-----
-----
Every member of the Demon Slayer Corps, with the lone exception of the ever-cowering Zenitsu Agatsuma, saw something in the video before them.
In Renji's world-ending display of power, they caught a glimpse of hope. A faint but unmistakable light that one day, somehow, Kibutsuji Muzan might be slain.
They all knew the truth. No matter how hard they trained, they would never reach the unreachable heights shown on that screen. But hope didn't need to be realistic. That spark alone was enough to keep their faith burning as they marched through blood and fire toward the battlefield fate had prepared for them.
Ishida Uryū. One arrow that pierces the heavens. The Quincy strategist is not to be underestimated.
The video cut sharply, pulling away from the aftermath of Green Cliff's crushing defeat. The focus snapped to the center of the battlefield.
A white-clad figure stood there, calm and composed, spirit bow in hand.
Ishida Uryū.
Without a hint of hesitation, he flicked his arm. Brilliant blue spiritual pressure surged like a tide, drawn in and shaped in an instant. It transformed into a dense storm of arrows that screamed toward his opponent, Gula.
"Shh—shh—!"
The reishi arrows tore through the air with a scalp-prickling shriek. The shockwaves they carried carved long, narrow trenches into the ground, as clean and sharp as cuts from a blade.
Then came a horrifying sight.
Gula didn't dodge. He didn't block.
Instead, the massive, grotesque mouth embedded in his chest yawned open wide and swallowed every single blue reishi arrow whole.
Not one escaped.
A sharp glint flashed behind Ishida's glasses, his expression turning grim.
"Delicious," Gula rumbled, patting his belly with satisfaction. "Absolutely delicious."
In the next moment, clusters of pink spiritual pressure erupted from his mouth. They were no longer arrows, but a relentless barrage of energy shells, like a heavy machine gun unleashing hell.
Boom!Boom!!!
The explosions were deafening. The area where Ishida had stood was instantly engulfed, swallowed by roaring fire, smoke, and debris. Dust billowed skyward, blotting out everything.
Chunks of rock flew through the smoke under the force of the shockwaves, the air thick with the stench of scorched earth.
When Gula's firepower finally slowed, the ground below was unrecognizable. It looked as though fighter jets had carpet-bombed the place again and again.
Deep craters riddled the landscape, vaporizing all plants and stone nearby into nothingness. Black pits several meters deep gaped like wounds torn into the earth.
And yet—
Ishida Uryū moved like a ghost, flashing across the battlefield, slipping past every fatal blast by a hair's breadth.
In a blur, he closed the distance and appeared right in front of Gula. His spirit bow shifted shape in his hands, transforming into a cold, gleaming weapon known as the Soul-Cutting Artifact. Its edge slashed straight for Gula's head.
Gula didn't flinch.
Instead, a brand-new mouth split open across his forehead and snapped shut with perfect precision, biting down on Ishida's weapon.
"I'll dig in!" Gula declared excitedly.
The solid Soul-Cutting Artifact didn't shatter. It didn't resist. It was swallowed, dissolving as if it had been pulled into gelatin.
"Bit of a weird flavor," Gula laughed wildly, his voice dripping with cruelty. "But when I'm hungry, I don't care! Give up already. Let me send you to hell with a kiss!"
Before he could finish, Ishida was already thrusting a second Soul-Cutting Artifact forward.
The result was the same.
Mouths split open across Gula's body, devouring every attack with ruthless efficiency.
Yet Ishida showed no frustration at all.
He calmly drew his bow again. This time, the arrow he formed looked noticeably different.
Gula hesitated. Sensing something off, he chose not to eat it. With a casual wave of his hand, he knocked the arrow aside.
"That was your ultimate move?" Gula sneered. "Disappointing. Is that tiny brain of yours really out of ideas already?"
Ishida adjusted his glasses, his gaze icy and unwavering.
"I'd recommend saving that line until after you've tasted my next move."
He fired again.
Gula's chest-mouth opened once more, ready to repeat the trick.
But just before the arrow touched his body, it stopped.
Suspended in midair.
The blue reishi arrow dissolved, replaced by a massive cross-shaped sigil formed of pure spiritual pressure. The cross expanded violently, becoming a dense reishi barrier that sealed Gula inside completely.
"A Holy Light Formation," Ishida said calmly. "A high-density reishi compression barrier. Similar to a Breaking Spear Array. You're completely locked in."
Gula stared at the transparent yet unbreakable walls, panic flooding his face.
"That's impossible! I absorbed most of your reishi! Where did you get the power to build something like this?!"
The sudden reversal shattered his mental defenses.
Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, only to evaporate instantly under the crushing density of reishi inside the barrier.
"That reishi," Ishida said, a quiet smile forming at the corner of his lips, "is leaking out of your body."
A killing wind swept through the battlefield, tugging at Ishida's white cloak as it snapped sharply behind him.
Inside the barrier—
"Huh? Wh-what the hell?!"
A thin wound split open on Gula's left shoulder. Spiritual pressure burst out uncontrollably.
Then, with a scream of disbelief, countless microscopic cuts appeared all over his body, spreading like a spiderweb.
"The Soul-Cutting Artifact creates extremely fine wounds," Ishida explained coolly, as though giving a lecture. "Once those exist, reishi naturally leaks out of a body like yours. After all, when it comes to absorbing and weaponizing reishi, a Quincy like me is your senior."
The contrast was stark.
Ishida stood calm and composed, while Gula spiraled into madness.
Unhurried, Ishida produced a tiny reishi component, no bigger than a bullet, and flicked it toward the cross-shaped arrow sustaining the formation.
"Quincy… wins by a margin."
The moment Gula saw the small metallic object, his expression collapsed completely.
Despair. Regret. Rage. Terror.
All of it twisted across his face as the certainty of death crushed him.
Clang!
The component struck the arrow with pinpoint accuracy and fell into the barrier.
Too bright.
Far too bright.
That was Gula's final sensation.
The Holy Light Formation erupted with brilliance like a star going supernova. Half of the Third Layer of Hell was illuminated in an instant.
A realm that had known only eternal darkness was flooded with daylight for the first time in thousands of years.
Hidden hellwardens lurking deep within the Yellow Springs were drawn out, their monstrous heads rising from the waters to stare at the sacred, terrifying light.
The glow intensified. The formation began collapsing inward.
Overwhelmed by the blinding radiance, the guardians were forced to retreat, diving back into the depths to escape a light that should never exist in hell.
Buzz—
The formation compressed to a single point.
Then vanished, barrier and Gula alike, as if swallowed by a singularity.
An instant later—
BOOOOOOM!!!
The explosion roared like divine punishment, shaking the entire hellscape. Fire and a towering mushroom cloud spread across thousands of square kilometers, vaporizing everything they touched.
Where Renji's earlier battle had left ruins behind, Ishida's battlefield left nothing.
Only a vast, bottomless circular crater remained.
Everyone watching the video was utterly stunned.
In their minds, Ishida Uryū had always been the strategist, the planner, the thinker.
Who could have imagined he possessed a killing move capable of erasing the landscape itself?
Many viewers broke out in cold sweat, feeling as though that absolute, overwhelming power was pressing down on them through the screen.
Ishida stood at the crater's edge, adjusted his glasses, and let out a long breath.
Instant annihilation.Even Falling Star had nothing on that.
Those glued to the screen finally snapped back to reality, their bodies going slack as the tension drained away.
Elsewhere, in the world of Naruto—
"The ground… it's been completely pierced!"
"This power… it's beyond reason!"
"If that attack hit our village, it'd be ash in a second!"
"Damn it! Is this really the realm of strength I can never reach, no matter how hard I try?!"
"Even all Five Kage together couldn't cause destruction on that level!"
"....."