The collapse of Sennen Hyōrō caused a momentary lag in Hyōrinmaru’s movements.
For the battle-hardened Isshin, this was the perfect opportunity!
“Good chance!”
Without the slightest hesitation, Isshin pushed the flames of Engetsu to their absolute limit, instantly bursting out from the area filled with ice crystal powder.
With a speed exceeding the limits of normal Shunpo, he closed in on Hyōrinmaru!
His tactical intent was crystal clear—strike while the enemy is vulnerable!
“Getsuga Tenshō!”
The scorching flames were highly compressed within Engetsu; wherever the blade passed, the space itself seemed to be scorched with faint, distorted traces!
Puchi—!
The sensation…
something was wrong!
There was no resistance of striking a solid object, nor the hardness of exploding ice crystals; instead, it felt like stabbing into a layer of viscous, cold mist that was rapidly dissipating!
Isshin’s pupils shrank sharply!
The Hyōrinmaru before his eyes, the moment it was struck by Engetsu, shattered like a broken ice sculpture.
From the point of impact, countless cracks rapidly spread, and then, with a “clatter,” the whole thing exploded into fragments of ice crystals!
An afterimage?!
No, it was something more sophisticated—an Ice Phantom!
“Damn it!”
Alarm bells rang in Isshin’s heart.
A bone-chilling cold did not come from the outside, but suddenly surged up from his spine!
Almost at the same instant the Hyōrinmaru phantom shattered, a terrifying chill, like a silent ghost, appeared at an extremely close distance behind him!
He didn’t even have time to fully turn around; his peripheral vision only caught a glimpse of a hand covered in ice dragon claws, with fingertips condensing a point of absolute-zero, deep-blue light that seemed capable of absorbing all light and heat, pressing silently toward his heart!
It was Hyōrinmaru’s true form!
He didn’t know when or how, but Hyōrinmaru had long since shed its skin like a cicada, circled to Isshin’s blind spot in terms of vision and spiritual sense, and launched a true fatal blow!
At the same time, Hyōrinmaru’s low, cold, and emotionless voice, like a Shinigami’s judgment, rang in Isshin’s ears: Find the original chapter at g.com.
“Shikai Hyōketsu!”
With the utterance of these words, centered on where Hyōrinmaru’s true form stood, a rule of “freezing” that surpassed the concept of physical low temperature began to spread!
It was not the diffusion of cold air, but the manifestation and domain expansion of the very concept of “freezing”!
Within four steps, the micro-space centered on Hyōrinmaru and Isshin seemed to have been cut out from the entire world, becoming an independent domain named “Absolute Freezing”!
Light, sound, the flow of Reishi, and even the foundation of all things began to solidify, crystallize, and turn into an eternally static ice blue at a speed visible to the naked eye!
Shikai Hyōketsu!
Freezing everything within four steps, all elements, all existence!
This was one of the supreme abilities of Hyōrinmaru, the strongest ice-type Zanpakutō, touching the origin of the rules!
Isshin’s thoughts seemed to be freezing as well; he felt his own Reiatsu, blood, and even consciousness being rapidly eroded and solidified by this unreasonable power of absolute freezing!
Engetsu’s flames quickly dimmed and shrank within this domain, like a candle in the wind.
He wanted to move, to resist, to burst forth, but his body felt like it was trapped in the thickest ten-thousand-year-old black ice; every movement required unimaginable strength, and it was becoming slower and slower!
Just at this moment of absolute life-and-death crisis!
“Tenshin—”
A calm, yet seemingly containing the power to shake the foundations of the world, soft shout penetrated the nearly solidified domain of Shikai Hyōketsu and clearly rang in the ears of Isshin and Hyōrinmaru!
It was Yanagawa!
He didn’t know when, but Yanagawa had already appeared behind and to the side of Hyōrinmaru’s true form!
His movements seemed slow, yet they carried a strange rhythm, as if every step landed on the “nodes” of space and Reishi flow.
He had actually forcibly invaded this absolute domain of freezing everything the moment the Shikai Hyōketsu domain fully formed!
The Tenshin in his hand was covered with a thick layer of chaotic silver light!
A terrifying power, even greater than when he shattered Sennen Hyōrō earlier, was condensing and compressing on the blade!
“Shatter!”
Yanagawa slashed down at the part of Hyōrinmaru’s forehead where the golden light was located!
Starting from the blade of Tenshin, a “shockwave” that made everything shudder, like ripples caused by a giant stone thrown into an absolutely calm lake, spread out! Find the original chapter at g.com.
Crack, crack-crack—!
That absolute domain which froze light, solidified Reishi, and sealed concepts intertwined with this power of vibration!
From the point of contact with the shockwave, countless dense, crisscrossing white cracks appeared inside the entire domain!
These cracks were not space tears, but the scene of collapse caused by the rule of “freezing” itself being interfered with and destroyed by “vibration”!
The frozen light flowed again, the solidified Reishi began to dissipate, and the ice seal rapidly disintegrated!
Immediately after, the shockwave penetrated the collapsing domain and slammed heavily into Hyōrinmaru’s true form!
More precisely, it slammed into the golden light on his forehead!
A muffled sound that seemed to come from the depths of the soul.
Under Yanagawa’s violent offensive, that golden light finally flickered to its limit.
The light suddenly extinguished.
Like a candle in the wind, it exhausted its last bit of fuel and completely returned to darkness and nothingness.
The moment the golden light extinguished, Hyōrinmaru’s violet eyes, which had been intertwined with golden light, suddenly lost all luster and became hollow.
The surging, terrifying Reiatsu around his body, like a deflated balloon, instantly plummeted and withered.
The hands covered in ice dragon claws dropped powerlessly, and the point of absolute-zero, deep-blue light at his fingertips quietly dissipated.
His massive body swayed, as if it had lost all support, and it crashed forward, slamming heavily onto the frozen ground covered with ice crystal cracks, splashing up a cloud of ice dust.
The blade of Hyōrinmaru itself, which he held, also flew out of his hand and stuck diagonally in the distance, its light dim.
The domain of Shikai Hyōketsu completely dissipated, and everything that had been solidified returned to normal, but that bone-deep chill still remained in the air.
“Hoo…
hoo…”
Isshin knelt on one knee, using Engetsu to support his body, panting heavily, his face pale, his whole body covered in thick white frost, and his eyebrows and hair covered in ice.
In that instant just now, he had truly experienced the feeling of brushing shoulders with death.
He looked at Hyōrinmaru, who had fallen not far away, with lingering fear, and then looked up to the front.
Yanagawa slowly sheathed his sword, the chaotic silver light on Tenshin receding like a tide, returning to its silvery-white appearance.