Tamura Yao was one of the outstanding Freshmen of the Spiritual Arts Academy this year.
She was battling a Hollow that resembled a mouse, and after some probing, she finally discovered its weakness: extremely poor eyesight, relying entirely on hearing to move.
Therefore, she first used White Lightning to create excess noise, then seized the opportunity to deliver a fatal blow with her Asauchi.
Just as she joyfully believed she was about to pass the assessment and become a formal Shinigami, she was horrified to discover that the Hollow, whose neck had been severed and was on the verge of fading, not only wasn't purified but its spiritual pressure grew even stronger, and its body even changed shape.
In the blink of an eye, it transformed into an upright, mouse-headed monster Hollow, and its hideous mask even eerily fell off in parts.
Seeing this, she could only adjust her breathing again, then gripped her sword with both hands and charged forward once more.
Unexpectedly, this strike, infused with her full spiritual pressure, only managed to produce a few sparks on the Hollow's surface.
"Squeak!"
The half-mouse Arrancar roared in fury, flicking its right claw to send Tamura Yao's Asauchi flying.
Seeing the monstrous Hollow approaching step by step, Tamura Yao had no choice but to crush the World-Breaking Pill given to her by the examiner earlier, but to her horror, she found that the World-Breaking Pill was completely useless.
Outside the barrier.
"O, ye who dwell in the heavens, mask of flesh, all creation, flapping wings, ye who bear the name of man! Truth and temperance, unknowing of the wall of dreams, stand only upon it!"
"Hadō #33 - Sōkatsui!"
Ito Makoto no longer held back, immediately unleashing a fully incanted Sōkatsui with all his might.
A pale blue flame suddenly rose, illuminating the originally pitch-black night sky.
"Roar!"
As the pale blue flames scorched its flesh, the fleshy Arrancar's black-hole-like maw let out a painful roar, and all dozen or so tentacles twitched uncontrollably.
Ito Makoto followed up with a Shunpo, unleashing a Thunderclap Slash.
"Rumble!"
After the thunder came a pure White Lightning-wrapped slash that directly split the massive fleshy sphere in two.
"Splurt!"
The originally terrifying and incomplete Arrancar, transformed from a Gillian, was thus dealt with by Ito Makoto in just a few moves.
"This is... a Freshman's strength?"
Oi Rimi, standing by, couldn't help but swallow when she saw Ito Makoto's fluid maneuvers directly slay the monstrous Menos Grande, which had made her unable to even conceive of resistance.
"Examiner Oi, what are you spacing out for? Hurry and save the other Freshmen!"
Hearing Ito Makoto's shout, Oi Rimi snapped out of her shock and immediately rushed towards the cluster of barriers in the mountains below.
"Too slow, there's no time!"
Within the barriers below, all thirty-two Freshman Hollows originally used for the assessment had transformed into incomplete Arrancar.
Moreover, the World-Breaking Pills prepared earlier had lost their effectiveness; clearly, someone had altered the barrier parameters, causing the World-Breaking Pills to fail.
While these incomplete Arrancar, transformed from Freshman Hollows, were at most comparable to ordinary powerful Hollows, they were clearly not something these Shinigami Freshmen could handle at the moment.
And these barriers were too scattered; clearly, saving them one by one would be impossible.
"It's over, it's completely over! If all these Freshmen die here, I'll definitely have to face judgment from Central 46. I just got promoted to 18th Seat last month!"
Oi Rimi, seeing the perilous situation within the barriers, couldn't help but feel utterly despairing.
Suddenly, she felt an extremely powerful spiritual pressure surge behind her.
She sharply turned her head and only then realized.
Ito Makoto held his Asauchi horizontally in front of him, muttering:
"Demons and spirits, all creation, gods and saints, all turn to dust, Soumetsu!"
A dark golden spiritual pressure flashed, and Ito Makoto's Asauchi had dramatically changed in appearance.
It had transformed into a bone blade, entirely snow-white, as if cast from bone.
The blade and hilt became more slender, the guard became long and thin, curving outwards on both sides, and a thin iron chain was tied to the back of the hilt.
"Soumetsu, First Form, Tremor!"
Ito Makoto merely flicked the long sword in his hand, and then the blade began to vibrate subtly.
At the same time, the weak Arrancar in the thirty-two barriers below instantly exploded into bloody pulp!
"Crackle!"
Subsequently, even the barriers that had trapped the Freshmen shattered at the same time.
Seeing the monstrous rat's giant claw just a few centimeters from her forehead, Tamura Yao had already closed her eyes in despair, silently awaiting death's arrival.
"Father, Mother, and little brother, I'm sorry, this time I'm going to disappoint your expectations..."
A crystal tear slid from the corner of her eye.
Suddenly, she felt a warmth on her face, with warm liquid splashing onto her cheeks.
After a moment, she touched her head, confirming that her head was still perfectly intact on her neck, and then slowly opened her eyes.
Everything she saw was a crimson mess; the monstrous human-rat, which had been so menacing, was now a puddle of blood, even splattering some on her face.
"I've been saved?"
While Tamura Yao was in a daze, she suddenly heard Oi Rimi's anxious call: "What are you still standing there for? Hurry and come over!"
Hearing this, Tamura Yao, still in a daze, used Shunpo and quickly came to Oi Rimi's side.
Ito Makoto, meanwhile, looked at the two dark blue giant claws extending from the Hueco Mundo rift ahead, and said with a solemn expression:
"Senior Oi, please take the other students back to Soul Society first.
If you stay here... I'll have to divide my attention to protect you all!"
Ito Makoto was blunt about this, but Oi Rimi showed no displeasure, for she knew that Ito Makoto was speaking the truth; her current strength here was indeed no different from being a liability.
She immediately opened the interdimensional passage, taking the thirty-two surviving Shinigami cadets back to Soul Society.
"Lord Ito, thanks to you, none of the thirty-two Freshmen were killed.
Please be very careful in the upcoming battle!"
Oi Rimi was quite clever, directly addressing Ito Makoto as 'Lord'.
In this battle, due to Ito Makoto's timely intervention, none of the thirty-two Freshmen were injured or killed; only two Squad Members from the accompanying Ninth Division perished.
This was already a blessing in disguise!
Within the interdimensional passage, Tamura Yao looked at Oi Rimi with a troubled expression:
"Senior Oi, Lord Ito... he'll be alright, won't he!"
As an outstanding Freshman of this year, Tamura Yao had long noticed the handsome young man named Ito Makoto, who had skipped six ranks in a single year, and had admired him for a long time, but had always been quite self-conscious and dared not express her feelings directly.
Now, learning that Ito Makoto had saved everyone and was staying behind to cover their retreat, she couldn't help but worry for him!
"Don't worry, he'll definitely be fine!"
Oi Rimi replied with a firm tone.
Though her strength was lacking, her eyesight was not.
That kind of gaze, that kind of aura, she had only seen on two people in the Ninth Division.
One was the former Captain of the Ninth Division, Kensei Muguruma, and the other was the current Captain of the Ninth Division, Tōsen Kaname!
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