Ancient Ruins

"Over here," Harribel points to a yawning abyss, rid of any light.

It's dark!

Noticing Darwin's expression, she explains, "Second Strato, The Gillian's Rest. It's an extremely dark layer of the Stratos."

Tossing rubble at the Strato right below them, Appacci disdainfully said, "Look at those weak bastards below."

"You should learn to control your temper, Appacci," With a quiet laughter, Snake Adjucha suggested.

"Darwin." Snake Adjucha called.

He responds, "What is it?"

"My name is Sung-sun, I hope you take care of Lady Harribel in this trip," she insisted with worries apparent on her expression.

He answers, "Depends."

"What do you mean depends, HUH?!" Lioness Adjucha angrily interjects.

Sung-sun gestured her sister to stop, "Wait."

While the answer was ambiguous, she gauged it to be satisfactory as it implies that if they didn't harm him or have intentions to harm — they wouldn't be harmed in turn.

"We will take that into account." Sung-sun replied.

As they jumped down to the Second Strato, he and his group was met with unfriendly Gillian's and Red eyed Hollows.

Noticing something was coming out of Darwin's pores, Harribel immediately notifies her followers, "Move!"

The group moved away from Darwin as they notices something oddly dangerous about his Reiatsu.

Surplus amounts of violet miasma arose from the pores of his arms. His hands facing opposite directions, he begins manifesting a skill he previously used before but with a twist, he said, "Iyono Barrage."

Smaller in size, but were high in number, he locks each blade to each hostile target.

A mixture of a machine gun deafening and Hollow cries echoes across the entire floor.

"Extremely versatile and powerful." Commented by the stoic Harribel.

The four begin to notice something strange happening with Darwin's body. A current pulling dead corpses and compressing their bodies into small pills.

He begins absorbing them through his pores.

Inhaling in the Reishi, as he exhales, his Reiatsu increased substantially.

The one who was most in shocked was Harribel, "His potential is immeasurable! He can be a walking genocide machine!"

She grabs Darwin's hand and told him softly, "Don't be a mass murder only aiming for selfish gains."

Darwin looked back and saw a distressed Harribel, he told her, "It's only hostile Hollows, you can relax."

The rest chime in to tell their part.

Sung-sun distressingly suggests Darwin, "This technique cannot be passed down to others at all cost!"

Lioness Adjucha nodded to agree with her sister's statement while Appacci was extremely interested in his technique.

"If only I had this." Her desires ran rampant, Harribel smacked her back to come to senses.

Laughing nervously, Appacci told Darwin, "Sorry."

"It's okay." Darwin monotonously replied.

This power of mine, where did it stem from?

Harribel lighting up a torch from her finger tips, she tells Darwin, "I will lead the way."

As they continue walking closely to familiar footprints. She notices unfamiliar footsteps.

Harribel observes closely and tells the others about it.

"There is another footprint not long ago that went ahead, but these seems weird."

The footprint resembles two rectangles. It didn't resemble any Hollow's footprints.

"Well in any case, this isn't a problem we need to focus on." Harribel thought.

She proposes something, "We should head to a ruins I saw but didn't put any mind to it. How does that sound Darwin?"

Musing over her proposal, he replied, "That's a good idea."

—

As the group make their way to the ruins, Darwin silently thought to himself.

What do these scriptures mean. He continues examine through ancient text.

"Lady Harribel, come look at the walls." Appacci excitedly said.

"Hm…" Harribel looks at the very wall releasing a smell of dust.

The wall was in shambles. There were three sections to the wall, but one of them was erased by cuts.

The illustration depicted armies fighting one another.

"This seems like Hollows up here while down here seems to be the Shinigamis."

Hearing about Shinigamis for the first time, Darwin asks, "Who are they?"

Smiled, Harribel replies, "Shinigamis, or commonly known as Soul Reapers, are beings able to kill our kind."

Soul Reapers. I guess I will eventually meet them.

She continues, "They have intelligence greater than the average Hollow."

While explaining this, she points at an interesting image.

"This seems to be Vasto Lordes, a couple of them taking in a bigger form than it's humanoid counterpart."

Darwin intriguely contributes, "To describe the form, there seem to be straight red lines cascading across their entire physique. Green tattoos appearing under their eyes. Their arms had manipulation powers similar to Muscles, my acquaintance. However, they seemed to to be able to change the shape of their body more fluidly."

"That's not all." Harribel added.

She continues, "They seem to wield other weapons instead of katanas. Axes, Halberds, Shields, Zweihanders, Greatswords, etc…"

"The Shinigami looked extremely frightened and scared as if the ones at the back were trying to flee." Sung-sun contributed.

"Everybody, come look at this small pillar," Appacci hand gestures towards an unknown pillar.

Looking closely, Darwin saw a minute detail on the top.

"There was something on top of this before," Darwin pondered.

Curiously, Harribel asks, "What was it?"

He answers with certainty, "I don't know, but there are signs of someone taking something off from the middle. But it seemed like extremely old traces."

Sung-sun points to some words on the pillar at the back.

Seeing where she was pointing at, Darwin comes over to look at what it was.

It reads, Sangre Vene Manual.

Who was it that took this book? Darwin inwardly questioned.

"I think we should head towards Third Stratos, The Bloodied Battlefield."

Harribel quietly mutters, "Hopefully it's not that time yet."

As they make their way to the entrance to Third Stratos, Darwin asks, "This is quite interesting." The sight ahead was that of a cave entrance, eerie and gloomy. He felt massive amounts of Reiatsu and Reishi appearing all over this cave. The sounds of Hollow screams intensify, sounds of destruction of flying rubble happens to fly towards their direction.

Dodging the rubble with ease, he said, "Is this what you mean about the two Stratos fighting one another?"

"Yes," Harribel answered.