"Die with a big hole in your chest—isn't that what you want?" Ichimaru Gin was still attacking.
Killing blow!
Aizen, who had tried to break the limits of the Shinigami through Hollowfication, was about to die with a "hollow hole" in his chest. How fitting.
At this moment, Aizen's heart was filled with rage and unwillingness.
The spot where Ichimaru Gin had attacked was too vicious, too deadly. The other party knew him far too well.
This guy really was a poisonous snake! When he didn't attack, he stayed completely still, but once he struck, he went straight for the kill!
The contemptuous words made Aizen feel a rare humiliation. However, he was helpless.
He couldn't do anything now. He had obviously merged with the Hōgyoku and was about to gain the power to surpass Uehara Shiroha, but he was losing like this...
Unforgivable!
He longed for stronger power, a stronger form. He longed to become a true god.
Looking at the purple Hōgyoku in Gin's hand, Aizen murmured to himself:
"It's over... It's finally over..."
Without the Hōgyoku, there was no chance for Aizen to turn things around—not even to recover from his injuries.
This guy was finished.
The goal Gin had been lurking toward for a hundred years, thinking about day and night, had finally been achieved.
However, something strange happened.
Aizen, who had fallen to the ground, roared with unwillingness.
At this moment, the Hōgyoku sensed his will and responded to his cry.
The spiritual energy cocoon that covered Aizen's body—white on the outside and purple on the inside—began to release extremely terrifying reiatsu.
Because this reiatsu was so powerful, the spiritual light turned into a beam of light visible to the naked eye.
The intense reiatsu beam shot up into the sky, shaking all of Karakura Town.
When they saw the energy beam, Arisawa Tatsuki and the others who were fleeing turned pale. Trembling all over, they said in shaking voices:
"This... what is going on?"
"Whatever the situation is, it's very bad!"
"It's so scary!"
"What kind of monster is that guy called Aizen?"
"There's someone inside!"
"It's Aizen!"
"We're all going to die here!"
At this moment, several people looked up at Aizen who was "ascending" to the sky with the beam of light.
Aizen's long brown hair was now flying wildly, and his appearance had changed drastically.
Except for his face, his entire body was covered with pure white armor. The opening of the armor below his neck had purple veins, like the veins on butterfly wings.
He had a black slit on his forehead that resembled an eye, and his eyebrows had disappeared.
Most horrifying of all, three pairs of huge white butterfly wings had grown on his back, and a hole similar to a Hollow's appeared on his chest.
Although Aizen now looked similar to his first Chrysalis form—the pupa stage—in reality, he had evolved into his next form: the fourth Chrysalis butterfly form.
He had completed the expected fusion and fully developed his potential.
Aizen had evolved to a higher dimension with the help of the Hōgyoku.
He no longer belonged to the category of Shinigami.
His reiatsu, swordsmanship, speed, defense, and recovery were far stronger than his third Chrysalis form, and the power of his Kidō had also made a qualitative leap.
His power had surpassed both Shinigami and Hollows—he had entered the realm of gods!
This was the power of the transcendent!
This was a god!
Hanging in the sky, high above, the fourth Chrysalis Aizen was like a god. He said with absolute certainty:
"In the end, I won, Gin! Even if you take away the Hōgyoku from my body, you can't cut off my connection with it. Because it's already mine!"
As he spoke, his eyes emitted a dazzling white light.
At the same time, the Hōgyoku in Ichimaru Gin's hand began to heat up and respond to the white light.
"What? What is going on?" Ichimaru Gin was puzzled.
Although this Hōgyoku seemed to have its own will, it was just a dead object. How could it come alive now?
What was happening?
Aizen in the sky immediately noticed the location of the Hōgyoku.
His body turned into light and disappeared without a sound, transcending space.
While Gin Ichimaru and Aizen were fighting their battle of wits and courage, Ichigo Kurosaki was practicing the final Getsuga Tensho in the Dangai.
Shiba Isshin, also known as Kurosaki Isshin, was maintaining the Boundary Fixation by himself.
This Kidō barrier originally required at least ten lower-level Shinigami to input special reiatsu at the same time to maintain it.
But now Shiba Isshin was doing it alone, though it couldn't be maintained for too long.
This barrier could block the very dangerous Juryū in the Dangai.
If you stayed in the Dangai for a long time, you would encounter both Jūtū and Juryū.
Jūtū could bounce the entrant to a time axis far away from the time anchor point, creating a time gap of hundreds of years in an instant.
Such a torrent of time was unbearable for anyone—only death awaited them.
The Juryū was similar to the time torrent, which would bind the entrant to the Dangai and never let them leave.
In addition, the time flow rate of the Dangai was as high as 2,000 times that of the outside world. For every year that passed in the real world, two thousand years would pass in the Dangai.
So according to real-world time, the bound person would soon age and die.