I'm really not the number one slacker in Soul Society.

But this also obstructs his own view.

What is this guy trying to do?!

Before Zhen Tanglong could figure it out, he vaguely heard a short and sharp explosion.

A blade radiating scorching heat pierced through the black fire barrier and thrust straight toward his chest!

What's going on? It's one thing that the Zanpakuto can't be completely burned off in a short time, but this guy has half his hand inside, so why isn't the gift reacting?!

Despite having a thousand questions in his mind, Shindou Ryu had no room to hide. He could only stare angrily as the blade pierced his lock, breaking the circulation of spiritual energy. Instantly, his mind was struck by lightning and was enveloped in darkness.

Then, the bandit who had roamed Rukongai for over four hundred years fell straight down.

Mizhen chuckled lightly, casually flicked away the bloodstains from the tip of the blade, and then easily and effortlessly sheathed it.

Forget all that fancy stuff, it blows this out of the water!

It can't really be said to be instantaneous...

With his left hand injured and several pieces of flesh missing from his body, by normal evaluation standards, this can be considered a Pyrrhic victory, right?

Mima shrugged, kicked Shindou Ryuga with his toe until he was lying on his back, then squatted down and poked the half-skull mark on his forehead.

The method to defeat this guy is actually very simple—although those black flames are troublesome, they still have a "burning efficiency," and the few spirit energy balls he threw out were used to test this value.

After figuring out just how fast the black fire burned things, he created a layer of non-defensive spiritual energy barrier on the blade and his arm, and sprayed spiritual energy outwards with the same efficiency as the black fire burning. In this way, the black fire would be rendered useless before the spiritual energy was used up.

Chapter 213: "Earth" and "Prison"

After completing this preparation, all you need to do is rush over and stab this guy in the lock, disrupting his spiritual energy circulation, and you can easily take him down!

Therefore, as long as you have the right ideas, you can still perform some advanced maneuvers even using Watanabe Yama's control panel.

He smiled, already sensing that someone was rushing towards them. So he seized the last few seconds and channeled his spiritual power along the skull mark into Shindou Ryuga's body, while reaching for the mysterious little wooden plaque in his arms.

But the next moment, Mi Zhen frowned and discovered something... quite remarkable.

Within my body, Ryuzo Shindou, there are more than one set of spiritual energy circulation channels.

Centered around the skull mark, a spiritual energy circulation channel exists within this guy's body that is completely different from that of the Grim Reaper... no, even from the Hollows, Quincy, and even Fullbringers. "Universal nodes" like Locked Bindings and Soul Sleep simply do not exist in this system?

What a joke!

Even the Spirit King's spiritual energy circulation system has these key nodes, so how could a bandit like Shindou Ryuga, who can appear on the roadside at any time, possibly have such outrageous things? Is he an alien or something?

But there are probably no aliens in this world; Ryuga Shindou's abnormality is due to external factors.

In other words... the problem lies with that inexplicable little wooden sign.

Mima frowned slightly, and quickly found what she wanted in the inner pocket of Shindou Ryuga's arms.

It was a regular hexagon, looking like oak or pine, but incredibly heavy, several times heavier than steel of the same volume. It exuded a dense, hellish miasma, clearly indicating that it was not a good thing.

And that's exactly what happened—he sensed something was wrong as soon as he encountered it.

It has nothing to do with things like hellish miasma; the problem lies elsewhere.

This thing... seems to be alive?

Suddenly, a soft rustling sound of wind rang out beside Mima.

Soi Fon has arrived.

"Vice Captain Watanabe, you did a great job."

She first offered a word of praise, then squatted down and scanned Mi Zhen's wounds with a somewhat worried gaze: "These wounds... don't they need some treatment?"

"It's alright. In my clone form, I don't have that much pain sensitivity anyway, as long as I can move around," Mima replied, but her gaze remained fixed on the wooden plaque in her hand.

Soi Fon glanced at it as well and said, "Before releasing his Zanpakuto, Shindou Ryuga seems to have used this thing to do something to himself...?"

"Yes."

Mima nodded, turning the wooden plaque over and over in his hand. He seemed a little absent-minded as he pondered, saying, "After using this thing, hellish miasma started appearing on his body... It's puzzling... Let's send it to the Technology Development Bureau together and let Nie Sanxi and the others worry about it."

He said that, but what he had seen in the past half minute was so outrageous that his curiosity ran wild.

With the fearless spirit of "at most, one clone will die anyway," Mima began some basic tests on what he had.

For example, inputting some spiritual power.

As the spiritual energy flowed through it, the skull pattern on the wooden plaque faintly lit up, and the speed at which it emitted hellish miasma increased slightly.

It can convert spiritual energy into hellish miasma? But apart from that, it doesn't seem to have anything special.

Mi Zhen increased the output of spiritual power, but it only made the skull pattern a little brighter and the hellish miasma a little denser.

It seems the approach was wrong...

What should we do? There are so many people around, and we can't try using the history rewind function. If the wooden plaque falls into Mayuri Kurotsuchi's hands, it will be very difficult to get it back for research.

Hey, wait...

Since I can use a mental beacon on my Zanpakuto, can I use it on this wooden plaque that is similar to a living thing?

Mizhen lowered her head, concealing the spiritual energy fluctuations of the mental beacon, and looked at the wooden sign with her blue eyes.

The familiar reaction occurred: the scene before my eyes shattered and changed, becoming a bizarre and kaleidoscopic spectacle, while my body felt itself constantly falling.

The experienced Mizhen immediately diverted half of her attention to the outside world, while maintaining normal operations in both the real world and the mental space to ensure that she did not reveal any flaws.

Then, he began to investigate carefully.

"interesting……"

In the mental image space, Mi Zhen raised an eyebrow and sighed in surprise.

Unlike any mental space he had ever seen before, there was no orderly scenery here. It was like countless pieces of stained glass haphazardly piled together, with nothing that could be called a core.

If this were a human, Mi Zhen would think that this guy had probably pulled out his own soul, put it in a blender, crushed it, and then poured it back into his brain. Otherwise, it would never present such a chaotic scene. But he couldn't be sure if this wooden plaque had anything that could be called a mind, so he couldn't judge whether the scene in front of him was normal.

But one thing is certain...

He'll probably have a hard time finding what he wants in a place like this.

With a pessimistic mindset, Mizhen examined the nearby "shards of glass," only to find incomprehensible fleeting images or chilling sounds like a saw slicing through styrofoam, which nearly killed him.

"This one's out of stock, this one's out of stock too, this one... and this one..."

After a period of anxious searching for the seed, Mima finally found a fragment that she could understand. Overjoyed, she immediately began to concentrate on reading it.

After a series of static-like sounds, like the static on a television screen, a detached male voice rang out.

"It's hard to say whether this result is correct or not, but it certainly has experimental value."

The man in white toyed with the hexagonal wooden plaque in his hand and calmly said, "Then let's do as you say."

"It's still hard to believe me, Mr. Yan Yuan, a stranger with suspicious behavior."

Another voice rang out opposite the man in white: "But it doesn't matter. After I enter hell, you will have plenty of time to verify all of this."

After a series of slow footsteps, a splash of red appeared on the screen!

A man in a red cloak approached the man in white, crossed his arms, and said, "You can choose any method you like, but in short, the 'Earth' token can be freely circulated, but there's only one 'Prison' token, so please use it with caution."

Mizhen gasped.

Here comes the bombshell!

He recognized the man in white; to be precise, he had seen him many times in Shikaku Hakunsai's memories.

The first captain of the Third Division, Yan Yuan Jinle!

This veteran suffered serious injuries during the Quincy War. After the war, he retired soon after, citing insufficient strength as the reason. Then, one night, he left Seireitei without a trace, becoming an unsolved mystery. To this day, the Shinigami do not know where he went or whether he is alive or not.

But if the footage shows recent events, it means that there is still one original captain alive!

Putting everything else aside, Old Man Shan and his group would probably be very happy to hear this news.

And the other person in the picture...

This red cloak...it's kind of weird...no, it's fucking familiar!

After careful consideration, Mi Zhen finally came to a conclusion.

—Isn't this exactly the same style as Little Red Riding Hood's?

Although there might be other fairy tale dragons and Little Red Riding Hoods in the West Wing Bureau, if things were to happen that coincidentally, it would sound absurd and be almost not worth considering.

So this so-called red cloak really is...

Oh no, could it be that I've actually traveled to some special Type-Moon world, and am about to end up with a classic scene of me hitting myself?

Suppressing the urge to rant, Mizhen rubbed her temples and continued reading.

"Is this what you meant by... the result of separating the miasma of hell?"

In the picture, Yan Yuanjinle is holding two wooden plaques. One is the same as the one held by Mizhen, and the other is the same shape, but the pattern on it is a black half of a skull.

If the two sides are stacked together, the resulting shape is...

That's right, it's a simplified version of the skull on the Gates of Hell.

Strangely, the wooden plaque with red patterns emitted black mist, while the one with black patterns emitted red fog.

Pure red, like fresh blood.

Furthermore, Yan Yuanjinle's mention of "separating the miasma of hell" is truly thought-provoking.

"Isn't this a very interesting word game?"

Although the red-cloaked man's face was not visible, there was a clear hint of amusement in his words: "Hellish miasma has two characteristics. 'Earth' represents 'eternity,' while 'Hell' represents 'cycle.' Therefore, the wicked people have infinite lives and can be resurrected after death, just like loading a save file—oh, you don't know what loading a save file means? Just consider it rambling nonsense."

Mi Zhen was deeply shocked!

Okay, it's confirmed, this guy is me from the future!

"Let's get back to the main point, Mr. Yan Yuan. I separated the hellish miasma only to verify a result—a result regarding the nature of hellish miasma..."

At this point, the red-cloaked voice suddenly turned cold: "It is not a spirit particle."

"It's not surprising."

Yan Yuanjin calmly commented: "During the years I wandered around Rukongai, I personally witnessed the Gates of Hell several times and collected some samples. Although I did not achieve any groundbreaking results due to limited conditions, I could vaguely sense the abnormality of the Hell miasma—it is not a spirit particle, or to put it another way, it is not even a vessel particle."

"I didn't expect Mr. Yan Yuan's understanding to be so advanced, which saves me the trouble of explaining—that's right, hellish miasma is neither a spiritual particle nor a vessel particle, but a special existence that is different from both."