Chapter 270

Chapter 270: Chapter 270

They moved hard and fast.

The upper and middle floors offered very little resistance to a highly coordinated group containing multiple first-class or near-first-class combatants.

Whenever ordinary monsters blocked their direct route, they slaughtered them efficiently without wasting a single Shikai release.

Rayleigh deliberately kept his own swords sealed.

If the report was accurate, he wanted the enemy to learn absolutely as little as possible before he understood what it could actually do.

The first ominous sign that something had changed came near the lower route.

Ais abruptly slowed her pace.

Her hand dropped instinctively to Gonryōmaru.

Rayleigh felt it a second later.

A faint, cloying pull in the air. Something deep below was subtly drawing against his spiritual pressure.

Tobiume reacted at Tsubaki’s hip, pulsing warmly. Arachne and Nejibana did the exact same thing.

Asfi, lacking a soul-bound weapon, noticed all four wielders tense up simultaneously. "I assume that’s a bad sign."

"Something is pulling on the swords," Rayleigh muttered.

Ais stared intently farther down the dark corridor. "It gets stronger ahead."

Lyra touched Arachne’s hilt with a grimace. "I hate it already."

Tsubaki glanced over her shoulder at Asfi. "Still happy you turned down Rayleigh’s offer for a sword?"

"Yes." The answer came instantly.

Rayleigh looked at the blue-haired captain. "You didn’t even think about it."

"I thought about it months ago," Asfi replied evenly. "My answer remains unchanged."

They continued their descent.

Within minutes, monster corpses began appearing in the tunnels.

Hellhounds.

Loup Garous.

Several larger, significantly more dangerous species native to the Deep Floors.

Strangely, none of them had dissolved completely into ash.

Every single chest had been violently opened.

Every magic stone was completely gone.

Ardi crouched down beside one of the mangled bodies. "These wounds were made after they died."

Asfi knelt to check another carcass. "It’s a surgical, clean extraction. Whatever did this knew exactly where to reach to get the stones."

Lyra walked further ahead, looking toward the cavern wall.

Deep, jagged drag marks ran consistently through the thick stone dust. Beside them were boot prints. Human prints.

Some of the tracks staggered unevenly. Some of them ended in smeared trails of blood.

Ais drew Gonryōmaru with a sharp hiss of steel. "Someone is alive ahead."

They moved immediately, breaking into a sprint.

The narrow corridor suddenly opened into a much wider, cavernous chamber.

Rayleigh saw the splintered remains of a broken Loki Familia shield discarded near the opposite wall.

Then, the ceiling came down.

A massive, six-limbed monster crashed heavily into the space right between them amid a violent wave of broken stone.

Its grey-black body was heavily covered in irregular, thick armored plates.

Terrifyingly, several distinct mouths opened all across its head, its thick neck, and nested between its ribs.

Glowing fragments of stolen magic stones glittered menacingly between its many sets of teeth.

Ais moved first, her speed blinding. "Pierce them, Gonryōmaru!"

Golden lightning gathered incredibly tightly around the blade as she thrust straight through the creature’s lower jaw.

The steel entered cleanly.

But the lightning simply disappeared.

Ais tore Gonryōmaru free and leapt backward just before the massive jaws could snap closed around her wrist.

"It absorbed it!"

Rayleigh flanked the monster, hitting it from the side with Benihime.

The crimson cut went several inches deep into its thick neck—until he felt something physically latch onto the spiritual pressure coating the blade.

A hungry, parasitic pull traveled aggressively back through the connection, trying to rip the energy from his soul.

Rayleigh broke contact immediately, severing the flow. "Don’t maintain anything against it! It can drain the swords through sustained contact!"

Lyra didn’t hesitate, releasing her own weapon. "Weave the net, Arachne!"

Sleek black gauntlets materialized over her hands and forearms as highly tensile spiritual silk shot out, wrapping securely around four of the creature’s thrashing legs.

For a brief moment, the web held tight.

Then, the grotesque mouths across the monster’s ribs twisted directly toward the glowing threads.

Instantly, Arachne’s silk began rapidly losing tension.

Lyra swore loudly. "It’s drinking straight through the silk!"

"Cut the strands touching it!" Rayleigh shouted.

She released the connection immediately, letting the webs dissolve.

Ardi stepped fluidly into the fray before the monster could regain its balance.

Nejibana swept forward, sending a heavy, concentrated wave of pressurized water directly beneath its front legs, violently knocking them apart.

However, one of the creature’s chest mouths opened directly into the rushing water. The kinetic current instantly weakened as the spiritual energy was sucked away.

Ardi dismissed the water before the drain could spread any farther back to her blade.

"It can absorb Nejibana too!"

Tsubaki stepped forward, her single eye burning with battle lust as she drew her blade.

Blistering heat rolled through the damp chamber as the Zanpakutō entered its modified Shikai form.

The heavy steel reshaped itself into a long, wicked tongue of flame, with crimson, liquid heat flowing rapidly through the deep groove along its center.

Her ferocious grin returned. "Let’s see exactly how much you can swallow."

"Snap, Tobiume!"

She swung the heavy blade like a baseball bat.

A massive, concentrated fireball erupted from the tip, hitting the creature squarely in the ribs.

The resulting explosion tore through the enclosed chamber with enough devastating force to blast the monster entirely through a thick stone column, burying it beneath the violently collapsing upper half of the pillar.

Tsubaki lowered Tobiume, wiping a smudge of soot from her cheek. "That should—"

Asfi looked at her sharply. "Don’t."

Tsubaki stopped mid-sentence. "You know, I was only going to say—"

The rubble violently erupted.

The creature climbed slowly out of the debris.

Half of its side was burned a charred, completely blackened crisp, but its horrifying flesh was already rapidly repairing itself, knitting back together before their eyes.

Worse, a pulsing, sickly red light now traveled aggressively through the thick veins surrounding one of its primary mouths.

Rayleigh saw the energy building first. "Tsubaki, move!"

The creature opened its massive jaws wide.

A crude, roaring red fireball blasted straight from its mouth.

Tsubaki threw herself desperately to the side as the projectile struck the solid stone wall right behind her, exploding in a shower of shrapnel and flame.

The copied attack completely lacked Tobiume’s concentrated power and stability, but nobody standing in that chamber could mistake what had just happened.

Tsubaki stared wide-eyed at the burning crater in the wall. "That bastard just copied Little Ume."

Rayleigh tightened his grip on Benihime’s hilt, his knuckles turning white.

"No."

The old, chilling memory returned vividly to the forefront of his mind.

’An Enhanced Species wielding a stolen spear. Copied movements. Correct form. Terrible judgment.’

"It didn’t just copy the attack," Rayleigh said grimly. "It learned what Tobiume’s fire actually felt like after it swallowed part of the attack."

Sensing their hesitation, the creature turned aggressively toward the remaining Zanpakutō. Several of its mouths opened eagerly, dripping saliva, desperate for more spiritual energy.

Asfi calmly drew two sleek metal cylinders from her tactical belt, stepping forward.

"In that case, let’s stop feeding it magic."

She hurled both explosives directly toward its face.

Acting on its newfound instincts, the monster eagerly opened its largest mouth to consume the incoming attack.

Asfi smiled thinly. "Idiot."

The mundane explosives went off entirely inside its throat.

...

Asfi’s explosives tore the creature’s jaw apart from the inside out.

The brutal concussive blast threw its heavy head backward, opening a ragged, smoking hole beneath its throat and scattering chunks of black flesh and glowing fragments of stolen magic stones across the damp chamber.

The monster crashed heavily onto its side, twitching violently. This time, the catastrophic damage did not immediately close.

Rayleigh instantly saw the difference in its biology. "Ordinary explosives regenerate much slower."

Asfi landed gracefully on Talaria and casually drew another sleek metal cylinder from her belt.

"That confirms the obvious advantage of not attaching my soul to every single weapon I own."

Tsubaki pushed herself up from the rubble where she had dove to avoid the copied fireball, dusting off her heavy armor.

"You are enjoying this far too much, Asfi."

"I spent months listening to everyone in this city tell me how wonderful Zanpakutō are," Asfi replied smoothly, adjusting her glasses.

"Allow me this moment of vindication."

Rayleigh kept his eyes locked on the twitching beast, watching the black, spongy flesh gradually begin to crawl and knit around the creature’s ruined jaw.

"Celebrate after it’s fully dead. The magic stones it consumed are actively feeding its regeneration."

Ardi looked down at the glowing, shattered pieces scattered across the stone floor.

"So every time it absorbs one of our spiritual attacks, we’re essentially helping it recover?"

"Only if the contact lasts long enough for it to drain," Rayleigh corrected.

Ais seamlessly raised Gonryōmaru, her golden eyes narrowing.

"Then don’t give it time."

She attacked before the creature had even fully regained its footing. Gonryōmaru struck cleanly through the gaping opening Asfi’s bomb had created.

Instead of a sustained current, Ais released a micro-burst of highly concentrated lightning directly into the damaged internal tissue before violently ripping the blade free.

The nearest parasitic mouth snapped shut hungrily, but she had already moved out of range.

Ais looked back toward Rayleigh. "It couldn’t follow the connection."

"That’s exactly how we fight it," Rayleigh confirmed, shifting his stance. "Short contact, highly concentrated damage, and then change the angle of attack before it understands what just happened."

Infuriated, the creature surged after the Sword Princess.

Lyra did not attempt to bind its entire massive body this time.

A single, nearly invisible Arachne thread lashed out, catching one of its rear ankles.

She pulled sharply sideways, completely ruining the creature’s center of gravity, and vanished the silk the exact instant a mouth turned toward it to feed.

The monster stumbled awkwardly. Ardi capitalized instantly, striking the opposite knee with Nejibana.

Her pressurized water existed for barely a fraction of a second, hitting the joint like a compact, liquid battering ram before cleanly disappearing.

As the beast crashed to its knees, Tsubaki met it with Tobiume.

She used the flat of the heavy blade—no fireball, no spiritual pressure.

The devastating physical strike crashed straight through one of its shoulders, driven by Tsubaki’s Level Five strength, and hammered the creature flat into the floor.

"You want Little Ume’s fire?" Tsubaki roared. "Earn it!"

A mouth suddenly opened beneath her boot. Sickly red light gathered deep inside its throat.

Tsubaki kicked away violently as the monster released its crude, regurgitated imitation of Tobiume.

The unstable fireball completely missed her, striking the cavern ceiling instead.

The resulting explosion was noticeably weaker, lacking the intense, compressing heat of the original.

Asfi noticed the discrepancy immediately. "It only retained a small part of the attack."

Rayleigh nodded. "And it doesn’t know how Tobiume actually produces the flame. It only copied the raw structure of the spiritual pressure it managed to consume."

Tsubaki landed lightly beside him, resting the blade on her shoulder. "So it can imitate the end result without actually having the sword to sustain it."

"Exactly."

"Good." She flashed a highly dangerous grin. "Because I was about to take that personally."

The monster thrashed and attacked again.

Ais drew its primary attention with Gonryōmaru, dodging fluidly, while Lyra continuously manipulated its footing from well outside the reach of its draining mouths.

Ardi repeatedly struck its damaged joints with short, punishing bursts from Nejibana.

Nobody maintained a technique long enough for the creature to consume anything of value.

Without fresh spiritual energy to feed on, its rapid regeneration began severely falling behind the damage it was taking.

Asfi stayed hovering safely above them. She waited. She studied its movements.

Then, she dropped three entirely ordinary steel throwing knives.

One struck directly into its torn throat.

Another buried itself deep in the heavily damaged shoulder.

The third bounced harmlessly off an armored rib.

The creature barely even reacted to the mundane steel.

Asfi smiled, pulling a thin, nearly invisible cord attached to her gauntlet.

Three small, localized secondary explosions went off entirely inside the beast’s existing wounds.

The monster released an agonizing scream, flesh tearing outward.

Tsubaki barked a laugh. "I take back exactly half the things I’ve said about your ridiculous bags, Asfi!"

"Only half?"

"The other half were entirely correct!"

Desperate and bleeding, the creature lunged blindly up toward the Hermes captain.

Tsubaki intercepted it with pure physical force.

Tobiume crashed brutally against one of its forelimbs, redirecting the massive charge into the wall instead of meeting it head-on.

The violent shift left the monster’s flank completely exposed.

Rayleigh stepped in, drawing Ruri’iro Kujaku. "Bloom."

The glowing vines shot forward, burying themselves deep into the open wounds. Ruri’iro Kujaku began feeding aggressively immediately.

Immense energy surged backward through the Zanpakutō and into Rayleigh’s arms.

’Just enough,’ Rayleigh told himself.

He allowed the drain to last for exactly one heartbeat.

Then, he severed the connection. The monster’s mouths aggressively flared to reverse the flow, but reacted far too late.

Rayleigh sidestepped, attaching the vines again through its opposite, mangled shoulder.

Another single heartbeat.

Then release.

Lyra watched the rhythmic execution from the perimeter. "You’re stealing from it significantly faster than it can follow the drain."

"I’m also stopping Ruri’iro Kujaku from getting greedy," Rayleigh muttered, gripping the hilt tightly.

The Zanpakutō pulled hard against his grip, practically vibrating with the desire to drink the beast dry. Rayleigh frowned at the blade.

"Very greedy."

Realizing Rayleigh was the source of its rapidly depleting strength, the creature abandoned everyone else and charged him with everything it had left.

Ais intercepted, striking the side of its head with a perfectly timed, single discharge from Gonryōmaru.

Ardi’s Nejibana caught its front legs in a pressurized vice and violently pushed them apart.

Tsubaki followed up, driving Tobiume physically and mercilessly through its cracked ribs.

Asfi shouted from her vantage point above. "Core exposed! Right under the sternum!"

Rayleigh saw the glowing cluster instantly.

Dozens of stolen magic-stone fragments had fused together organically inside the creature’s chest cavity.

Benihime flashed in a crimson arc, cutting just once.

The remaining, stubborn flesh protecting the core fell completely open.