Chapter 290

Chapter 290: Chapter 290

Five days after Rayleigh reached for his hammer, a sixth Zanpakutō rested beside the other five in his workshop.

He had no intention of making a ceremony out of it.

The forging was finished and after several days spent confirming that the connection between them was stable, there was only one thing left to do: see how it performed in actual combat.

The new Zanpakutō looked almost disappointingly ordinary while sealed.

Its blade was shorter than Benihime and considerably less distinctive than Hyōrinmaru, with a plain guard and no decoration that hinted at what it could do once released.

Alfia looked at the weapon from across the breakfast table.

"So that is what kept you inside the forge for most of the week."

Rayleigh finished his tea before answering. "I said I was going to rest. I never said I was going to be useless."

"Spending several days forging another weapon immediately after nearly exhausting yourself twice is apparently your definition of rest."

"I slept every night."

Alfia gave him a look that made it clear she did not consider that a convincing defense, but she did not continue the argument.

The soul thread between them had remained calm throughout the week, and unlike Knossos, Rayleigh had never pushed himself anywhere near collapse.

Her attention returned to the new sword.

"What does this one do?"

Rayleigh picked it up and fastened it beside Benihime.

"Something simple."

"That usually means dangerous when you say it."

"This time it really is simple."

He headed toward the door, then stopped long enough to check the street through the window before leaving.

As always, Alfia remained out of sight while he unlocked the house and stepped outside alone.

His other four personal Zanpakutō remained at home; for today’s test, he only needed the new blade and Benihime as insurance.

...

Rayleigh entered the Dungeon alone.

There was something almost nostalgic about it.

Long before Orario knew the name Yōtōsai, before Zanpakutō had spread through several of the city’s strongest Familias, and before people had started dragging him into every disaster they could find, he had explored the Dungeon by himself with little more than an ordinary sword and whatever Kidō his spiritual pressure could support.

Now he passed through the Upper and Middle Floors so quickly that most monsters never managed to reach him, and he did not stop to hunt.

Shunpo carried him through familiar routes while he conserved his strength for the actual test, and by the time he passed Rivira and continued downward, the sixth Zanpakutō had still not left its sheath.

Rayleigh eventually chose the thirty-seventh floor, since he had been there recently enough to remember the terrain clearly, and the deeper portions contained plenty of monsters capable of surviving an ordinary sword strike.

More importantly, the floor possessed several large chambers where he could test a long-range weapon without accidentally putting the blade through three Dungeon walls and an adventurer who happened to be walking on the other side.

The difference from his previous visit was immediately obvious: there were no black roots spreading through the stone, no strange pressure pulling against his Zanpakutō, and no monsters moving with techniques stolen from adventurers.

The Dungeon had returned to its normal hostility.

A Loup Garou came around a bend and charged the moment it saw him.

Rayleigh drew the new sword but did not release it.

The first exchange was deliberately ordinary.

He stepped outside the creature’s claw, cut once across its arm, then shifted his grip and drove the blade through the neck before it could turn, and the Loup Garou dissolved.

Rayleigh examined the edge. The physical blade felt comfortable and balanced, but that was hardly surprising, since he had made it for himself.

Another howl came from deeper inside the passage, and this time several answered.

"Good."

Rayleigh continued forward.

...

He found the space he wanted less than ten minutes later.

The chamber was wide enough that even a group of adventurers could have fought comfortably inside it, with several branching passages entering from different directions.

Rayleigh deliberately walked through two of those passages first, allowing the monsters inside to notice him before returning to the center.

The result did not take long. Loup Garous entered from the eastern passage first, followed by several larger monsters from the opposite side, and more movement echoed behind them until, within a minute, Rayleigh had roughly thirty monsters converging on the chamber.

That was enough for the first test.

He held the Zanpakutō loosely in his right hand as the closest Loup Garou lowered its body and prepared to leap.

Rayleigh pointed the sword toward it.

"Shoot to kill, Shinsō."

The blade changed instantly, though there was no explosion of petals, no spreading ice, no distortion of the senses and no crimson barrier forming around him.

Shinsō simply extended.

The silver blade crossed the chamber faster than the Loup Garou could react, pierced through its skull and continued into the monster behind it before Rayleigh stopped the extension.

Both creatures remained standing for a fraction of a second, then Shinsō contracted back into his hand and the monsters collapsed and dissolved almost together.

Rayleigh looked at the blade.

"Fast."

That single word described Shinsō better than any complicated explanation could have. Senbonzakura could control an enormous area, Hyōrinmaru could change the battlefield itself, Sakanade could destroy an enemy’s ability to trust its own senses, while Benihime could adapt to a wide range of problems.

Shinsō did something much narrower: it killed whatever stood at the end of a straight line.

Another monster rushed him from the side.

Rayleigh turned his wrist, and Shinsō extended again.

The blade entered through the creature’s mouth and exited through the back of its skull before the rest of the pack even reacted.

Rayleigh contracted it and shifted toward the next target.

Three monsters approached from different angles, and this time he moved rather than waiting.

Shunpo carried him to the side of the formation, putting the three creatures almost perfectly in line.

Shinsō shot forward, passed through all three magic stones in a single extension, and returned to his hand as all three bodies dissolved.

Rayleigh understood the weapon quickly: its strength was also its limitation.

Shinsō was nothing like Senbonzakura. If twenty enemies surrounded him from every direction, controlling millions of blades would still be the better choice, since Shinsō could not cover an area for him, nor could it simply chase every moving enemy around a battlefield.

It rewarded positioning, angle, timing, and precision.

Rayleigh smiled.

"I like you."

Shinsō gave a faint vibration in his hand as the remaining monsters attacked, and Rayleigh stepped into them.

He did not stand at a distance and repeatedly fire the blade like an arrow.

Instead, he mixed ordinary swordsmanship with sudden extensions that changed the effective range of every attack.

A monster avoided what looked like a short thrust, only for the blade to lengthen halfway through the movement and pierce its chest.

Another tried to attack from outside the sword’s apparent reach, but Shinsō crossed the distance before its claw finished moving.

Rayleigh deliberately shortened one extension to less than a meter, using the sudden change in length to strike around a monster’s guard before retracting the blade and cutting the next creature normally.

Within several minutes, the chamber had emptied, and the final Loup Garou dissolved at his feet.

Rayleigh rested Shinsō against one shoulder.

The Shikai test was finished. Now came the reason he had gone this deep!