If looks could kill, Dordoni would have died a thousand deaths already. From Shin's cold, unwavering gaze, he felt only pure, glacial intent.
His entire body tensed. Dordoni shifted his footing, retreating a few meters and rising back into the air.
"Not bad… looks like I won't be holding back after all!"
Drawing in a breath, Dordoni slowly unsheathed his blade and intoned, "Spin, Baron of the Storm!"
With a roaring gust, a gray-blue vortex of reishi instantly coiled around him.
In the dim glow, Dordoni planted his feet firmly. From the vents at his ankles, two dense whirlwinds erupted in deep violet, stark against the surrounding darkness. Inside each funnel, massive amounts of reishi churned, powering the storm.
The twin winds extended outward, twisting up and down like living tendrils. At their tips, hardened beaks began to form, clamping down on the storms themselves with avian precision.
This was the true form of Baron of the Storm, Dordoni's Resurrección, controlling bird-headed gales to attack at will.
"What's wrong? Lost your nerve? Where's all that fire you had before? Hahahaha!" Dordoni jeered, seeing Shin unmoving below.
Then, with a flick of his leg, he sent the two massive bird-heads hurtling down at Shin. They weren't blindingly fast, but their momentum carried unstoppable force.
"Shin! Be careful!" Peśche's warning echoed from the ground.
Against a former Espada in full release, and without even a proper weapon, Shin's survival seemed impossible. But he neither dodged nor faltered.
He gently set Nel down behind him, shielding her, then rose to his full height. Calm, unhurried, his movements were almost unnerving.
Inside, though, his thoughts roiled:
"System, activate [Reishi Sword] attribute!"
[Host confirmed: [Reishi Sword] activated.]
From the system's knowledge imprinted in his mind, Shin already understood the SSR-level attribute. It allowed him to condense his own reishi into a blade, its length adjustable at will, minimum half a meter, upper limit unknown.
A shriek pierced the darkness, the storm-birds diving fast.
Shin drew in a breath, lifted his arm forward, fingers curling into a fist. At his palm, a sharp metallic chime rang out.
A surge of pale-blue reishi burst from his hand, swirling into a vortex that rapidly assembled itself. In an instant, a sword of light took shape, over two meters long, gleaming with a cold, steely brilliance like a temple gate barring the storm.
The twin bird-heads howled and plowed forward, churning rubble and sand.
CLANG!
The moment they struck the glowing blade, their charge stopped dead.
"What…?" Dordoni faltered. The bird-heads he commanded so easily were frozen, blocked without effort. If Shin had dodged, or fought desperately to hold them back, fine, but this? This was a humiliation.
Before he could recover, Shin's long arm swept outward, blade slashing diagonally, cold light flashing. The strike split both bird-heads and severed the howling winds cleanly.
"Hey… since when did Shin have a Zanpakutō?" Dondochakka muttered at the edge of the battlefield.
"There's no Zanpakutō that looks like that… Don't you think Shin's been hiding a lot?" Peśche whispered back, suspicion glinting in his eyes.
In the center of the fight, Dordoni steadied himself and gave a strained laugh. "A sword of reishi, huh? That's a beautiful slash."
But Shin ignored him, examining the blade in his hand. "So this… is the power of an SSR attribute."
Dordoni couldn't hear his words, but he knew one thing, he was being completely disregarded. Rage flared.
"Block me once and you think you're invincible? Then take this!"
Reishi flared violently as his power spiked. Not only did his storms mend themselves, but the bird-heads regenerated instantly.
And more, new branches shot from the twin cyclones, each ending in another hardened beak.
Nine giant bird-heads now encircled Shin from every direction.
Still, he showed no fear. He had known from the start: cut the winds as many times as you like, they'll just regenerate. To end the battle, he had to strike Dordoni himself.
He raised the great sword high and swept it through the air. At the blade's edge, two fan-shaped arcs of moonlit blue carved upward, crashing into the storm.
They tore through cyclones and bird-heads alike, scattering them like leaves.
Dordoni's eyes flickered with real fear just as a sharp sound split the air. A cold flash passed clean through him, piercing bone and flesh without mercy.
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150 P.S = 1 Extra Chapter