86 86: Man vs Nature!

The battle between the two was about to officially commence. Ren was already in bankai form using Dryae and he was sure that he did not need any of his various gifts, besides the passive gift of flesh, to take down Alexi. He had already created his dome of wood branches that could be used to create attacks from almost any angle.

Alexi on the other hand was now had his weapon out and had activated his Schrift. With both of these, he was able to exert his Quincy talents and abilities to their fullest within the forest dome that Ren had created.

Both of them were opposites in not only their races and fighting styles but the very core of their abilities both complimented and overpowered the other person if they were beings on the same level. Sadly for Alexi, he was far below Ren's level.

Alexi placed a mark on Ren's chest while he was within his domain and fired his Heilig Pfeils at random angles. At first, Ren thought it was weird but when he saw the bullets begin to curve, it was easy to tell what his ability was.

'He thinks that shots from random angles can take me down? Too stupid!'

Ren stood in place as he summoned tree branches from the ground at various speeds that sprung up and blocked some of the bullets. All the bullets tried to curve around the tree branches but only those with slower tree branches were able to do so.

'So these things are only able to move so fast. That makes this even easier.'

All the bullets were destroyed by the swinging of Dryae casually. With his skill in zanjutsu, blocking bullets of this speed were a piece of cake for him. Rushing forward, Ren used shunpo to appear in front of Alexi who used his own flash-step technique to dodge the attack as much as he could.

A light wound went across his chest but the injury he would have sustained if he was even half a second slower would have been fatal. Alexi decided to use his Jaeger ability to its fullest and became invisible while hiding anything that Ren could use to find him, even his sound.

Knowing that he was unable to find Alexi at the moment, Ren stood in the center of the dome and waited. He who made the first move would usually make the first mistake. Ren felt something hit his back after it pierced through his haori and uniform.

When he looked over his shoulder, he saw a small bullet-sized hole in his clothes but only felt a stinging sensation on his skin. The skin had already healed by the time he looked back at it.

'Even if you concentrate your reishi as much as you can, you can only harm my skin at most thanks to my gift..'

Even while thinking that, Ren did not want to get wounds for no reason so he decided to get a bit more serious. Holding Dryae with both of his hands, Ren held the bokken in front of his body.

"Jū Shi no kata: Kyōhen - Tenman Sengetsu. (Fourteenth Form: Catastrophe - Tenman Crescent Moon)"

He swung his sword and created a chaotic vortex of powerful Omni-directional slashes that destroyed whatever got caught up within its attack radius. The 20 meters around Ren was cut to pieces, even the air itself.

From the vortex of slashes, several crescent-shaped blades of air shot out from within the vortex and cut up random areas within the dome until they clashed with the walls of wood and disipitated. With all these attacks, Ren was not able to see a drop of blood on the ground.

'So either I have terrible aim or even injuries he sustains after his ability activates can not be seen.'

It was the latter. Alexi was caught in the outer edge of the vortex before getting several injuries from the crescent-shaped blades that shot out from it. Alexi had lost his left arm in the vortex and gained several deep cuts all over his body.

Sitting at the edge of the dome, Alexi was trying to calm down as he took deep breathes to endure the pain. A single move from Ren had put him in such a desperate situation while the shot that should have pierced Ren's heart had not even pierced his skin.

'What the fuck kind of monster is this? I need to kill him. We have already come so far. If he is able to live then the Quincy will be killed off for what we have done today.

This is my sacrifice for all of you. Make sure that you do not let my death be in vain.'

Alexi used his remaining hand to remove his glove and activated Letzt Stil. Ren could not see the changes that Alexi was going through but could feel the change in the air. He could also see that his trees were dying rapidly.

'Guess he used his last resort.'

Right as he thought that, Ren's right arm was completely destroyed. Ren was surprised that even with the increase in power, he still could not sense the attack.

'So he is more powerful, has tracking bullets, and I can't even sense his attacks with the instincts I have developed over the years. This is so annoying. '

Even with the loss of his arm, Ren was not worried about the battle. He had enough tools under his belt that would end the battle in an instant if he ignored the rest of Soul Society, even if he was limited to physical attacks.

Using his ability to communicate with nature, Ren listened with the wind. Even though it was unable to tell him exactly where Alexi was, it could still feel 'pain' in the area Alexi was in due to being an unnatural presence that had forcefully fused with it.

'So that is where you were hiding.'

Just as Ren was about to launch his attack, he hurried to block the next bullet but was forced back by a large margin. Even knowing the direction they were coming from, the bullets were fired at weird intervals and at high speeds. The wind could also only speak so fast.

"Tsui no kata: Higan Shugan. (Final Form: Equinoctial Vermilion Eye )"

Veins appeared around Ren's eyes while the whites of his eyes turned red as if he was a demon. This was the most powerful technique of the Flower Breathing style. It increased their user's kinetic vision and mental processing speed to the maximum with the risk of causing its user to go blind.

With this, Ren parried two bullets with a single-arm due to being able to calculate their speed and angle at a much faster rate. Both bullets slid off his bokken and crashed into the tree dome behind him and caused huge explosions.

'Enough of this. You can die now. Shichi no kata: Yakkyō - Dzukibae. (Seventh Form: Mirror of Misfortune - Moonlit)'

Ren slashed his blade horizontally in a powerful frontal slash that then created a multi-directional frontal assault. It was powerful enough to create several deep gouges in the ground that reached the spot where the wind felt 'pain.'

Ren was unsure of how much damage the figure had received but knew that Alexi was still alive due to the wind being in pain from a different direction. Using flash step, Ren followed the figure.

Alexi would run away and fire bullets at random angles while Ren would follow and parry those bullets while using a few moon-style techniques to try and kill Alexi. This continued for 3 minutes before Alexi came out of his invisibility and fell to his knees.

The man was a sorry figure now. He was missing an arm, half of his face had cuts all over it, and deep injuries all over his body. One of his legs' flesh was barely holding on to the bone.

Ren stood in front of the Quincy who had lost his powers with a frown on his face. The person who had managed to destroy one of his arms was now powerless.

'It will heal but it still hurt to have that happen.'

Ren stabbed his bokken into Alexi's head and caused it to explode into countless pieces. No one who knew Alexi would be able to recognize him in such a state.

'Now for the rest of Soul Society.'

Ren retracted his dome of wooden branches before using shunpo to travel to his next stop to watch some of the fights as well as assassinate several captains. He knew that many had to die that day if the future generation would be able to take over.

'I did screw with the timeline after all.'