Bleach: Stirring Up a Storm

Because he had taken Roca away, Szayelaporro now had a method to track Kōe down. However, Kōe remained completely oblivious to this, unaware of the impending disaster looming over his head.

But upon returning to the Forest of Menos, Kōe felt quite troubled as he looked at the sight before him.

This operation had not only secured one of his original targets, Roca, but he had also conveniently picked up Resen along the way. Furthermore, after assisting Kōe in luring Baraggan away, Resen had successfully escaped. At the very least, this spared Kōe the worry that bringing him along would draw unwanted fire. For an incredibly ordinary Adjuchas, achieving this was something to be proud of.

Logically speaking, it should have been impossible for Resen to escape, especially with Baraggan personally hunting him down. Unable to perfectly conceal his Reiatsu, the absolute best-case scenario for Resen should have been ending up as a prisoner.

Because of this, Kōe had initially planted a Kidō inside his body. The moment Baraggan found him, Kōe would activate the spell to conveniently blow Baraggan up again, ensuring the Emperor of Hueco Mundo would completely forget about the presence of another Reiatsu inside Szayelaporro’s laboratory.

Resen never knew just how close he had come to being mere cannon fodder. If he had known, he certainly wouldn’t be as grateful to Kōe as he was now.

Yes, unlike his initial forced compliance when his life was threatened, Resen now submitted to Kōe from the bottom of his heart. In his eyes, being able to escape from Baraggan—and even making a fool out of the Emperor of Hueco Mundo—was entirely due to Kōe’s inspiring guidance.

His stagnation ability, which he had originally considered unremarkable and practically useless, had achieved things far beyond his imagination when utilized by Kōe. This prompted Resen to reevaluate himself. *’Perhaps the Lord is teaching me that even a weak ability has the potential to shine brilliantly.’*

However, Kōe’s hypothesis regarding the stagnation ability was slightly incorrect. When activating this power, Resen did not primarily rely on Reiryoku, but rather on his consciousness.

Because of this, after stagnating the final Boundary-Breaking Talisman, Resen had also stagnated several Ceros that were on the verge of being fired along his path. Once Baraggan followed the last traces of Kōe’s Reiatsu, Resen canceled the stagnation, unleashing those Ceros toward Baraggan from two completely different directions.

Naturally, these Ceros could not harm Baraggan; they couldn’t even get close to him. But their true purpose was simply to distract Baraggan and prevent him from pursuing the correct direction.

The ultimate goal was achieved, and Resen was safe. This sensation of apparent evolution made his blood boil with excitement. And when Kōe finally appeared, Resen was absolutely thrilled. *’This Lord really was teaching me!’*

Upon hearing this, Kōe was amazed at how greatness always occurred in such unpredictable ways. At the same time, he began forming new plans for Resen in his mind—both for the stagnation ability and for the Adjuchas himself.

*’An ability triggered by willpower rather than Reiryoku... Then why is its effectiveness restricted by the strength of Reiatsu? Or perhaps, what actually influences it isn’t Reiatsu at all?’*

Watching Resen discipline Seth in the distance, Kōe was itching to immediately begin analyzing and researching the stagnation ability. But now was not the time; there were more pressing matters at hand.

This was exactly what had been troubling Kōe recently. The ability of his primary target, Roca, was already incredibly enticing. Now, with the addition of this stagnation ability, this happy dilemma was truly scratching at his heart.

In truth, Roca had been awake for a while, but she had only recently recovered enough to move freely. It couldn’t be helped; Kōe did not know Kaidō, so he could only let her slowly recover on her own.

Fortunately, upon waking up, Roca was incredibly obedient toward Kōe. Without him even needing to make a single threat, she profusely thanked him and pledged her loyalty. She answered whatever he asked, saving Kōe a massive amount of effort.

It was also through Roca that Kōe learned more about the upper echelons of Hueco Mundo. However, regarding the future Espada, there wasn’t much information aside from Baraggan and Szayelaporro. Still, some of the ’strange’ rumors were quite interesting. For instance, the legend of a moving desert of dry bones immediately reminded Kōe of a certain someone.

The rest of the information mostly pertained to Roca’s own abilities. After all, this was what Kōe most urgently needed to know. Whether or not he could use it to control the likes of Szayelaporro entirely depended on her.

Back when Azashiro Sōya had invited Kōe, he mentioned that Roca’s ability was ’Cognitive Assimilation.’ However, this was merely a conclusion Azashiro Sōya had drawn from his own personal experience; it was not Roca’s true power.

The true name of Roca’s ability was ’Soul-Snatching Web,’ which was a completely different concept from the Cognitive Assimilation that Azashiro Sōya had described.

Simply put, Cognitive Assimilation meant forcing different individuals to think identically about the same matter, leading them to make the exact same choices and responses. Azashiro Sōya’s plan required exactly this—to make all of humanity as if they were cast from the same mold, thereby discarding all diverse emotions.

Roca’s Soul-Snatching Web, however, was far more complex. First, she could release a special toxin that weakened the enemy’s willpower to a certain extent and caused their thoughts to become sluggish. This was the ’Soul-Snatching’ aspect.

The ’Web’ aspect allowed Roca to weave threads that transmitted her own consciousness. Wherever the threads reached, it was equivalent to Roca being there in person. If the connected target possessed its own individual consciousness, Roca could use the threads to link with their mind, invading and altering their consciousness to weave the enemy into whatever shape she desired.

It could be said that snatching the soul was for the sake of weaving the web. However, the soul web that Roca wove would also firmly trap the enemy within it, leaving them with no means of escape—essentially snatching away the opponent’s soul.

In other words, Roca could entirely rely on her own preferences to mold people with all sorts of different personalities, rather than simply turning them into copies of herself. Although she could do that as well, the underlying meaning was completely different from Cognitive Assimilation.

According to Roca’s own description, when she initially invaded Soul Society, her ability was still in its early stages. At that time, she could only use herself as the template for weaving her web.

Furthermore, weaving the web required a process. Roca still remembered that when she attacked the weaker Shinigami, she was stopped by a tall, imposing Shinigami before she could even finish weaving. At that time, her consciousness was scattered across the bodies of several Shinigami, which resulted in all of them speaking a few angry words in unison.

It was likely because of this exact scene that Azashiro Sōya had formed his hypothesis about Cognitive Assimilation. One could only call it a beautiful misunderstanding.

However, Roca’s ability had three flaws. The first was that if her main body died, the webs she had already woven would dissipate along with her.

The second was that, although Roca’s web-weaving was nearly irreversible once it entered the conscious level, the threads transmitting her consciousness were composed of Reiryoku.

This meant that as long as an entity possessed a sufficiently firm will and sharp combat intuition, they could promptly halt the process upon sensing that something was wrong.

Just like during her invasion of Soul Society, Kuruyashiki Kenpachi hadn’t given Roca a single opportunity. Without sufficient strength to back it up, such an ability could, at best, only serve as icing on the cake.

Yet, neither of these two points were decisive factors that could affect Kōe’s plans. What truly gave Kōe a headache was the third flaw of the Soul-Snatching Web—a flaw that wasn’t exactly a flaw.

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