Lilith disappeared and Ophis looked down on Ichibei who was trying to regenerate himself with an unreadable expression.
Although she had returned to her usual Gothic Lolita outfit, there were two katanas on her back, crossing each other. And despite the fact that her eyes were on Ichibei, her attention was somewhere else.
Placing her hand on her chest, Ophis checked and made sure that Lilith's ego was intact after she fused back with her.
If this was years ago, Ophis wouldn't have minded if Lilith disappeared if she absorbed her back, but presently, that's out of the question and she'll destroy anyone who attempts to forcefully 'complete' her. Ophis is proud of her strength, but she doesn't mind losing it for her 'friend'.
Ichibei finished regenerating himself and looked up to Ophis with a very grave expression, "...What are you?"
"Dragon. I, Ophis, am a Dragon." Ophis reintroduced herself, this time, with a hint of something smoldering. It was very unusual considering she's someone who is normally expressionless.
At the same time, the world seems to change along with her tune. A cascade of Draconic aura gushed out from Ophis and went through everyone like a tsunami. As a result, almost all of the Lieutenants were frozen in place and even some of the Captains were affected like this.
As for the Beasts of Hell in the entire realm of Hell, none of them dared to even fly and just hid themselves in the ground, shaking.
Thankfully, Hell is a very isolated dimension so none of Ophis' aura leaked into the World of the Living. If it did, accidents throughout the whole world were just going to be the smallest of problems it'd cause.
For the first time, Ichibei realized that Kisuke might not be their biggest problem.
.
.
.
Byakuya led his team comprised of him, Renji from the 6th Division, Lisa and Yuyu from the 8th Division, Roujuurou and Izuru from the 3rd Division, and finally, Ikakku who was left behind by his Captain, to face the greatest threats they know, Genryuusai Shigekuni Yamamoto and Choujirou Sasakibe standing side by side.
Including Byakuya, the six of them were holding a wooden pole 12 feet tall each with various black inscriptions laid on their surfaces.
As they approached them, Yamamoto and Choujirou wondered what they were carrying. But before they could even get any word out, 5 of the pole-carrying people split up from the group and went around to surround them a hundred feet or so away. They then stuck the poles into the ground simultaneously before returning back to converge.
"Hooh..." Yamamoto let out a long breath while watching them prepare with conflicted faces, "Now that I'm standing opposite of them, the Gotei 13 has indeed become soft."
Choujirou also looked around and guessed what those poles were for and replied, "It's not a bad thing, Eijisai. A cold and merciless military is just needed in times of war. If it goes beyond that, then we'll be no different from the tyrants we tried to protect ourselves from."
Yamamoto then ignored Byakuya who seemed to be muttering something to activate the poles and turned his eyes towards Kisuke facing against Ichibei, "That's true, isn't it? I'd really hate it if even innocent children, regardless of how powerful they are, are needed to fight."
Choujirou turned to Yamamoto and asked, "Are you talking about what Juushirou-san said?"
Yamamoto stared at Kisuke for another few seconds before sighing once again, "Looks like my retirement is going to take a while."
"But it's going to be different this time, Eijisai."
"Hmmm? How so?"
"Because you won't be confined anymore. You might enjoy your time this turn."
Yamamoto chuckled and said, "Then I'm looking forward to it."
At the same time, Byakuya finished his preparations and drove the pole he had into the ground while saying, "Seal!"
Reiatsu with a blue hue exploded out from the poles, destroying themselves. However, Yamamoto didn't mistake it to be a failure because he instantly felt the flames of his Ryuujin Jakka receding to the deepest part of his soul, 'As expected, they secretly recreated Aizen's Wonderweiss effect on Ryuujin Jakka.'
Choujirou also immediately noticed the heat coming from Yamamoto disappeared and confirmed his guess from earlier. However, he was not worried and saw Yamamoto grinning to himself, "Shall we give these kids a good'ol spanking?" Yamamoto muttered while sheathing his Zanpakuto.
Striking his fists together, flames burst out from his whole body.
Choujirou jumped back and also sheathed his Zanpakuto while watching Byakuya and their group's expression change to borderline panic. He figured that Yamamoto was enough to deal with them and practice the new tricks he learned.
Sadly, that won't go as he envisioned.
When Ophis' restraint came off, Yamamoto's 'fun' practice time had to stop.
The flames powered by Magic Power around Yamamoto were instantly snuffed out when the Draconic Aura washed over everything but that's the least of his problems.
He turned to Byakuya and the rest who were obviously unwilling to fight him considering how there were too few injuries on his body despite the short clash, "It should be obvious that I'm not out of my mind so how about we stop this for now?"
Byakuya immediately recovered from the aura and turned to his stunned comrades who were looking towards the floating young girl , "Let's stop and assess the situation first."
Renji got out of his stupor too and looked towards Yamamoto before nodding, "Understood, Captain. It's about time things became clear."
Not long after, Gin, Toshirou, Rangiku, Juushirou, Rukia, Sentarou, and even Zaraki and Unohana converged towards them.
Without any reservation, Zaraki approached Yamamoto and asked, "Old man, what is that?"
"You should know more about her than us. She's from the 2nd Division, isn't she?" Yamamoto replied, wanting to figure out their point of view first.
Zaraki's expression was puzzled, "That's someone from the 2nd Division? That's the first time I've heard about it."
"Captain, you're not really interested in gossip so of course, you wouldn't have a clue about it." Ikakku replied to him while still looking at Ophis, "There were two of them earlier, right? What happened to the other one?"
At this time, Yamamoto turned in another direction to see other people returning, Chika with the 9th and 7th Division, Furoufushi, Tanis, Kunou and the unconscious Claire, "You left her?" He asked while looking at Furoufushi.
"The barrier suddenly thickened in response to that terri... Ehem. That incredulous thing." Furoufushi didn't want to sound rude to Ophis in front of Tanis and Kunou, "These two judged that nothing and no one would be able to easily open that shell so it's fine."
Of course, the members of the Gotei 13 recognized Tanis, Kunou, and Claire, however, they had no clue how they were involved in this whole ordeal aside from their connection to Serafall who was apparently related to Kisuke.
Juushirou walked towards the young girls and asked, "Mind telling us now what she is? The old man and the other don't really tell us anything."
"It's not that we can't tell you. It's just that no amount of words can describe what that is." Yamamoto immediately replied to defend himself and the others who saw Kisuke's [Illusion].
Tanis walked past Juushirou and took some distance from everyone before placing both of her hands forward, "This is the first time I've seen Ophis-chan in this state so I don't really know what to expect, but I'm putting up a strong ward to keep ourselves er... relatively safe."
While caring for Claire, Kunou turned her head towards Juushirou and said, "Well, technically speaking, Phi-chan is a God."
"Huh? God? What do you mean?" Gin immediately asked.
Kunou, thankfully or not, didn't have to explain further. During this time, Ophis lifted her right arm, and a huge black ball several tens of feet across instantly appeared above her. With the swing of her short arm, the black ball shot out while expanding itself toward Ichibei.
The newly regenerated Ichibei tried countering by using his Spirit Appendage Manifestation which manifests a giant representation of himself.
But despite this, a single touch of this black ball instantly disintegrated the giant manifestation and didn't even affect its momentum. The black ball locked the surrounding space and Ichibei didn't have enough time to move out of its way and just like his manifestation, he was instantly obliterated. This time, not even his ash remained.
Naturally, the black ball didn't just stop there as it continuously expanded to several hundred feet until it hit the ground and exploded into a blinding light and deafening boom.
And when everyone regained their vision from the flash of light, they realized that a whole region of Hell had disappeared as if an invisible colossal monster took a clean bite of it as no debris nor smoke was found on the scene of the destruction.
"..."
Everyone was silent for almost a minute until Tanis brought down her hands and scratched her head as she turned around with an awkward smile, "Ehehe, nope. I don't think my ward will be enough to keep us safe. At least, not from that."
"Change of plans. Let's flee." Without waiting for anyone, Kunou turned around and ran away while carrying Claire.