At the exact same time Asuka stepped into the Rukongai.
Soukaizan, Second Level.
A scorched region covered in obsidian, filled with lava and volcanoes.
The sky was thick with the pungent smell of sulfur, and the earth was fragmented by boiling rivers of magma.
Above this sea of magma, on the edge of a cliff, a life-and-death struggle concerning the fate of the world was reaching its most brutal stage.
"Hahaha! What's wrong, little Wataru?! Is that all the strength you have?!"
The speaker was a purple-haired man with a copper ring pierced through his chin, wearing avant-garde and daring clothes.
He was piloting a massive, dark-green, ferocious Mashin, letting out an incredibly arrogant laugh.
This was the dedicated Mashin piloted by the Demon King's son, Toran—Garuberan.
Opposite him was a samurai-type Mashin with a blue, white, and red color scheme, carrying a sword on its back—Ryujinmaru.
It was kneeling on one knee on the scorched rock, its surface covered in dents and scratches of various sizes, with several parts of its armor already shattered...
'Damn it... How can this guy's Mashin be so strong?!'
Inside Ryujinmaru's cockpit, the boy known as the Savior, Wataru Ikusabe, wiped the sweat from his forehead, his eyes filled with anxiety.
This was the volcanic area of the second level. The extreme heat not only severely limited Ryujinmaru's performance but also rapidly drained Wataru's stamina.
In contrast, Toran's dark Mashin seemed to be in its element, every attack carrying enough force to shatter steel.
With a loud shout, its right claw transformed into a drill and smashed down viciously toward Wataru.
Wataru had to grit his teeth, gripping the control stick tightly, desperately resisting the terrifying force coming from above.
"Ryujinmaru! Can you still hold on?!" Wataru called out loudly to his partner.
Ryujinmaru's steady and majestic voice echoed in the cockpit, though it couldn't hide the strain.
With Wataru's desperate effort, Toran's Mashin was parried, but it quickly performed a backflip in mid-air.
"Trying to turn the tables? Keep dreaming!"
Toran laughed loudly, his attacks becoming even more ruthless.
"Little Wataru, although I really like you, for the sake of my royal father, you will turn into ashes in this volcano! Burst Kick!"
With the thrusters on its right leg fully engaged, Garuberan erupted with a ghostly blue exhaust flame.
The massive steel foot, carrying devastating kinetic energy, viciously kicked Ryujinmaru's chest armor!
Bang---!!!
Shatter.
A deafening crash rang out.
A massive cluster of blinding sparks exploded from Ryujinmaru's chest, and the enormous machine flew backward uncontrollably.
"Ahhh---!!!"
Inside Ryujinmaru, Wataru was thrown from his seat by the violent tremor, crashing heavily against the dragon motif and letting out a cry of pain.
On the edge of the cliff, Ryujinmaru's heavy body had completely lost its balance. The rocks beneath its feet crumbled inch by inch under the machine's weight.
Finally, amidst Toran's smug laughter, Ryujinmaru plummeted off the cliff, falling straight toward the boiling magma lake thousands of degrees hot below!
"Wataru!!!"
From a safe distance away, his companions cried out in alarm.
Himiko, the girl with the spiky ponytail who was always laughing and joking, now had tears streaming down her face.
Still holding an unfinished rice ball in her hand, she stomped her feet anxiously. "We're doomed, we're doomed! Little Wataru fell into the boiling hot bathwater! He's going to turn into a boiled monkey now!"
Beside her, the burly Master Shibaraku, whose face was as large as a hippo's, was sweating profusely, frantically patting his pockets.
"Where's my phone?! Where's my phone card?! Damn it, I can't find a telephone booth at a time like this, I can't summon Senjinmaru at all!"
However, no matter how anxious they were, they couldn't change the fact that Ryujinmaru was rapidly plunging into the magma.
"Goodbye, poor little Wataru!" Toran stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at the mecha about to be swallowed by the magma, the light of victory flashing in his eyes.
Splash---!
Ryujinmaru's massive body crashed heavily into the magma lake, splashing dark red waves of molten rock dozens of meters high.
In just a few seconds, more than half of the machine had sunk into the high-temperature liquid capable of melting anything.
"Ryujinmaru..." Wataru struggled to get up inside the cockpit.
Looking at the flashing red warnings in Ryujinmaru's vision and the outside world that had completely turned into a sea of fire, a deep sense of powerlessness rose in the little Savior's heart.
'Is this... where I meet my end...'
The situation was critical.
Just as Toran was about to turn and leave, and Wataru's consciousness began to blur in the extreme heat, at that hair-raising moment.
The magma lake, which had only rippled slightly from Ryujinmaru's fall, suddenly began to boil violently!
Bubble! Bubble! Bubble!
Those weren't ordinary bubbles; the entire bottom of the magma lake began to churn!
It was as if a super volcano that had been dormant for hundreds of millions of years was erupting madly in a way that defied all laws of physics!
The dark red magma began to change color bizarrely, first turning into a blazing bright gold, and then faintly revealing a terrifying, ghastly white!
"Huh? What's going on?"
On the cliff, Toran stopped maneuvering his Mashin, looking down in confusion at the abnormally violent sea of magma.
"Could it be Ryujinmaru's dying struggle? Impossible, at that temperature, even Mashin armor would be melted..."
Boom---!!!!!
Before Toran could finish his sentence, a roar a hundred times louder than Ryujinmaru's fall exploded from the very center of the magma lake!
"Haaah---!!!"
Accompanied by an old man's furious roar, the turbulent currents of spacetime swept out like a violent tsunami!
A terrifying pillar of magma fire, over dozens of meters in diameter, roared into the sky like a reverse waterfall, piercing straight into the clouds!
The scorching shockwave even blasted a massive hole through the thick layer of volcanic ash clouds in the sky!
Under this apocalyptic explosive force, Ryujinmaru, which had been sinking, was actually forcibly lifted by the erupting pillar of fire and thrown back into the air!
"What... what in the world is going on?!"
Toran's eyes widened, his face full of disbelief.
Himiko and Master Shibaraku were also dumbfounded, their jaws practically dropping to the ground.
But the truly mind-shattering, incomprehensible sight was yet to come.
As the towering pillar of magma fire gradually dissipated.
In the center of the churning molten rock, which reached temperatures of thousands of degrees, in that extreme hell where even steel would instantly vaporize...
A human figure slowly emerged.
It was an old man.
He was bare-chested, his upper body covered in a dense, shocking array of cross-shaped and linear scars.
His long white beard and eyebrows danced wildly in the heatwave, yet strangely, they weren't singed in the slightest by the extreme temperatures.
The old man had his eyes closed, his hands hanging naturally by his sides.
His feet were actually stepping firmly on the churning liquid magma, walking on it as if it were flat ground!
Every inch of his skin emitted a heat that was even more terrifying and profound than the surrounding magma.
It was as if... this volcanic magma, capable of incinerating all creation, was nothing more than mild bathwater before him.
This person was none other than Shigekuni Genryusai Yamamoto, who had just shattered the Prison Realm and torn through spacetime!
"Where... is this?"
Genryusai Yamamoto slowly opened his eyes, still carrying the confusion of having experienced the turbulent currents of space.
"I remember... I used Zanka no Tachi to shatter Aizen's bizarre square box..."
"It seems the power generated by that explosion threw me out of the Dangai and randomly banished me to some unknown place..."
Yamamoto furrowed his brow, exhaling a breath of stale air as he recalled everything he had just experienced.
While Genryusai Yamamoto was analyzing his situation, Toran on the cliff above was completely flabbergasted.
"Hey, hey, hey! What kind of cosmic joke is this!!!"
Toran frantically grabbed his hair inside the cockpit, letting out a distorted shriek through the Mashin's loudspeaker.
"Where did that dead old geezer come from?!! Why isn't he piloting a Mashin... and how is he taking a bath in the magma without being boiled to death?!!"
"This isn't magic! This isn't science! This doesn't fit the setting!!!"
Toran's shrieks successfully drew Genryusai Yamamoto's attention.
The old man slightly raised his head, sweeping his majestic gaze over the Mashin in mid-air, and Ryujinmaru, which had just been thrown into the sky by the magma fountain and was now awkwardly hanging on the edge of the cliff.
"Hmm?"
A trace of deep confusion flashed through Genryusai Yamamoto's eyes.
He looked at these bizarrely shaped, brightly colored creations... with exaggeratedly large heads and short limbs, looking like giant toys from some festival, and fell into deep thought.
"What are these things? They emit an uncomfortably evil aura..."
"Their size is comparable to a Gillian, but they have no bone mask, nor a hollow hole in their chest... Their entire bodies are covered in strange shells, each taking on a different form..."
The greatest enemy of the Soul Society immediately surfaced in Yamamoto's mind...
'Could it be that these are some newly evolved type of Menos?'
However, before Yamamoto could figure out what was going on, Toran launched an attack first.
"I don't care where you came from, you weird old geezer! Daring to play tricks in my territory, go die along with that little Wataru!"
"Take this! Demon Flame Cleave!"
The thrusters on the back of the Mashin mecha spewed long tongues of fire, roaring as it charged toward Yamamoto.
"Old man! Watch out!!!"
Wataru, who had already climbed up the cliff, looked at the terrifying attack capable of splitting a mountain and couldn't help but shout a warning to Yamamoto below.
However, Genryusai Yamamoto, standing on the magma, didn't panic in the slightest.
His gaze didn't even linger on Toran's sharp claws.
"Too slow."
Genryusai Yamamoto simply spat out two words.
Swish---!
Genryusai Yamamoto's figure vanished into thin air right out from under Toran's attack.
"What?!"
Toran's pupils shrank sharply as the astral wind generated by his sharp claws viciously cleaved the magma lake, kicking up a giant wave of molten rock dozens of meters long.
Yet, it didn't even touch a single hair on Yamamoto.
"Did that traitor Aizen banish me to some hidden corner of Hueco Mundo?"
An old, majestic voice suddenly rang out beside Toran's ear.
To be precise, it rang out from above Garuberan's head!
Toran snapped his head up, only to see that the bare-chested old man who was originally in the magma was now standing firmly on Garuberan's blade-like shoulder!
He had one hand behind his back and the other resting on his seemingly worn-out longsword, his eyes coldly observing this massive creation.
Clang, clang---!!
Yamamoto tapped Garuberan's metal shell with his Zanpakuto, his frown deepening.
"Not only that, but he also secretly cultivated this new type of Menos with a special Hierro armor here..."
"Truly unforgivable. They must all be purged!!"
"Reduce all creation to ash—Ryujin Jakka!!"