When Ichigo and Byakuya first fought, neither one of them split the Sokyoku hill in half, it just happened in this episode for Ichigo's doubts sake in his conscience. And yeah that dude Kariya was a villain in the bount arc, the filler arc that was skipped. He was honestly a great villain imo I enjoyed him, in your own time you can look up Ichigo vs Kariya final fight and watch it, it was an amazing fight. That king and the horse speech is legendary