Chapter 379: BSUS - 382: Devouring Half of Karakura Town!

A black line extended straight out to both sides. It seemed to be alive, the pure blackness unsatisfied with this narrow pathway, desperately crawling outward along the edges of the line, though with little success.

This was a massive Garganta that had only opened a sliver, yet it covered half of Karakura Town. Its very appearance seemed to blur the entire town.

It was a Garganta opened by the combined efforts of seven Espada, but even so, fully tearing it open seemed like an impossibly distant feat.

The two ends of the long line connected perfectly to two stone pillars. At this moment, they melted into a thick liquid like white candles, taking on the exact same appearance the instant they touched the black line. It looked rather eerie.

It wasn’t an illusion. Watching all of this from afar, Ginjō couldn’t help but swallow hard. After that eerie liquid flowed in, the speed at which the Garganta on the ground was opening noticeably accelerated!

’What is this disgusting stuff?!’

Riruka’s disgusted scream echoed in his mind. Just as Ginjō was about to ask, Kutsuzawa Giriko’s voice chimed in, "Those stone pillars have all melted."

"Same over here. They’re all flowing in the same direction!"

"It seems all the stone pillars have melted."

Tsukishima summarized with his somewhat cold voice. The twenty-plus stone pillars the Arrancar had just set down were melting almost simultaneously, transforming into a white torrent.

As if answering some sort of summons, they ignored the physical laws of flowing from high to low, surging from every corner of the city toward the massive, increasingly hideous Garganta that was only just beginning to reveal its curves.

An unnamed magical beast was awakening beneath the earth, greedily opening its giant maw bit by bit. The river of white porridge was the nourishment offered by its servants; merely getting close meant becoming a part of its body, which only excited it further.

The city, too, seemed to be drawn to it.

The houses in the distance shrank down bit by bit, like soup dumplings drained of their broth, leaving only an empty skin collapsed and folded upon the ground.

It was like some terrifying plague rapidly infecting the entire city. Ginjō subconsciously took a few steps back. He was afraid that he, too, would become like the houses before him—his outline blurring and losing its texture, as if he had never truly existed.

Now he finally understood one thing. These Arrancar hadn’t come to Karakura Town for any single person. The target of these animals was the half of the city slowly vanishing right before his eyes!

Ginjō stopped in his tracks. A voice in his heart seemed to be screaming at him to stop this horrific event, but could he really stop it? Or rather, from what standpoint should he even try to stop it all?

While he was still hesitating, an exclamation from Riruka reminded him of something he had forgotten.

"Where’s Yukio? Don’t tell me that bastard brat didn’t make it out!"

"..."

Everyone fell silent. Right, there was one more comrade who hadn’t spoken yet—Yukio. And the position he had been assigned to scout was right in the middle of the half of the city currently being devoured.

"He should still be inside. There’s nothing we can do..."

Before Tsukishima could finish, Riruka impatiently snapped, "What do you mean there’s nothing we can do?! If we all go over there, we can definitely save him!"

"Setting aside whether we’d get swallowed up too, just the seven guys in the center alone—we can’t handle a single one of them."

Tsukishima’s words were grounded in reality. Right now, it seemed they had no other choice but to give up.

In fact, let alone Yukio, wasn’t this entire half of the city being given up on?

*You guys...* Riruka gritted her teeth, looking ready to stomp her feet in anger. Whether they *could* save him and whether they *wanted* to were two entirely different matters. From Tsukishima’s tone, she couldn’t hear even a hint of helplessness.

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hit her. These people might not have the ability or the desire to save that annoying brat, but someone else did. As long as he was willing, then...

"Chōzuka, I know you can hear me! Didn’t you say we were important? Hurry up and save Yukio!"

Riruka shouted at the top of her lungs, as if the sheer volume could travel through her mind and reach the ears of the man who hadn’t made a sound in a long time.

"I’m begging you, don’t give up again. Don’t abandon us again..."

"Stop embarrassing yourself, Riruka!" Kutsuzawa Giriko said bluntly. However, another, even more blunt voice interjected, cutting him off: "All of you, shut up!"

Roka’s voice carried not only anger but a trace of murderous intent. "Lord Chōzuka is focusing on setting up Kidō. If you don’t want to die, do not disturb him!"

In the pitch-black space, Roka’s small face was full of indignation. Even she was subconsciously holding her breath, terrified of disturbing Hiroe, who was surrounded by dense Reiryoku patterns nearby. Yet these ignorant humans actually dared to scream and shout!

Back then, Lord Chōzuka hadn’t abandoned a single one of them. Why would he abandon them now? Even though his current condition was far from good.

Indeed, what Hiroe was currently setting up was a forbidden spatial technique he had ’accidentally’ seen in the Great Spirit Book Gallery. One always had to be careful when casting it for the first time.

Of course, this alone wasn’t enough to drain too much of his focus. But earlier in the Dangai, aside from facing Ichimaru Gin’s group, he also had to deal with Zaraki and Kuchiki—two absolute blockheads!

When they could move, they were a burden; when they couldn’t move, they were still a burden. Hiroe couldn’t exactly just let Tōsen Kaname slit their throats just because those two were trying to stab him in the back, could he?

Therefore, the battle in the Dangai had truly dragged on until it attracted the Kōtotsu. Only then did both sides rely on Gargantas to escape into a sub-space temporarily created by the Arrancar.

Time in the Dangai flowed 2,000 times faster than in the World of the Living and the Soul Society. By the time he escaped the Dangai, only about a second had passed in the World of the Living, but the backlash of that 2,000-fold difference was truly agonizing.

The Reiatsu inside Hiroe’s body was in chaos. He had essentially released a thousand times more Reiatsu than his body could handle in less than a second. This backlash not only left him temporarily unable to fully control his Reiatsu, but it also caused a certain degree of physical damage.

And this meant that he had to maintain absolute focus to break through the spatial lockdown around Karakura Town using the forbidden spatial technique.

"There will only be an instant, Inex."

Hiroe suddenly opened his eyes, the complex Reiryoku patterns around him gradually growing dazzlingly bright.

"I will not fail your expectations, Lord Chōzuka!"

The voice sounded like a young boy’s, but Hiroe trusted him implicitly. If it came solely to spatial manipulation, Inex was far superior to him.

"Open the space!"

At Hiroe’s command, the patterns around him dissipated into the darkness, and the stable sub-space seemed to vibrate slightly.

*Crash!* It sounded like something shattering, as if the endless darkness actually had walls. A crack hung upon it, spreading wildly in all directions.

"Open!"

Blinding light poured in through the broken hole, quickly filled by a silhouette. After the figure vanished, the space returned to its dead silence and darkness.

"Success~"

Only that slightly exhausted voice murmured, indicating that a change had quietly taken place here.