"So I decided to solve the problem at its source."
With a smile that did not reach his eyes, Vitto continued. "I specifically came all the way from the surface, descending into the Dungeon just to find you. Because of you, I may miss the beautiful moment when Orario burns to the ground, Do you understand? It is entirely your fault!"
Vitto spoke as if confiding in a friend, yet his tone carried a complaining edge, dragging on without pause.
Rayleigh had heard enough!
He used Shunpo and materialized behind Vitto, bringing his blade down in a single execution-style stroke!
Vitto reacted, drawing his sword in a flash and blocking the strike with a backhanded guard.
Rayleigh raised an eyebrow, surprised by the rapid parry.
Catching the reaction, Vitto offered a twisted smile. "Last time, I lacked a weapon that suited my style. In truth, I'm somewhat of a swordsman myself."
The moment the words left his mouth, he moved with the fluid agility of a fox.
Dropping into an extremely low stance, he slipped past Rayleigh's guard.
Finding the optimal angle, he swung his blade.
Rayleigh fell into a defensive retreat. The sharp clangs of steel colliding blurred into one continuous stream.
'This guy—"somewhat" of a swordsman? What false modesty!'
This level of bladework could not be classified as ordinary.
Calling him an expert seems far more accurate.
Still, he is not as good as Kaguya!
Rayleigh kept Shunkō active. His speed, physical strength, and explosive power operated far beyond the standard metrics of a Level 3.
The fact that he appeared suppressed by Vitto's assault was a deliberate ruse, he was feigning weakness to bait an opening.
Vitto's attacks poured in relentlessly. It was a style reliant on speed to overwhelm the opponent, forcing them into a state of constant defense until exhaustion inevitably bred a fatal mistake.
However, a rapid-fire offensive pattern of that nature could not maintain equal kinetic force behind every strike.
He had to mix light feints with heavy blows.
Once a defender mapped the rhythm, countering became a simple equation.
'Like this!'
Rayleigh seized the exact moment Vitto withdrew his strength to reset a strike.
With a sharp thrust, Rayleigh drove his blade straight toward Vitto's wrist.
Vitto's expression shifted.
He pulled his hand higher, sacrificing his footing to keep his fingers from being severed. That desperate evasion broke the rhythmic momentum fueling his speed.
Just as Rayleigh anticipated, the broken rhythm produced a weak floating strike from a poor angle.
Rayleigh raised his bare hand and caught Vitto's wrist in a vice grip.
Pivoting his weight, he brought Senbonzakura down, carving a deep gash across Vitto's shoulder.
Vitto yanked hard, tearing his arm free.
His shoulder hung half-severed, the intense agony pulling a sheet of cold sweat from his pores.
This was the wrist-bone blade method.
A specialized slash launched at a specific angle designed to magnify the nerve pain of an injury fivefold.
The first time Kaguya landed a similar strike on him during a sparring match, Rayleigh almost stopped breathing.
Because the brutal lesson left such a deep impression, he mastered the technique in record time.
Perhaps the memory of the pain had simply been too vivid.
"Hahaha, that hurts!" Vitto burst out laughing, seemingly invigorated by the agony.
Like a madman, he staggered back to his feet and pulled a small glass vial from his tunic.
"That is... an Elixir?"
"Correct!"
Vitto tilted his head back, snapped the cork with his teeth and swallowed the glowing liquid in a single gulp.
A miraculous scene unfolded.
The severed flesh on his shoulder emitted a faint glow. In seconds, the horrifying wound knit back together, healing completely without leaving a single scar.
Rayleigh's Dungeon expedition party had been supplied with crates of those rare items.
If a grunt like Vitto carried Elixirs, he likely acquired them through black market channels—most likely by robbing underground merchants.
He probably hadn't paid a single Valis for it.
"How truly unbelievable. You are obviously a Level 3, yet your output surpasses mine. To be honest, I considered myself among the elite even within the Level 4 ranks! Really now—are you some kind of monster?" Vitto asked, stretching his healed shoulder.
"You're lying."
"What?"
"If you truly believed I was stronger, why would you seek me out for a one-on-one fight?" Rayleigh reasoned.
Very few fighters voluntarily picked a battle they knew they could not win.
If Vitto engaged him directly, the assassin held a trump card.
He did not believe he would lose.
"Hahaha, then you've misunderstood me."
"Misunderstood?"
"Correct. The only reason I set my sights on you was to extract the answer to a certain question," Vitto said, his smile widening.
"And that question is?"
"Hm? You are interested?"
Rayleigh shook his head.
He spat the withered lily petals from his mouth and adjusted his grip.
"I was only buying time dumbass."
Vitto's smile froze.
The assassin remained unaware that Rayleigh had continuously chained Bankai, Shikai, and high-tier Kidō prior to this encounter.
He had even engaged Shunkō just moments ago.
For a Level 3 Mage, that sheer volume of Reiatsu (Mind) expenditure would drain half their reserves.
Fortunately, the dense Magic siphoned from the Greatest Evil by Ruri'iro Kujaku aided his recovery.
But processing that raw energy required time.
Vitto's willingness to waste oxygen on a villainous monologue suited Rayleigh perfectly.
To keep the assassin blind to his fatigue, Rayleigh had pushed his tempo, feigning peak condition.
Now, his reserves had recovered to a comfortable threshold.
"I have no intention of chatting with you any longer. Playing the hero who saves others does not suit me, and I have no interest in the role. Let me finish you quickly!"
Rayleigh tossed Senbonzakura forward.
The blade spun twice in the air before plunging point-first into the scorched bedrock.
"Bankai. Senbonzakura Kageyoshi."
The ground dissolved.
A surging, pink sea of razor-sharp cherry blossoms rushed toward Vitto from all directions, boxing him into the center of the swarm.
Faced with the inescapable, wide-area attack, Vitto reached into his tunic.
A wave of absolute cold erupted outward as the pink petals closing in on his position froze solid.
Rayleigh sensed the localized fluctuation of Magic.
'A Crozzo Magic Sword, huh.'
Vitto wielded a short, icy blade. The weapon behaved similarly to Hyōrinmaru—each swing released a chilling frost that froze the ambient moisture.
The millions of Senbonzakura petals caught in the localized cold snapped together, forming a thick wall of ice.
Rayleigh raised his hand, commanding Senbonzakura to vibrate at high frequency.
Under the combined, localized trembling of hundreds of millions of microscopic blades, jagged cracks spiderwebbed across the ice wall.
Before the barrier shattered, Vitto burst through the fracturing ice.
"I've already seen this trick! Did you really think I would come unprepared?!" Vitto roared, charging with a savage grin.
Seeing the absolute confidence painted across the assassin's face, Rayleigh sneered inwardly.
'So he planned to blitz me during the brief window when my Bankai was stalled?'
Watching Vitto close the gap, Rayleigh remained perfectly still.
He didn't bother raise his defense.
As the heavy sword swung toward his neck, Rayleigh simply raised his index finger.
Clink!
Vitto's full-powered strike landed and the resulting recoil left the assassin staring in absolute shock.
"What? Impossible!" Vitto stared in horror as the edge of his blade rested harmlessly against the tip of Rayleigh's bare finger.
He had put his full Level 4 strength into the swing!
"Y-you... what did you do? What kind of trick is this?!" Vitto stammered, unable to process the physical impossibility.
Rayleigh's expression remained calm.
He looked entirely at ease.
A concentrated point of pale blue light glowed at the tip of his finger. From that epicenter, complex, glowing blue veins spread across the skin of his hand.
This was Blut Vene.
By flooding the blood vessels with dense Reiatsu, the technique exponentially multiplied the body's defensive threshold.
In the bleach anime he watch in his past life, a subconscious activation of Blut Vene by Ichigo Kurosaki had deflected a lethal strike from Yhwach himself.
And after rigorous training, Rayleigh had achieved a smooth, conscious mastery of the Quincy technique!