Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 44 - Advancement

Sand? There was no sand. Every grain of it was the result of Wayne's harvesting.

Same as always, Wayne brought Jekain and Nel to harvest Gillians inside Peromon's territory.

After more than a year of settling in the Forest of Menos, his strength was nearly at Adjuchas-class mid-tier. Not because he'd devoured too little, because his Reishi compression was brutally extreme. At this stage, even against Nel, who had already stepped into mid-tier, Wayne's combat power was not the slightest bit inferior to hers. And what Wayne ultimately wanted was far more than the resources of a single territory.

"My King, three Adjuchas-class are closing in fast." Jekain, holding the spatial lockdown, reported from within the barrier.

"Heh. Slower than I expected." Wayne swung his sword inside the barrier and dropped a Gillian in one stroke. Nel leaped, tore off its Hollow Mask, and the remaining corpse was carved up in seconds by the Adjuchas-class under Wayne's command. "That's a good thing."

"The rest of you, keep hunting. Nel, come outside with me."

"Yes, my lord." Nel swallowed the mask and followed Wayne out. Behind them, the various Adjuchas-class knelt, half-crouching, heads down, and only rose to resume their hunt once Wayne had gone.

"My King, what do we do?"

"Are you certain it's only three?"

"Yes. No additional Reiatsu traces in the area."

"Then we eat them."

"Do you need me to shift the barrier?" Jekain asked. If he used the barrier to trap the incoming three, the several dozen Gillians still unharvested inside might leak Reiatsu that the newcomers would sense.

"No need. Let the ones inside keep hunting. You stay here and play bait. If it gets bad, have a subordinate release Negación. Nel and I will handle them."

"Yes." Jekain never doubted Wayne's orders. If Wayne said he'd handle it, he would. Jekain only needed to trust him completely.

Wayne vanished from Jekain's sight without a sound.

Not Sonído, something new. He had fused his concealment trait, his spatial trait, and Sonído into a single movement technique. He called it Void Flash.

First, use concealment to hide. Then open a spatial barrier and emerge at the anchor point's far end, arriving the way Sonído does, but several degrees faster than Sonído alone.

The fastest Sonído on record could leave five afterimages in a single burst. With only his spatial barrier and Sonído, no concealment, Wayne could already produce one. As his abilities and Reiatsu grew, he believed he could reach that limit. Maybe surpass it.

On the other side, Nel trotted away from Jekain's position on light hooves and slipped into the canopy of a tall crown tree. When Wayne came out of the shadows, she'd have the angles to cut off the enemy's movement.

Outside of Wayne himself, Nel's Sonído combined with her Super Acceleration was the fastest among any Hollow Wayne knew.

Both of them concealed, Reiatsu pulled inward, Wayne and Nel settled in and waited.

Less than two hours later, the three Adjuchas-class found Jekain.

"Yinfeng? What are you doing here!" The one who looked like the leader stepped forward. "What do you think you're doing!"

"What am I doing?" Beneath his mask, Jekain's mouth curved into a cold smile. "Can't you tell?"

"Spatial lockdown. You're sealing something with your ability." The leader's voice sharpened. "The Gillians that have been disappearing from my lord's territory — that's you, isn't it!"

"You already know the answer. Do you want me to open the barrier so you can look inside?"

"Do you know what you're doing?! Defying my lord's authority, plundering Gillians from his territory — are you trying to start a war?!"

"I was never in Peromon's faction. How is this starting a war? We've always been on opposing sides." Jekain let that land. "Isn't it a bit childish to say that to me?"

"You—!" The Adjuchas's Reiatsu erupted.

"You." The leader turned to the thin humanoid Hollow behind him, Reiatsu flaring. "Go back and report to the lord. We'll hold them here." From its build alone, that thin one was clearly a speed-type Hollow Beast.

It nodded, turned, and Sonído'd back the way they'd come.

It didn't make it far.

Wayne had already concealed himself along that return path. The instant the thin Adjuchas appeared out of its Sonído, Wayne Void-Flashed behind it.

Reiatsu detonated. The burst disrupted the Reiatsu beneath the thin Adjuchas's feet, throwing its Sonído into disarray.

The Sky-Rending Greatsword in his left hand went straight for the neck. Ambush against an unsuspecting target, a single strike, and Wayne took the low-tier Adjuchas's head clean off.

One hit. One kill. Whatever tier Wayne nominally shared with these early-stage Adjuchas, he was not operating at the same level.

"This..." The two remaining Adjuchas saw their companion beheaded in a single blow. They felt the Reiatsu shockwave that had just rolled over them. They understood immediately: they'd kicked an iron plate today.

"That concealment ability is terrifying. Yinfeng, all those years ago, someone kept assassinating lords and Adjuchas-class, stirring up conflict between the territories. That was your people, wasn't it?"

Things had come too far to deny it. Concealment that skilled, if those assassinations hadn't been their doing, nothing would make sense.

"Your brains work fine." Jekain's tone didn't change. "Pity you figured it out too late."

A Cero left his hand before the words had finished landing.

Both Adjuchas-class were already on guard. They displaced the moment the Cero fired, but that dodge opened exactly the gap Wayne was waiting for.

His sword swung. A spatial rift tore open beside one of the Adjuchas, and a Reiatsu-wrapped blade aura punched through it, landing directly on its body.

Dimensional Slash, a variation of the Sky-Rending Slash. Release a blade aura through the Sky-Rending Slash, deliver it through a spatial rift, straight onto the target with no travel path to read or evade.

For a low-tier Adjuchas, that kind of attack left almost no room to move. It ate the hit clean. It tried to dodge, but only barely managed to keep the blade off its vitals.

"Oh?" Wayne's eyes narrowed slightly. Dimensional Slash still needed work. He'd committed to that strike expecting a clean kill. Without that last-second flinch, the blade should have taken its head from the neck. Instead, he'd only taken the arm.

"That's... a spatial ability!" The low-tier Adjuchas identified the trait. Too late. One arm gone, its combat strength had collapsed. Running wasn't an option.

"Go! Report to the lord!" The injured Hollow Beast roared at its companion, and charged straight at Wayne.

Wayne let the other one run. He parried the incoming strike with his greatsword and kicked the attacker away in the same motion.

Then another Dimensional Slash, blade aura landing directly in the Hollow Beast's flight path. The wound on its chest became a cross. Scarlet blood soaked into the ground.

"Any last words?" Wayne twirled his sword once and dismissed the Sky-Rending Greatsword. Then he walked toward the Hollow Beast, one step at a time.

"Hmph. Don't think your plan won't come to light. My lord will surely—"

BOOM!

Wayne fired a Concealed Cero straight into the sword wound before the sentence was done. The Adjuchas-class Hollow Beast went still.

"Sorry. Not really in the mood." He'd gotten what he needed from that test. Wayne crouched beside the body, raised his right claw, and took the head he hadn't managed to take before. He tore off the Hollow Mask and pushed it into his mouth.

Across the forest, at the treeline, a column of pink Reiatsu punched into the sky. Within five minutes, Nel was back at Wayne's side, a mask in her mouth. The mask of the one that had fled.

Start to finish, the whole thing had taken less than ten minutes. Three invading Adjuchas-class. Zero survivors. The strength of Wayne's team needed no further commentary.

"Adjuchas-class Reiatsu really is something else. Much faster than hunting Gillians." Wayne swallowed the mask Nel had brought back. The Reiryoku throughout his body surged into motion. The surrounding Reishi stirred, pulled by the Reiatsu radiating off him, and began spiraling inward.

A sign of advancement. The same thing had happened when Nel broke through to mid-tier, except Nel's Reiatsu had been pink. Wayne's was pale gold.

Jekain lifted the spatial lockdown. Inside, the Adjuchas-class hunting Gillians felt the barrier release and looked up.

They didn't need to be told. They moved faster, carving up Gillians and tossing mask after mask toward where Wayne stood.

Every mask that landed in his vicinity came apart, drawn into the Reishi storm swirling around him. With each new mask, the storm grew.

Then, slowly, the Reishi circling his body began to change, pale-gold light blooming in the spiral, converging inward, sinking into him and going still.

When it ended, the Reiatsu presence inside Wayne's body had risen sharply and cleanly. If he faced those three Adjuchas-class now, he believed a single strike would heavily wound all of them at once.

"Congratulations, Lord Wayne, you've finally hit mid-tier!" Nel clapped her hands, visibly delighted. After the time they'd spent together, the limbs she used for Lanzador Verde had gradually started serving other purposes. Not that her intelligence stopped there.

"Congratulations, my King." Dozens of Adjuchas dropped to their knees in unison.

A year together. They knew exactly who the true master of this territory was.

With the Reiryoku from three Adjuchas-class masks behind him, Wayne had officially crossed from the peak of low-tier into mid-tier.

No new traits awakened. No new talents.

Once a Hollow reached the Adjuchas stage, all abilities were fixed. What remained was developing and creating from what was already there. Maybe that was why Adjuchas-class Hollows started developing real intelligence, because that was the only frontier left.

"My King." Jekain stepped forward. "If nothing's gone wrong, Peromon already knows we're here. The Reiatsu we put out today, any Hollow with decent perception in that territory felt it. Do we engage them head-on?"

"Have all Adjuchas-class stay behind in their respective territories. Hunt on their own. Help any Gillians who are conscious and worth cultivating advance." Wayne gave the order directly. "Bring the Hollow under your command with the strongest perception. You, me, Nel, and that one. Four is enough."

"A straight fight would drag on. We go guerrilla. Four people move faster and hit harder than a larger force. Worst case, if we can't win, we step into a Garganta and disappear for a while."

"Yes, my King."

➤ Next: The Gran Rey Cero