Bleach: Reborn — Chapter 309 - The Use of the Soul Law

Chapter 309, How to Use the Soul Law

Hmmm...

The earth trembled. Wayne's personal space, Tsukishiro, had undergone a massive transformation the moment he became a King Hollow. The sky deepened. The land stretched wider. His spatial abilities had grown in kind, and if the Spatial Law power the Dominator of Hueco Mundo once granted him had been seventy, Wayne now commanded over ninety percent of it. The remaining fraction still sat in the Dominator's hands, with scattered scraps distributed across nameless Hollow beasts. But that hardly mattered anymore. Wayne had officially become a King Hollow, a King Hollow wielding two Laws, Spatial and Illusion both. Every scrap of Law power beyond what the Dominator held, he could reclaim on contact. He was now the absolute master of both.

With the Spatial Law and the Illusion Law elevated together, Tsukishiro had grown to a scale that was genuinely difficult to measure. At minimum, it was no smaller than the entire landmass of the World of the Living where Ichigo lived. And because of his dual-Law mastery, Wayne could now conjure a sun, moon, and stars directly in the sky. The dome Szayelaporro had spent so long designing became obsolete in that same instant, because the Illusion Law didn't just project false images. It created real ones. The sun and moon overhead weren't actual celestial bodies, just luminous masses, but they were real enough to drive photosynthesis in plants.

A more comfortable, more livable space was taking shape through the combined efforts of Wayne, Szayelaporro, the Hōgyoku, and the countless Hollow beasts who called this place home. This was going to be the safest territory his forces had ever held.

"Hah..." Wayne exhaled slowly, settling back into his own power. The new realm had lifted him to heights he hadn't touched before. If Aizen came at him now, or Old Man Yamamoto, a real fight wouldn't be all that taxing anymore.

Aizen had said it well once: in a Soul Reaper's battle, what matters in the end is the difference in Reiatsu. When that gap is wide enough, even the most elaborate techniques become meaningless. A single wave of the hand, and the Reiatsu alone is enough to bury the opponent.

Wayne understood those words now in a way he hadn't before.

He slowly reined in his Reiatsu and raised a hand, lifting every kneeling Hollow beast back to its feet. The gesture said everything: he had accepted their loyalty.

"King." Jekain and Timd stepped forward together. "Congratulations. You've finally made it."

"From the weakest thing in Hueco Mundo, a low-level Hollow, all the way to the top." Wayne closed his fist, then walked forward and laid a hand on Jekain's shoulder. "Thank you. All of you. For making the whole journey with me."

"To witness the King's rise is our honor." Jekain lowered his head in a bow.

If anyone had been at Wayne's side the longest, that was Nel. But if anyone had actually watched him climb from a low-level Hollow all the way to King Hollow, step by step, that was Jekain, without question.

From lone predator relying on ambushes and devoured prey to grow, to the commander of over ten thousand comrades-in-arms. Only Jekain had been there for all of it. The companions who had walked with Wayne in those early days were almost entirely gone, scattered to unknown corners of Hueco Mundo, alive or dead, with no way of knowing. Jekain was the only one he'd ever found.

"The honor belongs to everyone who helped build it," Wayne said, smiling. "Without all of you, I'd probably still be that low-level Hollow who couldn't even compress his Reiatsu." He rolled his shoulders. "Let's move. Becoming a King Hollow means conquering the rest of Hueco Mundo gets a lot easier from here."

"Yes, King."

"One thing — where's China?" Wayne scanned the area. Yagami China wasn't anywhere nearby. She must have finished absorbing faster than he had and already slipped off somewhere.

"Right here, right here." Her voice drifted into his mind.

"Hm?" The voice was in his head, but there was no one in sight. Wayne expanded his perception until he caught her Reiatsu, deep inside the castle.

"Did she advance to Vasto Lorde? Mid-tier?" His eyes sharpened with interest. The power boost China had received from absorbing what Isfilit left her was no small jump. That Reiatsu was firmly in the first tier.

A flick of his wrist, and Yagami China appeared in front of him. With his mastery of Tsukishiro's spatial coordinates, Wayne could now move any object, or any person, freely within the space, so long as they didn't resist too hard. There were limits: the number of people, their Reiatsu level, physical weight, and a handful of other factors all imposed constraints. But for simply relocating someone inside Tsukishiro, as long as they weren't actively fighting it, he could put them anywhere he liked.

"Wha—?" China blinked. She'd been in her room a second ago.

"I advanced. And you didn't come out to see me?" Wayne reached over and flicked the tip of her nose.

"I just got my Soul Law ability, okay? I was still adapting to it." She scrunched her nose in a pout. "But I already figured out a new skill! I can use the Soul Law to deploy a massive sensing net. Any living creature that enters it, I'll know about. It's seriously incredible!"

"Is that so." Wayne laughed softly. She was showing off like a kid who'd just learned a new trick, and he couldn't help but smile despite himself.

"Hehe — China-chan can already spread her soul sensing net across the entire space of Tsukishiro!" Nel came trotting over with a grin. "But she barely finished setting it up when Tsukishiro got even bigger. Back to work."

Nel was one of the few Arrancar China could actually talk to in a place filled entirely with Hollow beasts. She got along well with Lilynette too, but Lilynette was Starrk's split-off, and Starrk spent most of his time out hunting, so chances to meet were rare. Over time, China and Nel had become Tsukishiro's inseparable sister duo, always finding something to get into together whenever they had a free moment.

"So basically a Soul Heavenly Eye," Wayne muttered. "Though Tsukishiro is already secure. We have dedicated patrol squads. There's no real need to burn energy on it."

"That's not the point!" China crossed her arms. "It's not just sensing — I can link every person I detect! Right now I can maintain simultaneous links with at least five hundred."

Wayne paused. The Heavenly Eye came with a comms system built in? "So the voice that reached me just now, that was this ability?"

"Yep!"

"That's more than a little broken. On a large-scale battlefield, you could single-handedly manage communications for the entire field." The implications clicked into place fast. This was going to matter enormously in the fights ahead, and it was considerably more practical than Tenteikūra.

"Anything else? What other strange things have you been working out?" Wayne asked. He'd heard from the Dominator of Hueco Mundo that the Soul Law was exceptionally versatile, but how versatile depended entirely on how its wielder developed it.

"Hehe, there's also this." China extended her left hand, palm up. A soft, luminous white light bloomed there, then drifted toward Wayne like a floating ember.

"What's this?" He reached out and touched it. The sensation that came back was unmistakably that of a soul.

"A soul link contract." China's eyes curved into a smile. "Accept it, and you become my contractual partner."

"Spend less time reading manga with Timd," Wayne said, frowning slightly, then accepted it anyway, letting the white light dissolve into his soul. "What does it do?"

"Soul symbiosis." She held up one finger. "That's a fragment of my soul. If I die, that fragment becomes my anchor soul and lives inside your body. With enough time and nourishment, I'll be able to come back, though it'll need the Illusion Law to rebuild me a body."

"No wonder the Soul Law and the Illusion Law resonate with each other." Wayne nodded slowly. Something tugged at the back of his mind. When Hermes and Isfilit had their falling-out all those years ago, could a contract between them have been at the root of it? Had Hermes simply walked away?

He didn't linger on the thought. He looked at the second finger China was holding up and waited.

"Second is mental sharing. Everything I can perceive through my sensing net can be transmitted directly into your consciousness through the soul fragment inside you, including vision. And it works the other way too; your perceptions can feed back to me." She paused, then added with a perfectly straight face: "Don't worry. When you and Nel are doing embarrassing things, I won't peek."

"..." Wayne stared at her. "So if you link every ally on a battlefield, I'd be able to oversee the entire field and direct troop movements?"

"Position detection and Reiatsu burst point monitoring, yes. Sharing full vision across everyone, I can't do that yet. The Soul Law works similarly to the Spatial Law: it requires setting up coordinates and using spiritual power to cover the terrain. For actual visual links, I'm limited to about fifteen or sixteen people right now. Once I advance to high-tier and my Law power grows, a full panoramic view might be within reach."

"Being able to track every Reiatsu signature across an entire battlefield is already extraordinary. That kind of strategic oversight could cut our casualties by roughly half in any large engagement." Wayne gave her a genuine nod of approval.

"The fourth ability is soul manipulation. It's different from soul symbiosis, here, I directly inject Law power into another living being to take control of them by force. Not just their mind; their soul itself. I tested it on an Adjuchas-level target. I seized all of its Reiatsu, but in exchange I picked up some of its emotions in that moment. The gap in our ranks meant I was able to erase those emotions quickly. But it's worth being aware of."

"Strong ability. Double-edged sword." Wayne kept his tone measured. "Isfilit almost certainly used something like this, possessing a portion of an ancient Hollow beast's power, then getting dragged along by its savage emotions. That's likely what turned her into what she was when she faced me. Don't use this one unless there's no other option."

"Understood." China nodded, then raised a fourth finger. "Last one. I call it Soul Possession."

"What kind of possession?"

"Hehe, experience it and see." Her Reiatsu surged, sharp and sudden. Then a luminous white soul-form tore free from her body and landed on Wayne.

The change hit immediately. His Reiatsu surged toward a boiling point, power climbing on its own without any deliberate push from him. At the same time, his perception exploded outward. Every blade of grass, every pebble within a thousand meters, he could feel with perfect clarity. The forms of Hollow beasts out to ten thousand meters resolved into vague but readable impressions. And across all of Tsukishiro, the distinct Reiatsu signatures of every single Hollow beast registered in his awareness at once. In that instant, Wayne's perception reached a level of clarity he had never touched before.

"This is... layering the Soul Law directly onto me?" He turned the sensation over carefully, feeling the edges of it. He could actually interface with the Soul Law. Use it.

"Exactly. Soul Possession is temporarily lending you the power of the Soul Law. You get sharper environmental perception and direct access to the Law's functions. My Reiatsu comes along for the ride too, though with you at King Hollow rank, that part won't move the needle much. The perception boost, though, that still helps."

"So you're the old grandfather living in the ring." Wayne tapped his left palm lightly with his right fist.

"What old grandfather?" China stared at him, visibly lost.

"Nothing. Reference from another anime." He shrugged it off. "Does this ability have any drawback for you?"

"Short-term use is fine. And the stronger the person being possessed, the smaller the side effects are for both of us. If I tried to possess a Gillian, my Reiatsu would probably just blow it apart from the inside. Though to be clear, the power is only borrowed, it doesn't accelerate advancement. I already tested that."

"Right. So while I was advancing, you were all running Soul Law experiments." Wayne took that in.

"Well, obviously — Tsuki-chan, you were asleep for over half a year!"

"What?" Wayne's eyes went wide. Over half a year? He turned to Timd. "Exact time?"

"Eight months and 7 days, calculated in human time," Timd said precisely.

"Holy, " Wayne took a short breath. That long. His advancement had cut right through a critical stretch of the timeline. "Have any unusual groups appeared in Hueco Mundo while I was out?"

"Yes." Jekain's voice was steady. "Because you hadn't emerged from your advancement, I didn't interrupt. I was about to report it now."

"Go."

"A group of humans appeared in Hueco Mundo, white clothing, cloaked. They've been hunting Hollow beasts. Last month, Lord Baraggan engaged several of them directly. They were formidable. Mr. Starrk intervened to reinforce him, and the humans withdrew. Lord Baraggan and the others returned to Tsukishiro after that and have remained here since."

"So it's begun." Wayne's eyes narrowed, a quiet but unmistakable edge in them.

"King." Jekain's voice dropped slightly. "There is one more thing."

He hesitated.

"Speak."

"Harribel... is gone."

➤ Next: Invisible Preparations for War