The audience couldn't be blamed for their tension; to them, this action looked too much like dropping his sword and surrendering.
Cul, seeing this, laughed even more unbridledly:
"What? Have you finally realized the reality of the situation?"
Peter didn't even bother to acknowledge him, merely spitting out two words in a calm, indifferent tone.
"Bankai."
There was no shouting, no roaring, not even an unnecessary release of aura.
Two words, as light as a breath.
But the moment those two words fell, Cul froze.
The giant serpent's thousands-of-meters-long body halted abruptly in mid-air.
It wasn't due to any physical obstruction.
It was instinct.
A certain sense of alarm from the depths of his soul caused Cul to experience an inexplicable shudder in that instant.
This feeling was utterly absurd.
At the same time, the sword that Peter had released from his hand was currently falling straight toward the ground.
The moment the tip of the blade touched the ground, the surface of the Earth suddenly changed.
The hard rock and soil seemed to lose their solid properties, rippling outward in circles with the tip of the blade as the center.
The ground had turned into water.
It hadn't truly turned into water; rather, a phenomenon transcending the material plane was occurring.
The sword simply followed the center of the ripples and sank silently into the Earth.
It vanished.
Cul's serpent pupils dilated sharply.
"What does this mean?"
"The weapon has disappeared, so what comes next?"
The answer came very quickly.
Ripples appeared on the ground beneath Peter's feet once more, and this time, a blade tip rose from the center of the ripples.
The silver-white blade emerged from the ground, rising silently.
One foot. Three feet. Five feet. It kept rising higher and higher, finally stopping only after it surpassed the height of Peter's head.
A massive blade stood straight behind Peter.
Before anyone could react, a second blade tip also rose from the ground.
Right next to the first one.
Then the third, the fourth, the fifth—
Faster and faster.
More and more.
Starting from behind Peter, extending toward the left and right, and toward even further distances, massive blades erupted from the ground one after another, arranged neatly and stretching endlessly.
Ten blades.
One hundred blades.
One thousand blades.
The entire arena was trembling.
Each of those blades was over ten meters high, their silver-white edges refracting blinding light under the sun.
They were arranged in rows, stretching all the way to the horizon.
Endless massive blades rose from the Earth, covering the entire battlefield and stretching beyond the horizon!
"Senbonzakura Kageyoshi."
The moment the words fell, ten thousand blades shattered simultaneously!
Every single blade disintegrated in the same instant, transforming into countless pink petals.
Unlike the wave of petals from the Shikai earlier, this time the quantity completely exceeded the scope of what human language could describe.
Not ten thousand, not a hundred million.
But tens of billions of petals blooming at once!
The entire World was dyed pink in that moment.
The global projection faithfully recorded this scene and transmitted it to every corner of the Earth.
Everyone forgot to breathe.
It wasn't fear.
It was shock.
A pure, soul-deep shock that transcended language and logic.
It was too beautiful.
Beautiful to the point of being unreal.
Cul's serpent pupils reflected that overwhelming sea of pink petals, and the rage surging within his eyes was replaced in that instant by a more primal emotion.
Astonishment.
But immediately after, that astonishment was swallowed by fury.
"Even if there are more of them..."
The giant serpent gritted his teeth, and his scales simultaneously lit up with the dark green radiance of divine power.
"They are nothing but soft, powerless petals!!!"
As he spoke, his thousands-of-meters-long snake body fully unfurled in mid-air, crashing directly into that sea of petals with an attitude of utter contempt.
He would use his own body to crush these petals, to crush the confidence of this damn mortal!
The first second the snake body touched the sea of petals.
Cul laughed.
The petals touched his scales, indeed only brushing past lightly, as soft as a spring breeze.
"Do you see! These things are fundamentally..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Cul's smile froze.
Because when the second layer of petals fell, the sensation changed.
It was no longer a spring breeze, but a blade.
Subtle, yet undeniably real sharpness.
The third second.
Ding!
A petal sliced through his scales.
The fourth second.
Ding ding ding ding ding!
Tens of billions of petals attacked simultaneously!
All the petals surged from all directions toward the giant serpent trapped in the center of the sea of flowers, each one carrying a terrifying sharpness capable of cutting through divine divinity.
Cul's scream echoed through heaven and Earth.
Countless blade marks bloomed simultaneously on his snake body; the dark green scales were sliced into fragments, and golden divine blood gushed out from countless wounds like a waterfall.
The sea of petals had turned into a meat grinder.
Cul's giant serpent form was trapped within, unable to advance or retreat.
Every struggle would touch even more petals.
Every roll would add more wounds to his own body.
He was trapped.
Completely and utterly trapped like a turtle in a jar.
Peter stood outside the sea of petals, calmly watching the figure of Cul struggling and rolling within.
"I admit I couldn't hurt you during Shikai."
His calm voice pierced through that pink hell, precisely reaching Cul's ears.
"But the difference between Bankai and Shikai is not as simple as just a change in quantity."
Cul's answer was a heaven-shaking roar.
His divine power erupted without reservation in this moment, dark green light bursting forth from between his broken scales, forcibly pushing back the surrounding petals for dozens of meters.
He had to break out!
The snake body spun violently, forming a terrifying whirlwind.
The whirlwind carried the divine power of fear that Cul had accumulated over thousands of years, pushing the petals outward layer by layer.
Ten meters.
Fifty meters.
One hundred meters!
He had forcibly torn open a gap in the sea of petals.
The giant serpent rushed out from the gap, his snake head held high, his body covered in wounds.
Those wounds were not fatal; after all, he was the God of Fear, and his body's recovery ability far exceeded what ordinary people could imagine.
But the pain and humiliation brought to him by those sky-filling petals were real.
"You despicable Midgardian!"
Cul's roar was filled with madness, the rage burning in his vertical pupils almost overflowing.
"I will kill you!!!"
The giant serpent charged toward Peter recklessly.
His speed was so fast it tore through the air, and the resulting sonic boom almost shattered everything nearby that could be shattered.
In this strike, he poured all his strength and all his rage into his snake head.
He would smash Peter into a pulp!
If this strike hit, let alone a single person, even a small asteroid would be smashed to pieces.
Peter watched the giant serpent charging toward him, and the Omnitrix on his wrist flashed once more.
"Locked—Flora Colossus!"
The moment the transformation was complete, Peter pressed his palms together.
The next second, the ground beneath his feet exploded violently.
Thick wooden roots erupted from underground like dragons emerging from the sea, growing wildly at a speed that defied the laws of physics.
"Wood Release: Shinsu Senju! Chōjō Kebutsu, arrives!"
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