Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 59 - If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them

With Timd now in the fold, Wayne no longer had to worry about the technological side of things. After cataloguing the abilities of every Hollow Beast in his territory, he sent Timd out to gather lower-tier Hollow Beasts on his own, selecting those with useful abilities who were willing to join, then raising them as priority assets.

Setting that aside for now, Wayne spent some time fully digesting and refining the spiritual energy inside him. The battle had pushed his power up considerably. He hadn't reached high-tier Adjuchas yet, but the dense, compacted energy in his body had long since hit the level of an ordinary high-tier Adjuchas.

Over the following days, Wayne sent Jekain to Atak's and Gross's former territories to consolidate and relocate resources. He himself took Nel along and occasionally patrolled the border of the Northwestern Alliance territory where Atak had been based, watching for any messengers trying to slip through.

With Peromon and Atak both dead, the Northwestern Alliance was down to two lords. By the time Wayne finished the consolidation and returned, his forces, bolstered by Jekain and the two neighboring lords, had already far outgrown the Northwestern Alliance in raw strength.

From here, all he needed to do was use the Hollow Beast Mines to hold the line, cut off any messengers the Northern Alliance tried to send out for reinforcements, and wait for Gatmont to finish crushing the Southern Alliance and send back intelligence for an exchange. After that, he could launch his all-out offensive and take down the Northwestern Alliance in one clean sweep.

"My King, our messenger has brought word from Gatmont's side." The wait wasn't long. Jekain's subordinates returned quickly with news from the southern front.

"Gatmont has taken down one of the southern alliances and is already organizing forces to move on the next one — the Southwestern Alliance."

"What are their casualties?" Wayne sat on his throne, one hand absently stroking the soft fur along the antelope part of Nel's body. Nel was sprawled lazily on a pile of hay beside the throne, resting. Through the eyes beneath her Hollow Mask, she looked perfectly content with this easy life.

"Gatmont's side lost twenty-two Adjuchas. Seven of them were mid-tier. He currently has five lord-level Hollows, eight mid-tier Adjuchas, and fourteen low-tier Adjuchas remaining. The surprise offensive didn't cost him too heavily, he actually came back with several Adjuchas subdued after the fight."

"He is the Great Lord, after all. His old prestige still carries weight." Wayne nodded, his expression unhurried. "What's our reported status?"

"Still listed as having eliminated one lord, Peromon. The next messenger should arrive in roughly half a month."

"Hmm. Just passing word back and forth eats up nearly a week. We've got half a month. Time to play this smart." Wayne smiled and started issuing orders.

"Don't let up on the frontline pressure. Do everything possible to stop the Northern Alliance from getting word out. Send our newly enlisted Adjuchas into Atak's territory to strip it of resources, bring back everything that can be moved. Set up a permanent presence there at the same time. In the days around when the messenger arrives, have our own people stage a mock battle to muddy the waters."

"Yes, my King." Jekain took the orders without a single question.

"Also, when the messenger is about to arrive, lock down every location where the Hollow Beast Mines are deployed and put people on strict control. Have Borut accompany them when receiving the messenger. I will not allow a single Hollow Beast Mine to go off in front of him."

"Yes."

"Finally, move all the Gillian-class resources transferred from Gross's side to the testing grounds and have people dig out new underground facilities. Every Gillian brought back from Atak's and Gross's territories gets hidden. On the day the messenger arrives, Jekain, you go underground and use your full power to suppress the Gillians' Reiatsu. Let the other two lords handle the reception."

"Yes, my King."

Every order in that sequence served one purpose: concealing his true strength. That way, Gatmont would keep trusting Jekain, and keep his guard down.

When the messenger arrived, all he'd see was Yinfeng locked in a brutal struggle against the Hollow Beasts of Atak's territory. He'd go back and file his report, and Wayne's real combat strength would never cross his mind.

Orders issued, Jekain took his subordinates and got to work. Wayne returned to the border patrols. Over the past several days, he'd already stationed Hollow Beasts with strong territory-sensing abilities all along the border line, with two mid-tier Adjuchas assigned to each as protection. Wayne himself wandered the perimeter from time to time, making sure not a single Hollow slipped out, not even a lower-tier one.

As the last two lords of the Northern Alliance, Peromon was dead and Atak had gone silent. They had tried everything to get word out. Nothing worked. Their border was sealed too tight to dispatch anyone. Worse, the earlier clash between Atak and Gross had left the neighboring alliance factions completely indifferent to their situation.

After Gross died, the Northwestern Alliance lords had pinned the blame on Atak. That made them even less inclined to listen, let alone grant Northern Alliance messengers safe passage through their territory. As for the claim that Yinfeng was about to wipe them out? Not their problem. If anything, they'd have loved to take a share of the spoils.

The southern front was burning. Gatmont was throwing everything he had at alliance after alliance, and one had already collapsed. The western and southwestern alliances had begun joining forces to resist him. The harassment from Yinfeng's side? Let those Hollows who'd brought it on themselves choke on it.

Once the three alliances crushed Gatmont, Yinfeng wouldn't be able to amount to anything on his own. So the Northwestern Alliance wrote off the Northern Alliance entirely and left them to serve as cannon fodder.

What none of them knew was that the moment this round of intelligence exchange wrapped up, Wayne would come down on them like a hammer.

No word out. No help coming. The two lords were beside themselves with anxiety, despite the fact that they had no hearts.

"What do we do? What do we do! Four of our messengers have gone out and never come back. The Northwestern Alliance won't let us through either. We're going to be sealed in here and left to die!" In a cave, Oglant, snake-faced, gorilla-bodied, paced with barely contained panic.

"What can we do?" The other lord, Babons, thin and tall, with the look of a withered old man, chimed in, his voice soaked in helplessness. "The number of Adjuchas we can actually use keeps shrinking. Fighting Yinfeng head-on isn't even an option."

"Come to think of it, wasn't Atak supposed to go reclaim Peromon's lost territory? How did he end up in a fight to the death with Gross from the Northwestern Alliance?"

"You're asking me, who am I supposed to ask?" Babons muttered. "Based on the intelligence from a few days ago, Gross was talked into staying put by the other Northwestern Alliance lords to guard the home front. No way out to plunder resources. That'd put anyone in a foul mood. But why it escalated into a death fight with Atak, I have no idea. Our two alliances belong to different factions, but there's never been any real conflict between us. A fight to the death like that, honestly, something about it doesn't add up."

"Could Yinfeng have stirred it up from behind the scenes?" Oglant frowned. "Even with Gross's temper, a death match doesn't just happen out of nowhere."

"Most likely. But even if that's true, what can we do? We're sealed in. We can't even poke our heads out. The Northwestern Alliance won't believe a word we say."

"If it really comes down to it, maybe we should..."

"Yeah... I know what you mean, but Yinfeng's side might not even take us. And I'm starting to think they could come crashing through any day now." Babons knew exactly what Oglant was getting at. At this point, most of their forces had already been destroyed. If not for the substantial resources still sitting in their two territories, these two Adjuchas would probably have cut their losses and run long ago. Surrender was starting to look like their only path out.

"I'm afraid of that too. But it's been a while now, ever since Atak died, Yinfeng seems to have stopped pushing against us directly. They're just holding the border, cutting off our lines of communication. What exactly are they after?"

"Blocking our messages is probably about keeping Gatmont in the dark. But I've never quite believed that what Yinfeng shows is all there is to him. His ambitions are definitely not so modest that he'd be content staying Gatmont's subordinate.

Especially that new man of his, the one called Wayne. I never felt like his abilities were just the raw explosion they appeared to be. What he's demonstrated almost reads like a superior version of Atak's abilities. What are the odds of that? So many of our messengers — through the air, underground, even using the Garganta to escape — all intercepted. Have you ever heard of anyone who could intercept a Garganta?"

"The Garganta is a spatial-type ability. It punches through conventional space into a special severed boundary. There's no way anyone could intercept it." Oglant shook his head.

"But what if he actually did? Spatial-type, Wayne must have mastered spatial-type abilities. Only something like that could link the coordinate pathways inside a Garganta's severed boundary and cut down our messengers while they were still inside it."

"Damn it, we've been played for fools!" Oglant slammed his fist into the ground. "So what do we do? Do we actually surrender?"

"What other choice is there?" Babons let out a quiet, tired sigh. "Back when we followed Gatmont, it was never anything more than finding a way to survive in the Forest of Menos. When things fell apart and we eventually banded back together, wasn't that also just to stay alive? Now the one who built this alliance — Atak — is dead, and it's just the two of us left. The Northwestern Alliance is holding Gross and Atak's business against us on top of everything else. Are we really going to sit here and wait for someone to come beat down our door?"

"But this territory..." Oglant couldn't let it go.

"Forget the territory and resources. Neither of us is built for combat. We've reached mid-tier Adjuchas through sheer accumulated time, but our actual fighting strength is nothing impressive. We couldn't even beat Atak. Are you confident you can beat Yinfeng? Beat that Wayne with his spatial-type ability? And there's also that one called Nel, she's no simple matter either."

"That... that is a fair point." Oglant scratched his head. "So how do we even make contact with them?"

"Let's wait a little longer. We haven't been hit much lately, which might mean Yinfeng's side is in the middle of something big." Babons thought it over and made his call. "First, consolidate our resources. A surface-level surrender won't cut it, we'll need to hand over at least our Gillian-class resources to be taken seriously. And we need to hold an internal meeting. The people below us don't know about this yet. We have to make it absolutely clear to them, because if even one of them decides to act up during the surrender, we could all be wiped out on the spot."

"Right. Right, let's do that." The two lords reached agreement immediately and began preparing their surrender, while Wayne at that very moment was still turning over how to keep Gatmont's messenger in the dark, and how to tear through the Northern Alliance once the time came.

One could only wonder what expression would cross Wayne's face when he arrived at the Northern Alliance at the head of his full forces, ready for the final push, only to find two lord-level Adjuchas walking out to meet him with their hands raised.

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