Chapter 54: Metamorphosis |
The Soul King Palace.
In the middle of a spacious hall deep within the Greater Soul King Palace, a large mass of bright radiance hovered. Inside the glow, Yeruashi's silhouette was barely visible.
Gradually, his form began to dissipate, blending into the surrounding white light.
Zero was simply too powerful.
Even after expending a significant portion of his power to create Hueco Mundo and the Soul Society, he still far surpassed Yeruashi in terms of raw energy and absorption capacity.
It was like the interaction between water and salt.
A glass of water can easily dissolve a pinch of salt. It becomes much harder with dozens of pinches, and if there are hundreds, the water no longer dissolves the salt; instead, the salt absorbs the water.
A man might be able to satisfy one woman perfectly, but he is utterly powerless against a million, even if he worked himself to the point of total exhaustion and death.
'...'
He had anticipated such a situation. That was why he hadn't gone straight to the Soul King Palace immediately after returning to the Soul Society a million years later.
Without first familiarizing himself with and adapting to the reishi, the result wouldn't be the Hollow King absorbing the power of the Soul King. Instead, the Soul King would absorb the Hollow King's power.
Fwuh!
As Yeruashi's body continued to break down into countless spirit particles under the influence of the Soul King's power, the situation suddenly stabilized. The process jerked into reverse.
He had activated his Reverse Time Flow ability.
Yeruashi's silhouette reappeared within the white radiance, only to begin gradually dissolving once more.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, striving to absorb and merge as many particles of the white light as possible into his cells, which were tightly enveloped by the energy.
While it couldn't be said that every cell in Yeruashi's body was equivalent to an entire world, they all possessed unimaginable vitality.
Each cell had the potential to become an independent living organism if separated from his body.
The same held true for the Soul King's power.
Each of the countless spirit particles forming that white radiance contained spiritual power that was not only incredibly dense but also exceptionally pure.
Thus, every particle of the Soul King's reishi could become an independent lifeform if detached from his body.
The reason Yhwach had managed to absorb the Soul King's power so easily was simple—their powers were practically identical, originating from the same source.
It was as if Yeruashi were lying unconscious while Lilith tried to absorb his power without any resistance. In such a scenario, Lilith could likely succeed without much effort since their power shared a common origin.
But for Yeruashi, the situation was entirely different.
The Soul King and the Hollow King possessed two completely different types of power.
If Yeruashi's power was rooted in the aspects of flesh and evolution, then Zero's power was the opposite, belonging to the aspects of the soul and constancy.
The nature of their powers was not just different; they stood on opposite ends of the spectrum, like Yin and Yang.
So, Yeruashi would have had a very hard time with the absorption, even with the Eyes of God acting as a catalyst. This was exactly why he had chosen to join the Gotei 13 and become a shinigami—to adapt to the spirit particles and develop the necessary reiatsu control.
Their powers were like two puzzle pieces that needed to be filed down before they could fit together.
If the tabs and slots of the pieces weren't properly matched, any attempt to connect them would end in failure.
Therefore, Yeruashi had to become perfectly acquainted and synchronized with the Soul King's power so that his body could not only absorb it calmly but also stabilize that immense energy.
Hummm!
The next attempt, made after another use of Reverse Time Flow, was much more successful. Yeruashi managed to maintain his human form instead of immediately decomposing into countless particles.
As the Soul King's power steadily flowed in and merged with the cells of the Hollow King's body, the white radiance gradually faded until it vanished completely, leaving only Yeruashi's figure behind.
Yeruashi, floating serenely in the air in the middle of the spacious hall, opened his eyes slightly.
Poof!
But the moment he opened his eyes, his body began to swell, bloating like an overinflated balloon.
His body grew larger and larger until it looked like it might burst at any moment, and a terrifying pressure gripped the surrounding space.
But Yeruashi remained as calm as ever, despite the frightening changes occurring to his body.
Soon his eyes drifted downward, unperturbed as he inspected his massive, spherical form, which seemed ready to erupt in a devastating explosion of unimaginable power.
'Reverse Time Flow.'
He whispered the command calmly.
Following those words, Yeruashi's massive, spherical body began to shrink rapidly until it returned to its original shape. Then, a stream of white radiance—the power of the Soul King—poured out of him.
He was well aware that he couldn't expect immediate success in this matter, but thanks to his ability to reverse time, he didn't need to worry about the consequences of failure.
He was bound to succeed eventually as long as there was even a slight chance of success.
It didn't work this time?
Then try a few more!
After all, this puzzle was made of energy rather than solid matter, so the pieces had no fixed form. He simply needed to keep trying to shape the energy until a perfect, seamless connection was achieved.
Hummm!
White radiance once again swallowed Yeruashi's figure.
The entire process of the Hollow King absorbing the Soul King's power was clearly reflected in the outside world.
It directly affected not only the Soul King Palace and the Soul Society but also Hueco Mundo.
After a certain period of tremors, the worlds would suddenly grow still, only to start shaking again a moment later.
This process repeated with every new attempt Yeruashi made to absorb the Soul King's power.
...
The Soul Society.
The Captains of the Gotei 13, gathered in the captain's council hall, breathed a sigh of relief when the first tremor abruptly ended. However, they grew even more tense than before when, a short time later, a second tremor began to rock the entire Soul Society and the Seireitei in particular.
When this cycle had repeated several times, almost all the captains became much calmer. Mayuri even whispered irritably, "What on earth are they doing up there? I don't understand it at all..."
"It seems several rounds of an incredibly intense battle have broken out in the Soul King Palace."
Aizen carefully adjusted his glasses with the tip of his index finger and whispered thoughtfully, glancing at Genryusai Yamamoto out of the corner of his eye. "Are we really going to continue sitting idly by even in this situation?"
The Captain-Commander shook his head impassively. "We have neither the right nor the ability to enter the Soul King Palace without a specific order, regardless of the circumstances. Furthermore..."
Genryusai Yamamoto fell silent for a few seconds before slowly scanning the room, meeting the eyes of every active captain. "The Soul King Palace is guarded by the Zero Division, whose combat power exceeds the combined strength of the entire Gotei 13!"
Aizen initially looked very surprised, then nodded in understanding. "So we should not be worried about the situation in the Soul King Palace under the protection of the Zero Division, but rather about other potentially dangerous situations that could be triggered at any moment by this incident."
"..."
Genryusai Yamamoto closed his eyes, choosing not to comment on Aizen's words.
As they spoke, the tremors in the Soul Society ceased, but after about half a minute, they resumed with even greater intensity.
"Here we go again..."
Mayuri rolled his eyes wearily.
...
The Soul King Palace.
By this point, Yeruashi had made more than five attempts to absorb the Soul King's power.
This time, thanks to the experience gained from all the previous attempts, the absorption went quite quickly and smoothly.
Then, under the minute control of the Eyes of God, the Soul King's power began to merge with Yeruashi's body.
But just as in the previous attempts, problems arose at this stage because, even in this state, Zero still possessed a slightly larger volume of power than Yeruashi did currently.
It was this small difference in power volume that prevented the perfect fusion of Zero's power with Yeruashi's own.
It was as if he simply couldn't find the right place for the final piece of a complex model.
'It will take time...'
Yeruashi whispered softly, analyzing the process of the Soul King's power merging with his body.
It wasn't that this portion of the Soul King's power couldn't be integrated into his organism; it would just be a gradual process that would take a significant amount of time.
But the problem was that it wouldn't bring Yeruashi any particular benefit. The rest of the Soul King's power was more than enough for his own power to undergo a metamorphosis.
Yeruashi thought for a moment, then exhaled and raised his hand. After a while, a mass of white radiance appeared on his palm.
The white glow swirled smoothly around Yeruashi's hand several times before flying forward and crashing into the floor of the spacious hall, shattering it to pieces.
After being separated from Yeruashi, the small fragment of the Soul King's power hovered gently in the air above the small crater.
Yeruashi watched its behavior for a moment longer before returning to the analysis of his own condition.
Hummm!
The powers of the Hollow King and the Soul King completed their fusion after the obstructive excess energy was removed.
Instead of settling down after the successful merger, the two star-level energies began to undergo even more significant changes.
The fusion of two stars cannot be described as a simple addition of energies. The processes and development of a star depend directly on its mass and energy.
Stars with sufficient mass and energy have the potential to turn into a much more terrifying and formidable celestial body...
A black hole!
No matter how large a star is, it is far less impressive and dangerous than any black hole!
Yeruashi, possessing two energies that were both completely opposite and perfectly complementary, began to undergo a metamorphosis.
The same volume of energy can have a completely different effect depending on its degree of concentration.
Consider, for example, Genryusai Yamamoto's Zanka no Tachi, which possesses the temperature of the sun's core.
Genryusai Yamamoto clearly does not possess the energy volume of a star, but he is capable of generating astonishing star-level power by pushing the concentration of his reiatsu to an absolute extreme!
The universe—no, even a single galaxy—is made of countless myriads of stars. So... how vast is the gap between star-level power and the ability to influence an entire galaxy, or even just the nearest star cluster?!
In the Milky Way alone, there are hundreds of billions of stars!
Yeruashi possessed immense power within the context of a single world, but in the context of a galaxy, he was merely one of several hundred billion clusters of energy. There was an unimaginable gap between his current power and galaxy-level strength.
Trying to cross that line through brute energy accumulation simply made no sense; even absorbing hundreds or thousands of stars wouldn't help him.
Therefore, a qualitative change was necessary.
The perfect complement of Yeruashi's power, representing flesh and evolution, with the Soul King's power, representing the soul and constancy, led to exactly such a metamorphosis!