BOOM!
The single strike resounded like the roar of spring thunder splitting the heavens, which was precisely why Yekawa had named this move Thunderclap Slash.
The moment the strike was unleashed, Yekawa's Reiatsu plummeted violently, nearly seventy percent of his spiritual pressure being drained in an instant. A massive arc of dark-golden lightning, wrapped in a blade aura so dense it distorted the air itself, tore forward toward Hubert Allen like divine judgment descending from the sky!
"What an absurdly fast blade!"
Sensing the overwhelming killing intent contained within Yekawa's earth-shattering strike, Hubert Allen immediately invoked his innate Hollow ability. He opened his serpent-like maw and spewed forth an enormous volume of black mist venom, thick and roiling with corrupt Reiatsu.
The poisonous mist coiled together midair, forming a gigantic venomous serpent construct that lunged forward and collided head-on with Yekawa's Thunderclap Slash.
At the same time, the Cero charged within the mouths of countless Gillians had finally reached completion.
Hundreds of black-purple beams of destruction locked onto Yekawa's position and fired simultaneously!
BOOOOM!!
The lightning dragon-like Thunderclap Slash and the giant venom serpent crashed together, detonating with a roar that shook the forest of Hueco Mundo itself.
The Thunderclap Slash cleaved the venom construct in half
And with it, Hubert Allen, who had concealed himself behind it.
Yet at the very same instant, hundreds of Cero rained down upon Yekawa!
The ground erupted violently. Sand, stone, and shattered trees were hurled skyward as a colossal explosion swallowed everything.
"This… impossible… I refuse to die like this!!!"
Hubert Allen's final, terrified scream echoed briefly
Then his body was torn apart from the center, exploding into fragments of spiritual matter.
"Ptooey!"
As the dust slowly settled, Yekawa stood alone in the center of a massive crater, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
One of his shoulders had been completely blasted out of existence.
"…That was close."
Yekawa glanced down at the ruined battlefield with lingering fear.
After unleashing his strongest attack, when faced with the simultaneous bombardment of hundreds of Cero, he had instantly fired his own Cero downward, blasting open the ground and diving into the depths to evade the majority of the destruction.
Even so, his entire shoulder had still been annihilated.
Fortunately, he had shielded his head and core organs tightly with dense Reiatsu and Hierro reinforcement. Almost immediately, grotesque flesh began writhing at the wound.
High-Speed Regeneration activated.
In mere moments, the grievous injury was restored completely.
Yet despite his recovery, Yekawa's aura was dangerously faint. His Reiatsu reserves were nearly depleted to the brink.
But he knew better than to relax now.
Forcing himself to remain alert, he activated Sonído and staggered toward Hubert Allen's remains, immediately triggering Soul Eater, devouring every fragment of the fallen Adjuchas without waste.
Without pausing to digest properly, Yekawa raised his blade and charged straight toward the remaining Gillians.
These Gillians, already lacking intelligence, were now even more sluggish due to prolonged exposure to Hubert Allen's venom. Without their master, they moved like hollow husks, their coordination completely shattered.
Even in his weakened state, Yekawa went on a ruthless rampage, cutting them down one by one and devouring each with Soul Eater.
After slaughtering over half of them, a deep sensation of fullness surged within him the unmistakable signal of imminent evolution.
Yekawa forcibly suppressed it and continued killing.
Only after the final Gillian fell did he rise toward what had once been Hubert Allen's lair. There, at last, he released his suppression and allowed the devoured spiritual particles to circulate freely.
His massive body curled inward as dark-golden Reiatsu surged outward like roaring tides, wave after wave crashing into the surrounding air.
A colossal pillar of dark-golden light erupted from his body, piercing both sky and earth like a bridge between realms.
At that moment, within several hundred miles, every Hollow sensed the vast, overwhelming presence.
A hundred miles to the north, a centaur-shaped Adjuchas turned toward Yekawa's direction in sheer dread, his eyes trembling.
"Is… is a Menos evolving into something beyond itself?!"
"What a magnificent sensation… is this the leap of life itself?!"
At the heart of the light pillar, Yekawa cried out in rapture.
It felt as though invisible hands wrapped around him, gentle and warm, like a spring breeze caressing his soul a pleasure beyond words.
Then, slowly, the pillar of light dissipated.
Revealed was Yekawa's towering, newly evolved form.
Now exceeding one hundred meters in height, he had truly ascended beyond an ordinary Menos Grande.
Yet unlike most Gillians, who retained monstrous, uniform forms, Yekawa's body had grown distinctly more humanoid.
His entire physique was jet black, etched with flowing dark-golden lightning patterns that pulsed like living veins. His former centipede tail had transformed into a sleek, armor-like structure fused with his mask, wrapping across his back like a living exoskeleton.
Most striking of all, his Hollow hole had shifted now located directly over his heart.
Feeling the surging Reiatsu coursing through him, Yekawa knew without doubt:
The Adjuchas that had nearly overwhelmed him before… would now likely be unable to withstand even a casual strike.
"THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!"
Yekawa stomped his skeletal feet excitedly, causing the ground to quake violently.
Examining himself, he noted that only his feet still resembled a Gillian's typical form yet even that filled him with satisfaction. Before, he could move only by his tail; now, he possessed legs once more.
"You've grown too, haven't you?"
He looked at the Asauchi in his hand, now a forty-meter blade scaled proportionally with his new body.
"Heh… but then again…"
With a strange laugh, Yekawa's massive form rapidly compressed.
In mere seconds, he shrank from a hundred-meter giant into a humanoid figure barely two meters tall. Simultaneously, the enormous blade reduced itself to the size of a normal Zanpakutō.
This was a new ability awakened through his evolution As You Wish.
It allowed Yekawa to freely regulate his size within certain limits by controlling the density of his Reiatsu.
With his current humanoid appearance and terrifying spiritual pressure, anyone who saw him would mistake him for a Vasto Lorde.
From this moment on, Yekawa resolved to maintain this form as his default state.
After all, even with concealment techniques, hiding a mountain-sized body was impossible.
He casually swung his blade.
A single blade arc tore through the forest, toppling more than a dozen towering trees.
"Not bad… not bad at all."
His eyes gleamed.
"At least ten times stronger than before my evolution."
A thought crossed his mind.
"…I wonder if I can defeat Ito Kai now."
Fresh from advancement, his fighting spirit burned fiercely. Though he had only ascended to Gillian-class Menos, his existence was far beyond conventional standards. In the original world, no Gillian had ever been seen slaughtering Adjuchas like prey.
And Ito Kai the former Third Seat of the Eleventh Division whose actual combat strength rivaled that of elite Vice-Captains, was the perfect opponent to test his power.
Without hesitation, Yekawa injected his Reiatsu into his Zanpakutō, simultaneously extending his consciousness into the blade's inner world.
The familiar sensation of reality spinning overtook him.
The forest blurred.
The towering trees of Hueco Mundo dissolved into rows of earthen houses.
It was Rukongai reconstructed from Ito Kai's memories.
"…It really works."