, the chip on the blade became even larger.
Aizen did not know that Ultimate: Ghost Sword Art was divided into the Storm Style and the Iron-Cutting Style.
The Storm Style was the white-armed man's current attack pattern, flying and slashing from every direction.
As for the Iron-Cutting Style, there was no need to say much. It enhanced the power of each slash, specifically targeting equipment used to block.
As the chips on Aizen's Zanpakutō grew more numerous, wounds gradually appeared across his body as well.
He could no longer block all of the white-armed man's attacks. Even when adding Bakudō defenses, he still could not stop blade wounds from appearing on his body.
As for his Zanpakutō, there was even less to say.
It had already become battered and ragged, like a piece of scrap metal. Aizen did not even dare use it to block attacks anymore.
He still knew which was harder to repair: a broken Zanpakutō, or a damaged one.
Hiding his Zanpakutō at his side, continuously using movement techniques and Kidō to create defenses for himself, was now the only thing Aizen could do.
The moment he entered this state, the blade wounds on his body completely stopped being manageable.
Large amounts of white substance surged out from Aizen's body.
High-Speed Regeneration.
He used Hollow power to forcibly withstand the white-armed man's slashes.
At that moment, Aizen understood.
Tsunayoshi had deliberately conjured this opponent.
His objective had always been the same: to strengthen Aizen's fusion with Hollow power and deepen the progress of his fusion with the Hōgyoku.
Aizen simply stopped running.
He allowed the white-armed man to leave wounds across his body, while he immersed himself wholeheartedly in the Hōgyoku.
He believed that the Hōgyoku would respond to his expectations.
He believed that the Hōgyoku would ensure his survival amid this ultimate swordsmanship.
"As expected of him. He understands quickly."
Tsunayoshi commented.
He had originally thought Aizen would at least wait until his Zanpakutō broke before giving up resistance. He had still underestimated Aizen's comprehension.
What surprised Tsunayoshi even more was that the white liquid representing Hollow power was not only wrapping around Aizen.
It was also flowing toward Aizen's damaged Zanpakutō.
The white liquid gradually filled the chipped portions of the Zanpakutō.
The situation seemed to be getting interesting.
After all, in the masked stage of Hōgyoku Aizen, the Zanpakutō in his hand had still retained its original appearance. There had been no extra changes.
Tsunayoshi could only think of one reason for Hollow power invading the blade early.
The Hōgyoku was responding to Aizen.
It was responding to his desire to repair his Zanpakutō.
From a certain perspective, the fact that Hollow power could enter the Zanpakutō, which represented Shinigami power, meant that Aizen had already begun the initial stage of Zanpakutō fusion.
Things were becoming interesting.
Aizen's evolution was beginning to deviate from Tsunayoshi's original understanding.
Perhaps before reaching that giant moth-like form, he might already complete the fusion with his Zanpakutō.
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